Jackson Heights Airdrome
82nd Street and Roosevelt Avenue,
Jackson Heights,
NY
11372
82nd Street and Roosevelt Avenue,
Jackson Heights,
NY
11372
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Showing 1 - 25 of 38 comments found
Same problem with The Fair theatre at Astoria Blvd. and 90th St. The theatre itself claims it’s in Jackson Heights, but it’s actually East Elmhurst. And so it goes.
During the time period these theatres were built airdrome was the correct word to describe them. Airdrome is the european version of airdome. Similar to airplane versus aeroplane. Another example would be theater versus theatre. Since these early theatres were for the most part designed and constructed by european immigrants the term airdrome is correct.
I definitely think that commercial interests along the 82nd Street corridor (whether north or sout of Roosevelt) will always refer to themselves as being in Jackson Heights. Everything along that little wedge of blocks between Broadway and Baxter down to 41st Ave is probably fair game for that affiliation (whether technically correct or not). I don’t think I’d go all the way down to the Port Washington LIRR line as Warren suggests (which runs through Elmhurst and Corona below 43rd Ave), but I think the area where the Jackson Theater sits is fair game.
I love the comment by “Bway”. This is just getting TOO funny!
If I may DARE to add my two cents regarding the previous “Jackson Heights vs. Elmhurst” debate…
I was born and lived in Elmhurst until I was six years old.
I continue to visit Jackson Heights frequently as an adult (as I have for the last 13 years).
I know of a bar (“Music Boxâ€) located just off the SOUTHwest corner of Roosevelt Ave. and Broadway. It uses Jackson Heights as its location in all of its advertising. If you “search engine” it online, you will find websites listing it in both locations. If you search official NYS corporation records under its former name (“Montana Saloon”), it will be listed as Elmhurst. To save time: here is the link to that entry:
View link
Unless the official boundaries have changed, it could perhaps be argued that Broadway is the dividing line.
However, located just three blocks away (south-east direction) on the NORTH side of Broadway is Elmhurst General Hospital.
Also, a now-defunct nightclub that used to be located a few steps SOUTH of Roosevelt Ave. and four blocks NORTH of Broadway at 82-20 Baxter Ave. (“Llamarada†– now a laundromat) can be found by Internet search engine listed as either a Jackson Heights or Elmhurst location (incidentally, this address is located immediately east of 82nd St.).
Bottom line: many businesses south of Roosevelt Ave. (along or adjacent to) collectively use Jackson Heights because it is a popular, well-known shopping & business district. This is especially true of the bars, nightclubs and restaurants, which comprise the majority of businesses there. For many customers, Jackson Heights is considered a “destination†– Elmhurst is not.
The debate continues…
So is your memory. Perhaps you should change your signature to “Brain Dead.” “Lost Memory” has never made any sense to me. Why would anyone sign themselves thusly unless they were suffering from amnesia, Alzheimer’s, or whatever.
Here are two more examples of theaters using the name Airdrome.
“The Airdrome, Grand Prairie, Texas first movie theater, opened about 1920. Since it had no roof, it resembled a "drive-in” theater with seats. The Theater was in operation three nights a week with serial movies being shown on Thursday nights. The shows were advertised by the owner walking the streets blowing a horn to attract the attention of potential customers".
From a History in Lincoln, Illinois:
“With the arrival of moving pictures in Lincoln, about 1910, several theaters were built, including the X-Ray, Family Theater, Star, Empire, Nickelodeon, and Airdrome, which was built by Steve Bennis just east of the present Arcade Building”.
I’m going to end this debate or conversation because I made my point. That point being that you are fallible Warren, just like the rest of us. Your feet do not float above the ground. You are the same as everyone else on this site. You make mistakes like the rest of us but are unable to admit them. At first I found humor in these comments. After reading them again, I realized how sad they actually had become. You have ruined your own credibility and tarnished your reputation on this site just to get “even” with me for adding the name Queens to the addresses of Queens theaters. Its not only childish, its pathetic. This was not a contest and there were no winners. I don’t dislike you Warren, I dislike the superior attitude that you bring to this site. You need to work on that. I’m going to remove the email notification from this theater. If you choose to continue commenting here, you will be replying to yourself. As far as I’m concerned, this is a dead theater and so are the topics contained here.
Haha, this Jackson Heights Theater is a hostile theater!
Speaking of airplanes…..how about THESE theaters!!
/theaters/16682/
/theaters/8593/
Just to make sure that I’m clear on this subject. Your telling me that Airdome is the correct term for an open air theater and Airdrome is a synonym for “airport”. Thats what you posted above, correct?
