Fox Kew Gardens Theatre
118-21 Queens Boulevard,
Forest Hills,
NY
11375
118-21 Queens Boulevard,
Forest Hills,
NY
11375
2 people
favorited this theater
The Kew Gardens was built by the S & S Circuit, which was taken over by William Fox while the 1,287-seat theatre was still under construction. As the Fox Kew Gardens, it had its grand opening on September 14, 1929, with the Fox Movietone feature, “Lucky Star”, plus assorted “all-talking” short subjects. Programs changed three times a week and were subsequent run to the well-established Fox Forest Hills, which was about a half-mile west of the Kew Gardens and its nearest competition.
The Kew Gardens Theatre was the first theatre ever built on the north side of Queens Boulevard, and was a block away from its intersection with Union Turnpike. Unfortunately, the neighborhood was still developing and under-populated, so the Kew Gardens was virtually dead-on-arrival when Wall Street crashed only a month later. In December, Fox closed the theatre and decided to convert it to miniature golf, which was all the rage at the time. All the seats were removed, with the ground floor used for an 18-hole “Tom Thumb” golf course. The former balcony was divided into a spectator section and an area for ping pong and billiard tables. As the Kew Gardens Indoor Golf Course, it re-opened on August 18, 1930. For 50 cents, patrons could play one full round, with equipment and instructors provided by the management. Tickets for unlimited play were $2 weekly or $6 for a month.
The deepening financial crisis seemed to keep players away, so Fox soon closed the premises. The circuit was going through a bankruptcy crisis of its own. The Kew Gardens Theatre remained padlocked until being assigned to the Skouras Theaters Corp. circuit, which was formed to run all the former Fox theatres in Queens.
Skouras, however, had no interest in re-converting the Kew Gardens Theatre into a theatre, so it just sat there vacant until the late-1950’s, when it was finally sold for demoliton and replacement by an office building.
Contributed by
Warren G. Harris
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
Recent comments (view all 21 comments)
The Kew Gardens was apparently troubled from the start. A short news item on the front page of the May 31, 1928 issue of the Forest Hills-Kew Gardens Post says that the theatre, which had only recently completed construction, was “sold at auction last week in pursuance to an order of the Queens Supreme Court. The sale was conducted by Alwin A. Haack of Jamaica on the steps of the Queens County Court House, and the amount paid was $153,000. David Steinberg of Manhattan was the purchaser and will take over all mortgage liens and other outstanding encumbrances.” I believe that Steinberg represented the S&S Circuit, which would soon be taken over by Fox Theatres. It wasn’t until September, 1929, that the theatre finally opened, as the Fox Kew Gardens.
The Kew Gardens Theatre and its rooftop water tank can be seen in the center background in this photo of an eastbound traffic jam on Queens Boulevard in the summer of 1935. In those days, the boulevard had only three lanes in each direction. The wide dividing space between them would eventually be converted into more lanes. The Skouras circuit, which now owned the shuttered theatre, derived some income from adjoining stores and from billboards on the exterior walls of the building:www.i8.photobucket.com/albums/a18/Warrengwhiz/kewg035.jpg
After being demolished, the theatre was replaced by the Pickman Building, which uses the current address of 118-21 Queens Boulevard. Couldn’t that also be used for the address of the theatre, instead of the unspecific “Queens Boulevard near Union Turnpike,” which doesn’t even identify which side of QB?
The long-closed theatre, as well as adjacent stores, ended up the property of the NYC Board of Transportation, which owned the underlying ground as part of the Kew Gardens/Union Turnpike subway station. On June 30th, 1947, the entire Queens Boulevard blockfront, along with 21 other Board of Transportation properties in the boroughs, was put up for sale in a public auction at the Hotel Commodore in Manhattan. I don’t know if the Kew Gardens site sold that day or not, but at least another decade passed before demolition and re-development started.
Not sure if this is the same photo Warren posted in 2006, but here’s a 1936 photo of Queens Boulevard at Union Turnpike/Interboro Parkway, with the Fox Kew Gardens on the right.
View link
Due to changes in the alert system, I wasn’t aware of the post of 3/25/09 until just now, when I went to the listing to make a new addition of my own. Here’s a new link to the photo that I displayed and described on 11/29/07, which is different from the one linked by “mp775” on 3/25/09: View link
In November, 1945, the Kew Gardens Theatre made front-page news in the Queens newspapers when a home owners association headed by Isadore Federbush proposed that the building be converted into a bus terminal to end traffic jams on Queens Boulevard during commuter rush hours. Eight bus lines dropped passengers at that point to transfer to the Kew Gardens subway station. Federbush claimed that the theatre had been closed for 13 years and seemed unlikely to ever be reopened. This proposal might explain how the theatre ended up under the ownership of the NYC Board of Transportation, which instead auctioned it off in 1947 (see my post above of 6/11/08).
Thanks to mp775 and to Warren for the fabulous photos. Having lived in Kew Gardens for many years before moving to Manhattan, I still have great fondness for this neighborhood. It is astounding for me to see the area so undeveloped! It makes you think “What were they thinking” when they built this theater in the middle of nowhere. But I guess the answer is that everyone expected the good times of the roaring 20’s were going to go on forever and that the area would quickly develop.
Here is a shot of the theater from the other side of the Boulevard circa 1935. Warren made the ID of the building from NYPL collection image which I located.
View link
For decades, bus riders lined-up on Queens Boulevard not realizing that they were in front of the former Fox Kew Gardens Theatre. In this rare photo, the auditorium, which ran parallel to QB, can be seen behind the stores. The original corner entrance is at left, with peaked roof and the remains of the steel frame used for the marquee: nyc