Victory Theater
199-03 32nd Avenue,
Bayside,
NY
11358
199-03 32nd Avenue,
Bayside,
NY
11358
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 36 comments
The reality is Victory would be an appropriate word to be associated with a church. Victory over death through Christ. In the 2005 photos there are lambs. Christ was the lamb of God. We are his sheep, etc.
I happened to be passing through the neighborhood today and noticed the facade underwent a bit of a remodeling job by the church, including new entrance, awning and brick-facing. I snapped this quick cell-cam photo from my car window.
I didn’t not pull over and check it out, but I’m guessing this work probably involved the removal of the “VICTORY” cement floor inlay that remained from the old outer foyer – depicted in this photo from 2005.
I uploaded a number of ads and one vintage image of the Victory Theatre as it looked when it first opened. A number of these (including the vintage image) were poached – with permission – from former CT member Warren G Harris, who had attached links (now dead) to these images throughout the comment history. In any event, I hope that these ads help to flesh out some of the history discussed in this thread over the years.
I grew up in Bayside and remember going to the Victory theater. I remeber it being converted to a bowling alley (Victory Lanes, I believe). There was a fire at the bowling alley and I don’t remember if it re-opened as a bowling alley after the fire.
I don’t know at what point the Victory was Skouras but I do know that it was an independent in the 1950s when I first became aware of it. Newspaper ads were always independent of the Skouras group ads.
I was born in 1939 and lived about 5 blocks from the Victory Theater.On Saturday’s my mother would give my brother and I a quarter which got us both in (12cent each and left a penny to get a strip of button candy for the show – which by the way lasted from noon till 4-5PM.You’d see two movies, 4-5 serials, a ton of cartoons, and on some days get an ice cream – all for 12cents!!! The theater was never high end. It was lovingly called the “Itch” and the local comment was “you go to the itch and you come home with the scratch” The theater had a balcony and a nice marble staircase leading up to it. The rest rooms were upstairs off the balcony and we would climb out the bathroom windows onto the marquis. There were two opera boxes along side the balcony which I never recall being used. I think it was originally part of the RKO chain along with the Keiths and Roosevelt (both in Flushing NY) and the Bayside Theater on Bell Blvd also in Bayside. Movies would spend about a week in each theater with the “Itch” getting the movie at the end of the chain.
The only giveaways I remember were done by the Century Circuit. When I attended the Bellerose Theatre I remember getting Currier and Ives Prints. Couldn’t put a date on it. I think maybe Skouras also did this.
It’s interesting that the renovations to become a bowling alley cost $450,000. When the theatre had its last hurrah the renovations cost in excess of $100,000, a figure which it proudly touted in its ads. For a period of time they also had dish night, which I thought went out with the 40s.
Thanks, Warren. With your permission, I’d like to include this shot (as well as the ad you posted on 12/12) in my photobucket scrapbook for this theatre – despite the murkiness!
“Dazzling Crystal Lobby,” eh? No trace of that exists in the church that now occupies the building. I’m sure anything either dazzling or crystal was removed when the place was converted into a bowling alley in the late 1950’s!
Hey everyone I did go to this movie theatre when it was a flea market and it was really dirty but if I recall correctly the marquee was still up at that point. The place looked really dirty and it was a make shift flea market. So sad.
Thanks so much, Warren! Will check them out.
This is my first posting. My family moved to 204th Street between 33rd/34th Avenues in 1962. My mother would take me to the Laundromat that was (and still is) directly across the street from the Victory Theatre. At that time I remember it as a bowling alley, then the bingo hall, and then the flea market. I only remember entering the building during its flea market incarnation. Even as a small child I knew it was originally a movie theatre because of the marquee. Because of the name “VICTORY”, however, I had always assumed this theatre began operating during World War II, when the word “Victory” was used in several ways, such as a Victory Garden or the phrase “V For Victory”.
Can anyone direct me to websites that offer old time photos of Bayside? There are several new vintage photo books in the Local section of the bookstores, on Whitestone, College Point, Flushing, etc., but I have yet to see a book of old time photos of Bayside.
Also, can anyone tell me about the history of the odd church that is on the northeast corner of 33rd Avenue and 204th Street? I have been here since 1962 but, with the exception of the summer of 1977, NEVER see parishioners attend this church, and I have NEVER been inside it. However people do come to maintain it.
Here is a photo taken around 1941. The film playing might have been “Underground” starring Jeffrey Lynn. This is from the NYC Municipal Archives collection. The City of New York, between 1939 and 1941 took photos of all buildings in the city for tax record purposes. This negative shows some signs of nitrate decomposition.
Please keep an eye open for additional photos of other Queens theaters from this collection.