Did you know that there was an Airdrome theater located in Lynbrook, Long Island in 1915? Yes, Airdrome with an “R”. This is a link to a Newsday article about this Airdrome theater. Before you tell me that the reporter spelled the name wrong, the article includes an ad for the theater. The name in the ad is “Lynbrook Airdrome”. Was this Airdrome a theater for airplanes? You must enjoy the taste of shoe leather since you continue to put your foot in your mouth every chance that you get. Theater God of the Universe, what a joke!
When I can find time to travel to the Long Island Collection at the Queens Public Library in Jamaica, I will have copies made of the clippings and post them here. And if you can’t wait that long, LoMem, you are welcome to do it yourself. You will find them in the folder for Jackson Heights theatres.
Common sense, Arrogant One? You probably stayed up all night looking up the meaning of airdrome. Were all open air theaters of this type called airdome? Then why were the Evergreen and Van Cortland theaters in Ridgewood called Airdrome? There is also a former theater listed on C.T. called the Airdrome Theater in Anderson, SC. I guess that those are all spelled wrong also. Only the all knowing Theater God knows the correct names for these theaters. How about you show us some of those “newspaper reports” that call this theater an airdome.
Airdome is correct, according to newspaper reports at the time.The name was spelled incorrectly in the book, and the website, using that book as its source, merely repeated that error. And use your common sense, LoMem. “Airdrome” is a synonym for “airport.” Look it up in any dictionary. Outdoor cinemas were often called airdomes because the skies above were the equivalent of a ceiling dome in conventional theatres.
Geez, your like a bad dream that never ends. I offered you a chance to end this gracefully, but I can see that your arrogance won’t allow that. Since I can’t read Dave’s mind, I will have to let him reply to your comment above. I would like to get back on topic for a minute. You made a comment that you believe the correct name for this theater should be Airdome and NOT Airdrome. The website that I linked to above has it spelled as Airdrome. That is source number one. In the book that Dave quoted from, it is also spelled Airdrome. That is source number two. What is your source for changing the name to Airdome? I believe that is a fair question to ask.
I believe it was only Dave’s supposition that it was on the north side of Roosevelt Avenue. It could very well have been on the south side, where land was cheaper. 82nd Street between Roosevelt and 37th Avenue was already well developed commercially by 1919. I doubt that a north corner would have even been available for a paltry airdome, which was equivalent to someone showing movies in their backyard with seating on wooden benches.
Thats cute Warren. Did you make that up yourself or did someone help you? I’m not getting into the Ridgewood debate since we have covered that many times before. You seem to have the ability to read but your reading comprehension is very low. As Dave-Bronx has already posted “it has to be either the NE or NW corner of Roosevelt and 82nd”. Where are you getting the idea that this theater was located on the south side of Roosevelt Ave? Show me where I wrote that. Everytime you make a mistake, you try to make it look like the other person is wrong. Your smoke and mirror tricks won’t work this time. There is a song by Kenny Rogers called The Gambler. This portion of the song applies to you:
You got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
You should take that advice before you make yourself look more foolish than you already have.
LoMem, can’t you get it through your thick skull that Ridgewood and Flushing do not (and never did) have the same zipcode? And until you come up with an exact address for the Jackson Heights Airdome, how do you know that it was actually in Jackson Heights? If it was on the south side of Roosevelt Avenue, wouldn’t that have been Elmhurst (according to your loony address system)?
Bway, Queens was the last of the 4 boros to develop (Staten Island was always considered “over there” by some, even today, and not part of NYC). Prior to the consolidation of 1898 New York City was only Manhattan and part of The Bronx. Brooklyn was a city unto itself, and Queens was considered Long Island and had its own little towns and villages, i.e. Long Island City, Newtown, Flushing, Jamaica. After the consolidation and despite the best efforts of the City of New York and the U.S.Postal Service everyone sticks to the old time names. When I lived in Jackson Heights around 1997 everyone in my neighborhood received a notice from the Post Office declaring that everyone with a 113XX zip code were to use Flushing NY as their address and no more Jackson Hts, Elmhurst, Rego Park, Forest Hills or whatever. Predictably, everyone threw those notices in the wastebasket and ignored them. Old habits die hard.
Here in the Beautiful Bronx is a similar situation, people who live near the Hudson River use Riverdale NY and not Bronx NY as their address.
Thats exactly right Bway. I used to use that zipcode on my return address just before I left Ridgewood. Even though we lived in Ridgewood we are probably wrong because Warren, the “Theater God of the Universe” is never wrong about anything. Or is he? Should I change that to Galaxy or is Universe okay?
I used to live in Ridgewood, and my mail often came addressed to “Flushing, NY 11385”. I hated that, but it was all the time. Of course, it also came to “Ridgewood, NY 11385” too, but it definitely wasn’t rare for “Flushing, NY”. That was especially true for junk mail.
