Majestic Theater
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
494 Seneca Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 107 comments found
I knew you would love this one!
Unfortunately, since the email notifications were reset, unless you check occasionally every theater you are interested in, messages would be missed, but I knew you wouldn’t want to miss this photo!
Thank you very much Bway for posting those links. The theater photo is a “keeper”! I wonder why there are no movie titles on the marquee. Maybe they only used posters at that time or the theater might have been temporarily closed. I mentioned somewhere on this site about the house to the right of the Majestic that burned down in the 1950s. The land was later used as a parking lot for the factory building to the right of that property. The drugstore seen on the left side of the photo was long gone when I was growing up. It was a barbershop at one time and later a fruit and vegetable store.
If I remember correctly, the marquee for this theater was similar to the marquee on the Grandview Theater. The funeral home must have removed the Majestic name at the top of the building when they did the alterations around 1964. I could go on and on about how the occupants of those buildings and some of the buildings themselves have changed since that photo was taken, but then I would be in trouble for going off topic. :)
You made my day Bway. Thanks again.
The Majestic had a pretty nice “classic” cinema marquee, and must have been something to see lit up at night. it appears to have already been closed at the time of this photo though.
Here’s a photo of the Majestic Theater which appeared in last weeks Timesnewsweekly:
View link
As well as a story to accompany it:
View link
Just renewing my email alerts….
Here’s a google street view of the old Majestic Theater:
View link
A 1941 exterior view of the Majestic Theatre can be found on page 49 of the Ridgewood Times’s 100th anniversary issue dated 10/23/08. The marquee has no attractions displayed, suggesting that the Majestic was at least temporarily closed at the time.
I got it Bway. It took me all day to read it. LOL
Lost, did you get my email I sent you this morning? If not, send me an email.
If you were a pedestrian in Ridgewood or anywhere else in the five boroughs, you might feel differently!
I use that Cypress Ave exit at Vermont from the JR Parkway often. Yes, couldn’t imagine it without a light!!
But I really think they are overdoing the traffic lights in Ridgewood. It’s slowly become like manhattan with lights at every corner, which certainly is not necessary…. I mean really, a light at Harmon and Seneca, and many of the other recent ones are just a but overdone….
Yes. The traffic light at Wyckoff and Cornelia was installed sometime in the first half of the 1990’s.
Decades earlier, the installation of the traffic light at Cypress Avenue and Vermont Place, at the top of the hill, near the entrance to the Jackie Robinson (Cypress Avenue exit) couldn’t have come soon enough. Imagine such a busy intersection without a traffic light for so many years !
I don’t know when they installed the light, but probably recently. They went on a traffic light rampage in Ridgewood lately….too many if you ask me!
I’m happy to see that the building is still stand after 90+ years. When did they install a traffic light at Harmon and Seneca? I need to get out more often. LOL
Here’s a photo I took of the Majestic when I was in Ridgewood last week:
Click here to see photo
And a Street View of Seneca between Harmon and Greene:
Click Here to see photo
As a young boy I lived on Seneca Ave. in 1960 one block from the Majestic Theatre, which appeared to have been closed for many years at that time. The theatre was on the corner of Seneca and Greene Avenues. Across the street from the theatre on Seneca Ave. was a TV repair shop that also fixed bicycles. Diagonally across the street was a barber shop. The side of the theatre was on Greene Ave. Across the street from the Greene Ave side of the theatre was many garages. Since no cars could park there, and since the theatre had a fire hydrant on the Greene Ave side, we used the area to play stick ball, “off the wall”, and handball off the side the theatre. The front of the theatre was boarded up but you could still see where the ticket box office once was. The marque was still there and the name MAJESTIC was still on the marque. When it rained we played Ace King Queen under the marque. The rear of the theatre had a yard that was full of dirt mounds, weeds, and debris. The front and side of the theatre was a great place to hang out. We were all very surprised one day when demolition workers entered the theatre. The left the side (Green Ave.) door open at night and we got our first view of the inside. The screen and seats were still there. I think there was also an orchestra pit. There were stairs that led up to the balcony and projection room. We found old comic books that were probably given out with admission. There were broken dishes that were probably given out to customers so that they would continue to return to the theatre to collect a whole set. I found old ticket rolls that had admission prices of .35 cents, .65 cents and several other amounts I can not rememnber but none were for over a dollar. The theatre became the Seneca Chapels funeral parlor. The new owners did not like it when we continued to play ball on the Greene Ave. side. The funeral parlor continued to use the marque but made it much smaller. You would never know that it was once a theatre marque. I would love to hear from anyone who has childhood memories of playing by the Majestic Theatre.
