AMC Loews Fresh Meadows 7
190-02 Horace Harding Boulevard,
Fresh Meadows,
NY
11365
190-02 Horace Harding Boulevard,
Fresh Meadows,
NY
11365
12 people
favorited this theater
Showing 126 - 150 of 171 comments found
I live on bell blvd. and horace harding expressway..at least that is what the street sign says where i stand to catch the bus everyday…
Horace Harding Boulevard is now a “service road” and is on the south side of the Long Island Expressway, running parallel to it. During construction of what eventually became known as the Long Island Expressway, the new roadway was known as Horace Harding Expressway as far as the Queens border with Nassau County to differentiate from Horace Harding Boulevard. I don’t think that the name “Horace Harding Expressway” is used anymore. Before the construction of the LIE, Horace Harding Boulevard started at Queens Boulevard and continued east until the city line. Some of the original Horace Harding Boulevard still exists, but most of it was demolished in construction of the LIE and connections to other fastways.
Horace Harding Expressway does not denote north or south..it never did..so that would be wrong also..however, the above poster is right..queens is never used in the address..it is always the city or town of the area of queens..like bayside, or rego park or corona etc etc…
If you want to find fault with the address, it should be 190-02 Horace Harding Expressway South.
The introductory remarks say it’s in Queens. What more is needed? “Queens” is not usually used in addresses for that borough of New York City. It would just be “Fresh Meadows, NY,” “Flushing, NY,” “Forest Hills, NY,” or whatever. The same goes for addresses on Long Island beyond Queens in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, such as “Great Neck, NY” or “Cold Spring Harbor, NY.”
This theatre should be listed as located in Queens.
Thanks Lost… I’ll steal those for my album too! That 2nd photo looks like the mezzanine foyer. The photos of the stairwell from both the main foyer and the mezzanine looking down are precisely how I remember the Meadows when it was a twin. The only difference was there was a candy counter under the mezzanine railing (below where those diamond shaped signs are hung). On either side of the counter was the entrance to each auditorium (as the theater had been split evenly down the middle). Up the stairs, you also had two entrances on either side of the mezzanine to the balcony of either auditorium.
Today, the place has been gutted. Only the ticket lobby is more or less the same as it was. The old staircase is gone entirely and is now where theater #1 is located. Where the candy counter was, there are now 7 or 8 steps leading down to a sunken lobby with a large candy counter against the left wall, theaters 2 and 3 off the right and at the rear the big theater 4 (occupying what was the front third or so of the original orchestra seating). The new staircase/escalator leading up to theater’s 5, 6 and 7 (with their own decent sized foyer and candy counter) begins to the left of where the photographer of that 1st 1961 photo was standing.
hey thanks for the pics…brings back tons of memories…check out that ‘60s furniture..though it might be original 1949 furniture?!?!
by todays standards its very dated but back then it was the cat’s tit’s!!!
Thats why I dislike linking to photos, you never know how long the link will last. The site that hosted those photos was called “Applied Semantics”. They were acquired by Google. Either the photos were taken off the site or they were moved making the links unusable.
I’m not sure if these are the same photos or not, but there are interior photos dated 1961 here and the second is here and one more is here.
All of the photos mentioned by Lost Memory on 3/6/06 seem to have been removed.
My new Meadows Theater album includes the photos I had posted here in October plus a couple of recent night shots as well as some vintage views I purloined from Warren’s post above. The old links to my shots no longer work.
ahhh..the century meadows..spent my youth there..great memories…75 cent matinee..the horn and hardett and the Q17 bus..however, my best memory is graduating. IS 74 and Cardoza high school both had there ceremonies there..also watching every bond film from goldfinger on up to the last roger moore film..hanging out on the balcony throwing bottle rockets also was a treat..large velvet chairs and a hugh screen..those were the days…
If you were a child in Queens in the early 70’s, The Meadows
was an incredible first major motion-pic experience.
My folks tagged me along to catch Woody Allen’s “Sleeper”,
on a Saturday matinee. Barren house…we sat in row 6.
I loved it…couldn’t bear to leave. The lunch at the
Whelan Drug counter across the street was also a fading
classic. Now it’s a Radio Shack. Good grief..!
