Eagle Theater
73-07 37th Road,
Jackson Heights,
NY
11372
73-07 37th Road,
Jackson Heights,
NY
11372
3 people
favorited this theater
Located in the Jackson Heights section of Queens. The Earle Theater was an Art Deco theater, similar in style to the Lane Theatre in Staten Island. This one-time porn house was shuttered for a while and later resurrected as the Eagle Theater. It continued to operate in later years, showing a healthy dose of Bollywood films.
However, it was closed in May 2009, due to a strike at the film production studios in Mumbai.
Contributed by
SteveSmith
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Recent comments (view all 88 comments)
Those of us who care and cherish these movie theaters appreciate them for what they are. But others only see dollar signs and could care less about their past as a place to escape the dullness of everyday life.
The Earle was the premier “art” movie house in Jackson Heights, always showing the finest independent and foreign movies. Here’s a list of what I remember seeing there: Hiroshima Mon Amour, And God Created Woman, Medium Cool, Alfie. And God .. featured Brigitte Bardot and you had to be at least 16 to see it. I lied about my age and the eager ticket seller let me in. Not a bad movie, actually, very daring for its time. The theater was a beautiful deco piece and very well maintained. That all changed when it turned into a porn venue; it was probably the raunchiest movie house in the neighborhood, the Fair and Polk running close.
Today’s Daily News reports the Eagle will become a grocery and food court.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/eagle-theater-south-asian-grocery-store-food-court-article-1.1021804
Direct link
I walked by today. Lower portion of marquee has been removed. All that remains is “Eagle” on three sides. Perhaps they’ll continue to use the name for the new business.
This was known for most of its cinematic lifetime as the Earle Theatre, and is mentioned in many books under that name as one of the art-deco masterworks of John Eberson, who is better known for the “atmospheric” style. Why can’t the main listing be as the Earle, with Eagle reduced to an alternate name?
The theory is the last name used is the last name posted. Since there is the cross reference ability you can input either Earle or Eagle and get the theatre. Isn’t is clever how they substituted one letter to achieve the new name rather than devise a whole new one. You can see from the photo in the heading that the “G” doesn’t quite match the surrounding letters.
Harlem Grand did the same thing when they changed from Harlem Strand.
“Jackson Heights Food Court” is now on the marquee.
This 1980s tax photo shows the building from a street corner, looking towards the marquee: lunaimaging