Parthenon Theatre
329 Wyckoff Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
329 Wyckoff Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
6 people
favorited this theater
Located in the Ridgewood section of Queens. The Parthenon Theatre was a neighborhood house a few blocks away from the RKO Madison Theatre. It opened around 1920 with seating for 1,700. In later years it played move-overs from the Ridgewood Theatre and Madison Theatre and mostly sub-run double bills.
Contributed by
RobertR
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Recent comments (view all 303 comments)
I have been so busy lately that I didn’t have time to log onto Cinematreasures for almost a month! Anyway, I forgot all about posting this photo! I believe I found it on the Brooklyn Library digital images collection.
Bway, great to hear from you.
I don’t believe that the post of the photo that you just referred to came through. Since I am really looking forward to seeing it, please try again – and welcome back.
Here’s a historic view of the Parthenon, as seen from the elevated train. Compare that below to one taken recently:
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?88079
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?90723
I recently wrote a piece about the old movie theaters on Bushwick. The link appears below. The old Parthenon was featured in the article and I would like to share it with you.
In writing the piece, I definitely credited Cinema Treasures as a most valuable source for this information. So, thank you for helping me in this endeavor.
View link
One of the four pictures provided on the attached page from the NY Public Library shows a rare view of the old Parthenon in its very early years. The other three pictures show how things were at this intersection in the late 1920’s.
These pistures were taken by Eugene Armbruster and are in the public domain. The caption clearly indicates that the Parthenon did, in fact, move from Brooklyn yo Queens when the border changed in 1925.
View link
That other large building on the corner of Wyckoff and Myrtle was the terminal station for the Lutheran Cemetery steam “Dummy” Railroad which ran between that station and Metropolitan Ave on the street level, on the ROW that became the el for the M train we know today.
Imagine removing that siding on the facade and revealing the former brick, who knows what lies underneath! Since the building still stands from the theater days, and a bowling alley conversion in the 60’s, the jackpot question is:how much remains inside from the theater?
The Parthenon had such beautiful brickwork too, I can’t understand why they would have covered it over with that aluminum siding. Talk about making a pretty building into one of the ugliest things around….
The 1920 edition of the Bulletin of the Board of Standards and Appeals of the City of New York contained an item about the theater at 329-339 Wyckoff Avenue in (then) Brooklyn. The architect, Harry A. Yarish, had filed an appeal on behalf of the owner, Herman Weingarten, seeking a modification in the fire commissioner’s demands about a standpipe in the theater. The item includes a partial description of the building:
Yarish’s appeal was dated June 26, 1920. As the item says that the building was “…occupied as a… theatre….” it had most likely opened earlier that year.Joe, thanks so much for digging into this item and finding the name of the architect. While you noted on the Carver Theatre’s page that Yarich had designed several theaters for Weingarten, this marks his initial entry in the CT roster. So, I guess there are more discoveries to come.