Arcade Theatre
Steinway Street, near 31st Avenue,
Astoria,
NY
11103
Steinway Street, near 31st Avenue,
Astoria,
NY
11103
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The Arcade was one of Astoria’s earliest cinemas, and the nearest competition to the somewhat older Steinway Theatre. The Arcade also had an airdome that operated in spring/summer and was either adjacent to the 575-seat theatre or on the roof. Neither facility survived past the silent era. The premises were taken over for retail re-development. More information about the Arcade’s history, as well as an exact contemporary address for the site, are needed.
The Arcade’s original address was 325 Steinway Avenue (the Steinway Theatre, originally 345 Steinway Avenue, is now 31-08 Steinway Street for the building’s conversion to retail).
Contributed by
Warren G. Harris
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Recent comments (view all 27 comments)
Yep, the Modells store was where the Arcade Theater stood. Thanks Warren. Even as a child when it was a supermarket and later a discount store I didn’t know it used to be a theater. Since it’s so large I’m assuming the structure was altered from a theater for retail purposes, as opposed to being razed.
The Arcade had an outdoor theatre as well as an indoor one, but I suspect that the facilities of both were demolished to make way for the present buildings on that site…There were apparently other early cinemas on Steinway Avenue (now called Steinway Street), but I haven’t had time to investigate. They included the Casino, 321 Steinway Avenue; the Princess, 333 Steinway Avenue; and the Palm Garden, 561 Steinway Avenue. The Casino and Princess would have been in the vicinity of the Arcade, but I believe that the Palm Garden was further south, maybe around what is now called Northern Boulevard.
The theatre first opened in 1892 as Horak’s Opera House, with Czech-immigrant Rudolph Horak as owner-manager. Despite its name, it was primarily a playhouse with its own resident company of actors. Horak also published a local newspaper and was one of the chief agitators for the construction of what became known as the Queensboro Bridge. Horak also built scores of private homes in the blocks surrounding the commercial area centered on Steinway Avenue. Although it seated only 600, Horak’s Opera House was never a financial success, and in the early 1900s he sold it for conversion into a nickelodeon called the Arcade. The Arcade closed in the mid-1920s and served as an assembly hall for local fraternal groups until it was demolished to make way for new retail buildings. I thank an article in the Long Island Daily Star of February 20,1931 issue (page 14) for this information.
Wow Warren, you really went digging for all that, didn’t you? You’re a plethora of information; thanks again.
This seems to have even more historical importance than I originally thought. When Rudolph Horak died in 1930 at age 73, an obituary in The New York Times said that Horak’s Opera House was the first theatre to be built in Queens, and gave an opening date of 1890 (two years earlier than the article in the LI Daily Star of 2/20/31). I suppose that the NYT claim could be true, but it needs to be verified. Horak’s Opera House might have been the first purpose-built theatre in Queens, but surely theatrical performances were held before that in other types of buildings.
The true opening date of Horak’s Opera House appears to be October 3rd, 1893, according to this report from the November 16th, 1893 issue of the Daily Star. The opera house occupied the second floor of a new building called Jackson Hall. I suspect that Jackson Hall and the upstairs opera house were eventually combined into one as the Arcade Theatre:
www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/horak93.jpg
This theater should not be listed as “demolished”, as it appears the building still stands.
The Google Maps view is incorrect, and shows the premiseses of the former Steinway Theatre, which, since the departure of Dr. Jay’s, has become part of the Conway retail chain. The Arcade Theatre was in the block north of the Steinway Theatre, and on the same side of Steinway Street.
Link to Steinway Theatre listing: cinematreasures
This small jewelry store and adjacent Modell’s occupy at least part of the Arcade Theatre site: citysearch