Even the city’s public records are sometimes searched by “Town=Flushing, Section=Ridgewood” for Ridgewood addresses. That could be because all the mail is sorted through the Flushing post office (and as mentioned Jamaica, etc).
This brings up another strange anormalty that QUeens has. Unlike all the other boroughs, like Brooklyn, etc, in QUeens, you usually still do address by “Section” name as opposed to the county or boroguh name. I don’t know why this is.
For example, for Queens, you would do:
John Smith
123 Any Street
Ridgewood, NY 11385 (or Flushing, NY 11385)
instead of
John Smith
123 Any Street
Queens, NY 11385
However, you would never see:
John Smith
123 Any Street
Park Slope, NY 112XX
as opposed to:
John Smith
123 Any Street
Brooklyn, NY 112XX which is the customary way to do it
or you would never see:
John Smith
123 Any Street
Chelsea, NY 100XX
as opposed to the customary way of:
John Smith
123 Any Street
New York, NY 100XX
I don’t know why in Queens it’s still done by town or section as opposed to County/borough like it’s done in t he rest of the city. I personally like the Queens way better, but it’s strange that it’s done like that there, and no where else in the city.
More double talk. Watch him tap dance his way out of this one.
I’m going show you something and I’m going to do it slowly so there is no confusion. This is the C.T. link to the Jackson Triplex.
/theaters/4022/
Go ahead and click it, I’ll wait. Now, click on the map at the top of the page. Google will show you the address and return a zipcode of 11373. That is an Elmhurst zipcode.
BTW Dave, I doubt that you will get a Christmas card from Warren this year since you are now on his hit list. You committed the cardinal sin of disagreeing with him.
Am I losing my marbles? Since I’m replying to you, I must be losing them. By the same token, are you losing your marbles when you tell people that the 11373 zipcode is in Jackson Heights? We have discussed the Ridgewood-Brooklyn-Flushing zipcodes a number of times in the various Ridgewood theaters. At one time the Ridgewood theater had a zipcode of 11227. That was changed to 11385 which is serviced out of the Flushing post office. Go back and read the comments in the Ridgewood and Madison theaters again. Maybe you will be enlightened.
The Jackson Theatre has always been considered one of the anchors of the Jackson Heights business district. In its heyday, stores and restaurants depended on it to draw customers from surrounding neighborhoods, and it was also regarded as the showplace of Jackson Heights by residents. Its central location made it much more popular than the Boulevard Theatre, which was on Northern Boulevard and too far from the main drags that converge at 82nd Street and Roosevelt Avenue.
I think the merchants on that stretch of 82nd Street just south of Roosevelt probably unofficially made reference to the block as being “Jackson Heights” in an effort to associate it with the comercial strip on 82nd Street that runs north of Roosevelt to 37th Ave. When my family lived on 41st Ave off Junction Blvd in the early ‘70’s, we always referred to area right around the Jackson Theater as being Jackson Heights, even though it was on the Elmhurst side of Roosevelt.
“Lost Memory,” am I supposed to take that signature literally? You seem at times to be losing your marbles. Ridgewood does not have a “Flushing zipcode.” The zipcode for the Ridgewood of the Ridgewood Theatre is 11385. The zipcode for the now demolished Prospect Theatre in Flushing would be 11355. The only similarity is the 113, which means that all mail for those areas goes through the Flushing post office, which then dispatches it to the various local post offices. The same is true for Queens addresses that start with 114, which go through the Jamaica post office.
The Verizon Yellow Pages online returns 4031 82nd st. Elmhurst 11373 in response to the search terms ‘Jackson Theatre Queens NY’.
They may use Jackson Heights in the advertising because that #7 train station there is called ‘82nd St-Jackson Heights’.
The zipcode doesn’t necessarily tell you which neighborhood or town that a building is actually located in. Movie theaters in Ridgewood, Queens have a zipcode of 11385. That is a Flushing zipcode even though the buildings are located in Ridgewood. The zipcode is usually the post office that serves that community. These are the borders given for Jackson Heights. “The community is bounded by Northern Boulevard to the north, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the west, Roosevelt Avenue to the south, and Junction Boulevard to the east”. Talk about inadequate research!
The zip code given for the Jackson Triplex here at Cinema Treasures, at MovieTickets.com, Citysearch.com, and in several Queens business directories in my possession, is 11372, which is the zip code for Jackson Heights, not Elmhurst (11373). I don’t know why Mr. K failed to mention the Jackson Theatre in his book about Jackson Heights.
Perhaps for the same reason that Vincent Seyfried neglected to mention the Queensboro (later Elmwood) in his history of Elmhurst.
Inadequate research, or a feeling that cinemas are too trivial to mention?