Loew's Lefrak
59-16 99th Street,
Corona,
NY
11368
59-16 99th Street,
Corona,
NY
11368
4 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 99 comments found
JeffM55 is correct. The address now provided is the current address for the Warehouse Supercenter that occupies the old UA Lefrak building. They must have a main entrance around the corner on 57th Avenue. Looks like some new research will be required to dig up the old address for the theater entrance.
I don’t know what’s happened to this site since you redid it, but now the address on the Lefrak Theater is wrong. It was on 99th Street, not on 57th Ave. I changed the Street View, but can’t find any way to correct the address.
A lot of good stories and some of the pictures were great.
The Lefrak run was 42 weeks. The reason you are recalling “The Sound Of Music” playing longer than that is because, as I pointed out in my article that was mentioned a couple of comments ago, the film was in release for over four years, and perhaps it is the seemingly endless bookings somewhere that you are remembering.
To illustrate my point, listed below, based on my research of the original newspaper promotion, is all of the engagements of “The Sound Of Music” that played in the borough of Queens during its original 1965-1969 release. (Note that the first Queens booking wasn’t until after the initial Manhattan run closed.)
12.21.1966 … Lefrak City (42 weeks)
06.21.1967 … Bayside (9 weeks)
06.21.1967 … Community (8 weeks)
11.15.1967 … Astoria (4 weeks)
11.15.1967 … Jackson (4 weeks)
11.15.1967 … Midway (3 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Boulevard (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Cambria (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Center (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Crossbay (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … De Luxe (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Drake (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Laurelton (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Lefferts (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Park (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Parsons (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Rochdale (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Roosevelt (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Town (2 weeks)
12.20.1967 … Utopia (2 weeks)
08.14.1968 … Colony (2 weeks)
08.14.1968 … Haven (2 weeks)
08.27.1969 … Astoria (1 week)
08.27.1969 … Bayside (1 week)
08.27.1969 … Crossbay (1 week)
08.27.1969 … Jackson (1 week)
08.27.1969 … Midway (1 week)
Thanks, it seemed like it was even longer than that.
“The Sound Of Music” opened here on December 21, 1966 and played for 42 weeks.
I bet Michael Coate knows. Did you see his spectacular SOUND OF MUSIC article?
Does anybody know how long the Sound of Music played there? It seemed like years.
Interesting.
Here’s a good google street view of the theater:
View link
amen.
MarkViii, we’re talking about apples and oranges here. As far as what “town” any of these things are in, why, they’re in New York City, of course. They’re also in the Borough of Queens, and in Queens County. Everything after that becomes muddy. Queens has many traditional neighborhood names, and some may have even been separate “towns” at some point in the distant past, but today, the only identifiable “official” designations that have actual boundaries are those of the U.S. Postal Service, which maintains separate Zip Codes for these individual post offices. As for it being strange to call the apartment complex Rego Park Gardens — that’s not strange, that’s marketing. Whoever built the place decided Rego Park was a more desirable name, even if it wasn’t within those boundaries.
When I say “referred” to – I mean in all official Loews documents and phone listings. It was always the Loews Lefrak. The apostrophe stopped appearing on theatre marquee’s as early as the 1970’s and all but disappeared in the mid-1980’s when Jerry Perenchio bought the circuit and subsequently sold it to the entertainment division of the Coca-Cola company.
I would find it strange to call an apartment complex rego park gardens when it is not in rego park. Again, i lived in bayside and my post office 4 blocks away said oakland gardens station. i do not think you can go by what the post office labels its buildings as what the name of the town might be.
MarkViii, Rego Park Gardens was not actually in Rego Park either. The post office address was Elmhurst, NY 11373. Junction Blvd. was the dividing line; the Lefrak City post office, directly across the street, was in Corona. Rego Park was up Junction Blvd. — the LIE (or Horace Harding Expwy.) may have been the actual dividing line between Elmhurst and Rego Park.
Warren, what do you consider the criteria for the “actual” name of a theater?
What something is referred to and what it is actually named are not necessarily the same. Do we have any documentary evidence to support either Loew’s Lefrak or Loew’s Lefrak City? And was that the period before or after the apostrophe was dropped from Loew’s?
I lived across from lefrak city in REGO PARK gardens back in the mid ‘60s (when the area was nice) we always assumed and thought we lived in rego park. i tend to believe it is corona and always was. i think the LIE is the dividing line between rego park and corona.
I worked for Loews during the time the theatre closed and the Queens Division office was moved from there to the Bay Terrace. It was always referred to as the Loews Lefrak or just simply “The Lefrak”.
According to the 1984 New York Times article quoted and linked to in Lost Memory’s Oct 27, 2006 post above, the theater was called “the Loew’s at Lefrak City” which is certainly pretentious enough.
BTW, among the other notable things in that article, the complex was marking its 25th anniversary in 1984, which would make 1959 the starting date; never once does the article refer to Lefrak City, Samuel J. Lefrak, or the Lefrak Organization as “LeFrak”; and there’s this paragraph:
“The development, which has apartment towers grouped in four-building sections, is bordered by 57th Avenue, Junction Boulevard, 99th Street and the Horace Harding Expressway. Depending on whom one talks to, it is in Elmhurst, Corona, or, as Mr. Lefrak maintains, Rego Park.”
Is the main name in the introduction correct? I would guess Loew’s Lefrak City, not Loew’s Lefrak.
lefrak is a jew .. always was… always will be..there is nothing to be ashamed of. in fact lefrak city was something like 85% jewish when it was first built in the early ‘60s. in fact most of that area was jewish at one time.
I’m pleased to see that the listing here has been revised to say Corona, NY, which is accurate. I hope this site never is seduced by this other apparently insidious revisionism, which we had alluded to earlier: the insistence by the Lefraks to recast themselves as the LeFraks. Apparently some media outlets are now buying into that scheme. I was dismayed to find this story in the online TimesLedger.com:
Man shot in LeFrak City after argument: Police
02/21/2008
LEFRAK CITY – A LeFrak City man was shot in the buttocks early Tuesday morning, police said. At 1:39 a.m., officers responded to 83-32 57th Ave. to find a man shot once in the lower left flank, police said. The victim had been involved in an argument with several other men, police said. He was treated for the wound at the scene and taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
Getting shot in the butt there sounds about right, but LeFrak City? Come on!
In December, 1965, this was being advertised as “Skouras' U.A. D-150 All Purpose Theatre,” with Lefrak City as the location. For the Christmas holidays, it was one of four theatres in Queens in a city-wide “Showcase” of Doris Day’s “Do Not Disturb,” along with Century’s Prospect, Flushing; Loew’s Triboro, Astoria; and Loew’s Valencia, Jamaica.
Thanks, Bloop. I remember that newspaper ad, along with the TV commercials showing the Ernest Borgnine character begging for mercy from Willard.
WILLARD AD: View link