Thanks for the info. It appears the Grandview and the Majestic had similar lives. They looked similar, were owned by the same people at one time, and both became funeral parlors…
I found more information on the Majestic theater and I think that I can answer the question that I asked almost two years ago. I asked “who did Len-Roc Realty buy the property from in 1955”. The answer is, Len-Roc Realty purchased the building from a Mr A. Livoti with a mortgage secured from the Hamburg Savings bank on October 20, 1955 for the sum of $23,000. This theater was definately closed by 1955. It appears that Seneca Chapels moved into the building in August of 1964. That sounds about right to me. Alot of exterior work was being done to the building at that time and trucks were parked on Greene Ave which limited our stick ball games to evenings and weekends.
As I mentioned in a previous comment, these documents are difficult to read and I believe there is additional info contained in them but I don’t want to speculate or assume what they contain. Also, while researching the Grandview theater, I found an A. Livoti mentioned as the owner of that property. Around the same time that the Majestic was sold to Len-Roc Realty, the Grandview was sold to the Grandview Realty Corp.
Thanks, Lost Memory. I reviewed Christina Wilkinson’s Forgitten NY article on Ridgewood on August 1, 2005 and directly e-mailed her my comments within a few days afterward. One of them was pretty much what I posted above. I’ve looked at her article a few times since then and she apparently has not made changes to her article based on my comments.
So I propose we continue with our plans to scan newspaper ads to find out exactly when the RKO Madison Theater showed its last film.
This is something I wish I knew, but do not, as I wish in retrospect I had been more observant, passing the RKO Madison at least ten times a week, walking from home to the subway at Myrtle and Wyckoff in the morning, and vice versa in the evening, every weekday, in commuting from my Ridgewood home to school in Manhattan.
One would think I would remember the date, or at least the week or month, the RKO Madison showed its last film, but I do not. Mea culpa.
Pending further evidence, I will assume Halloween 1977 as the date of that last film.
Gee, I hope this site wasn’t their source. LOL
Haha, I think their source may be cinematreasures….
Peter…On the Forgotten NY website it claims that, “The Madison opened in 1927 and showed its last film in 1978”. Here is the link. Scroll down, its near the bottom of the page. I don’t know who or what their source is.
Closing date of the Madison : recommend beginning the search in October 1977 and continuing to February 1978. I KNOW, as surely as I know anything, that the RKO Madison was closed by the last Saturday of February 1978, as I have amply posted on this site, perhaps at risk of seeming as if I have “RKO Madison Turretts Syndrome” !
From what people have told me and from documents that I have found, I think that both the Majestic and the Grandview closed around the same time and that would be 1954-55. Finding the closing date of the Madison theater should be easier than finding the closing date of the Majestic. Maybe one of those ads that RobertR posts will show movies playing at the Madison one week and not the following week. We need to see some ads from early 1978 to narrow down the closing date of the Madison.
Lost, just as you can still see your ball on the roof of the Majestic….one day we will find out what was the last movie at the Madison, and when the Majestic actually closed….
I think I see a spalding on the Majestic roof. I wonder if its from the last stick ball game that I played there. Can’t be, it probably would have melted by now. :) Two questions that I still have not found the answer to. When did the Majestic close and what was the last movie to play at the Madison. I don’t give up easily so one day I hope to find those answers.