View link
Here is a photo taken around 1941. The film playing might have been “Underground” starring Jeffrey Lynn. This is from the NYC Municipal Archives collection. The City of New York, between 1939 and 1941 took photos of all buildings in the city for tax record purposes. This negative shows some signs of nitrate decomposition.
Please keep an eye open for additional photos of other Queens theaters from this collection.
View link
I was thinking the same thing, Lost, but the ‘56 “Ten Commandments” wasn’t released until October of '56 and surely wouldn’t have made to a struggling late run nabe like the Victory until well into the following year, if not later. I wonder how many folks came out that Holiday weekend to see a creaky old C.B. DeMille silent? I suppose that in a Queens suburb of the 1950’s, a sufficient number of families might have considered it fittingly pious to take in DeMille’s reverent passion play.
Hey wait… “King of Kings” in 1957? So, they paired up Ma and Pa Kettle with 1927 silent epic?
Evidently, Mr. Rothman was the eternal optimist. Well… at least we now have a more or less complete picture of this theater’s history. Seems like this independent operator spent a decent sum of money refurbishing the Victory… only to send some more money chasing after that folly less than two years later to convert the place to a bowling alley! I trust the Victory Lanes proved a better investment for Rothman and his partners.
Victory Theatre, November 7th, 1930 – April 17th, 1957.
Warren… those aren’t my photos in the Tribune. I just checked them out. Looks like they had a staff photographer go down and snap some similar shots of their own. I’d have gladly shared the photos for free (albeit with credit), but no one asked.
Ed Solero mentions two Brooklyn theaters slated for conversion to bowling alleys but names are unknown in posting of Oct.14 2006.
The Farragut at Flatbush and Rogers Avenues, last operated by the Springer Circuit as a theater from about 1956 to 1958, and the Leader on Coney Island Avenue may have been the theaters mentioned in the article.
Thanks, Lost. According to that article, TV played the part of both villain and hero in the establishment of the Victory Lanes:
“Though the former Victory Theatre owner, Jack Benjamin , does not admit that TV forced his theatre to be shut down for a full year through last fall, [but] he does admit that TV has helped make bowling popular.”
The article goes on to state that Benjamin approached the owners of Interboro Theater Circuit about the idea the previous November, but it isn’t made clear if the Victory had been affiliated with the Interboro circuit or if Benjamin was merely reaching out to Interboro as partners in the new venture. The conversion resulted in 20 automatic pin-spotter lanes in the facility – 10 apiece on each floor. The construction of the second level is noted as being very expensive, extending “from the middle of the old theatre balcony, making it possible to leave 126 of the theater seats behind the lanes.” The former projection booth was converted into a league meeting room and the “grand marble staircase” remains from the old house connecting the two levels. Two similar impending conversions in Brooklyn are noted (though theaters are not specified) with opening dates set for the winter season.
From what is stated in this article, the closing of the Victory Theatre for motion picture exhibition can now be placed sometime in the Fall of 1956. Perhaps Warren’s information regarding a February 3rd, 1951, closing refers to the end of the theater’s Skouras administration and that Benjamin purchased the property from Skouras to be run independently before finally succombing in ‘56?
If you want an idea of the caliber of radio, screen and stage stars who might have celebrated the Victory’s first anniversary (as advertised in the clipping Warren posted on August 30th at 9:02am), I’d look no further than the posting Warren just made over at the Bayside Theater page, announcing the gala 1941 re-opening of that movie house under the Skouras banner.
I would assume that it was when Skouras took it over that the theater was re-dubbed the “New Victory” – unless that fading art deco looking sign on the upper facade of the building’s western elevation merely heralded the arrival of the brand new theater in 1930?
‘New’ Victory – September 2005
So, that previous ad was the 1st anniversary for the theater. I can’t imagine there was much to celebrate given the Victory’s out of the way location and nearby competition from larger houses on Bell Blvd and Northern Blvd. And in the midst of the great depression, were reserved-seat gala evenings such as the opener and the jubilee a year later all that well attended?
I love that photo of the old exterior. Here’s an image of the current exterior I took last year. If you compare the brick face of the current facade with the adjacent stores, it appears to have been completely re-pointed and painted. That small ledge above the upper floor windows in the 1930 photo are now gone, but the three round anchors that supported the weight of the canopy marquee remain. It also appears as if that border row of bricks around the current sign for the church existed as an obscured detail just above the marquee in the 1930 shot.
I wonder what, if anything, remains of the interior from the original design. I’ll try to get inside this weekend, even if they don’t allow my camera.
Thanks, Warren. I actually have a few editions of the LI Star-Journal from late 1963 and early 1964 – as you might have noted from ads I’ve posted around the site. My grandfather saved a number of newspapers regarding the JFK assassination… luckily, a number of those papers are complete editions, rather than just specific clippings or special sections.