There are three old interior photos of the Meadows theater here and another is here and the third is here.
such few posts on one of queens busy theaters
I have some current exterior shots (night and day) posted below. There isn’t much of interest inside the theater to capture on film – at least from a historical perspective. As has been written above, the building was gutted right to the outer brick walls for the multiplexing back in the late 80’s. Only the outer lobby (basically a plain glass enclosed space) remains more or less as it was prior to the gutting. You purchase your tickets at either of two exterior booths located at the front entrance under the marquee. You then proceed into the outer lobby and a ticket taker is stationed at far left of the 2nd set of doors leading into the theater. Once beyond those doors you are in the space where the inner lobby was – which featured a large candy counter at the rear wall and a big L-shaped stair case on the right that ascended to the mezzanine.
Today, you’ll find some coin-operated snack machines, a video game or two and, on the right, at least one small auditorium (I believe this is theater #1). On the left side of this street level lobby, there is a long escalator leading to an upper lobby and 2 or 3 auditoriums on that level (there is a candy counter up there as well – though it never seems to be open). Dead center is a short set of stairs that brings you down to the lower lobby and the remaining 3 auditoriums (#’s 2, 3 and 4, I believe).
The big candy counter is located in the lower lobby on the left and entrances to two mid-sized theaters are on the right. At the rear on this level is the big auditorium (#4) which occupies the space where the front of the original orchestra was located. I try to make sure the movie I want to see (and the particular showing I want to attend) is in this auditorium whenever I go to the Meadows. It has a nice sized screen and high ceiling giving the room a comfortable sense of space. At all costs, I avoid that small street level room, which is cramped with a postage stamp screen, low ceiling and a center aisle arrangement of seats, as I recall.
A problem with the theaters on the upper level is that the ONLY bathrooms in the place are located under the staircase on the lower level, meaning you have to come all the way down the long flight to street level and then down the other flight to the lower lobby and then a few steps down farther still and all the way back again for a mid-movie break. You miss a lot of action in that time!
Anyway… the exterior is largely unaltered from prior to renovations. Even the old balcony fire escapes are still there and in use – they are contained within the cream-colored protrusion at the left end of the building shown in the 2nd photo below. The signage was a bit different in the old days… the “Fresh Meadows” logos above the marquee and on the rear of the building were not there. There used to be big letters (where they green?) on the side of the building facing the Long Island Expressway that read “MEADOWS”:
View link
View link
View link
The color photo in the introduction shows it as a multiplex. To get photographs of the interior auditoriums, you would probably have to go there and snap them yourself (if the staff will permit). And if you do, please post them here.
Just saw the pictures of the old Meadows when it was a single-screen theatre. We would like to see some pictures of the Fresh Meadows' theatres as a multiplex now.
I never knew it was built on a golf course.
The Fresh Meadows stores ran the gamut from Woolworth to Horn & Hardart to Bloomingdales. The bowling alley was the first I remember that had semi-automatic pin setters.
I never knew it was built on a golf course.
The Fresh Meadows stores ran the gamut from Woolworth to Horn & Hardart to Bloomingdales. The bowling alley was the first I remember that had semi-automatic pin setters.
I remember when the Fresh Meadows complex was built on a golf course by NY Life in about 1947. The theater was built later. Fresh Meadows is no longer owned by NY Life.
Here are several 1949 images. The marquee used 10" and 17" silhouette letters in red and blue plastic. The piano in front of the stage might have been rented for the opening night gala. I doubt that it was a permanent fixture. During its first years, the Meadows did split weeks of double-feature programs created for the RKO and Loew’s circuits. The RKO programs usually got the best playing time because they were first-run (though not exclusive) for Queens. The Loew’s programs were third-run (two weeks after the Valencia and then a week after the Triboro):
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3702_IMG.jpg
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3709_IMG.jpg
www.18.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/137-3705_IMG.jpg
I can’t speak as to whether New York Life still owns the Meadows, but can say that New York Life does still exist.
The Meadows was actually owned and built by the New York Life Insurance Company, which then assigned the operation to Century Theatres under a longterm lease. I believe that New York Life was also owner-builder of the entire Fresh Meadows housing and shopping complex. I don’t know if that ownership still applies today, or that New York Life is even still in existence.
In the introduction, “also known as” deserves to include Century’s Meadows. The Century circuit built the theatre and operated it for many years…The intro is also out-dated. The other multiplex in Fresh Meadows on the opposite side of the LIE closed quite some time ago. And in today’s newspapers, the theatre is advertised as the Cineplex Odeon Fresh Meadows Cinemas, with no mention of Loews.