Merrick Theater
163-06 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
163-06 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
8 people
favorited this theater
The Merrick Theater opened in 1920, at 163rd Street and Jamaica Avenue in the Jamaica section of Queens. A recent drive-by indicates that the façade of the former Merrick Theater appears to be well intact.
With a 2,500 seating capacity, the Merrick Theater would have historically been the third largest theater in the neighborhood, after the Loew’s Valencia Theatre and Loew’s Hillside Theatre.
Contributed by
SteveSmith
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Recent comments (view all 37 comments)
The Merrick Theatre showed mainly 20th Century Fox films (The Valencia and Hillside showed MGM while the Alden showed mainly Warners). I remember the first screening of THE ROBE at the Merrick. It was the first CinemaScope feature. I was 11 and the projectionist invited my sister and I up to his booth to show us the new lens used for the process. I was so thrilled to be in the inner sanctum of that booth that I stayed there immobile looking out the little window for the whole first reel until I noticed my sister outside frantically waving at me to come down. I quickly returned to reality in the deep maroon deco interior of that spacious hall.
No, No No. When you put the Queens in it just confuses the situation. Previously, half of the Queens theatres on CT had the Queens disignation, with or without the actual village. A special purge was done so that only the Queens Village theatres, the Queens and Community, would access when you input Queens. Rather than posting this problem here you have to contact CT directly. They don’t monitor the comments for fixes. Go to “about” and follow the prompts.
According to this article much of this theater will soon be occupied by a gym.
A photo of the building from 2011.
And, in that radius, the Plaza in South Jamaica. Don’t sweat the nearby theatres. Many times it says none in 15 miles and there is one down the street. This is something they’ve never fixed.
Tinseltoes… I know this is a pet peeve of yours (and it bugs me, too) but I think the address ribbon to which you refer is a function of how the database is organized. Not that I have a lot of experience at developing and mapping out websites, but I do believe that it isn’t a matter of fixing the ribbon as it is of getting the database organized into more logical geographic buckets. In other words, it is likely not going to be a quick and easy fix.
There is indeed a gym, Blink Fitness, occupying the theater.
Uploaded current Jamaica Avenue photo showing Merrick as retail space.
Uploaded 1930 ad showing under the management of Century Theaters. In later years under the Skouras banner but returned to Century at the end of its days.
Although the heading for the Merrick places it as third in size of the Jamaica theaters, at the time of it’s opening it was advertised as Jamaica’s largest playhouse.