Thanks B'klynJim… I found the photo on the website and snagged it for my photobucket collection. The film on the marquee is “The Beguiled” from 1971 with Clint Eastwood:
The marquee looks a bit closer to Jamaica Avenue in the photo than the spot I would have assumed it existed based on my drive down the block the other morning, but then… those telephoto lenses tend to mess with the field of depth. I remember that for a few years after the elevated J line was dismantled, the concrete bases of those support stanchions were still embedded along the edge of the sidewalk. I seem to recall that the steel girders were actually cut just above the concrete base rather than being completely torn out.
To further this tempest in a teapot, I see nothing wrong with including the word “Queens” in addresses for the borough in addition to the customary neighborhood. I know that I, for one, would like to be able to sort for every theater in the borough without having to remember every single possible neighborhood name. As a NYC movie theater entuhsiast, I’m not just interested exclusively in those local neighborhood theaters that I attended growing up but in all theaters across the 5 boroughs. This seems to me to be a minor accomodation that would allow such searches while maintaining the integrity of Queens' unique addressing convention. That might open the door for people in say, Suffolk County, who might want to be able to do a County-wide search as well, but I think Queens is a rather unique situation and it has a sufficiently high concentration of theaters to warrant the special treatment.
Lost… perhaps you should get in touch with Bryan and see what he thinks.
PKoch… that is my favorite Bissell line of all time!
I wasn’t around in those days, being in my early 40’s, but I did catch a lot of those old movies on WPIX channel 11 and WNEW channel 5 growing up! I shouldn’t forget channel 9, WOR TV. Or even the local programming no the network owned stations! The Late Show on WCBS, the 4:30 Movie on WABC… the Million Dollar Movie… Chiller Theater… Creature Features… Fright Night…
DVD and cable TV pretty much put an end to watching old movies that way… As much as I miss the intro’s to some of those shows (the 6 fingered claymation hand rising from the swamp on Chiller Theater is a fave), I gotta say I love watching unedited and uninterrupted classic-era films on Turner Movie Classics. And the prints they run are usually pristine.
Anyway… are you telling me that Whit Bissell was even more ubiquitous than John Agar?!? Or John Carradine?!? I love this site.
That would be a great scan to include on this site, B'klynJim. I passed by the area today and you can still clearly make out where the 165th Street entrance was because the facade appears to be pretty much intact. At least, it appears obvious to me. I had my camera on me, but the area was too congested for me to stop and take photos. I’ll have to get down there one weekend morning so I can park the car and walk around the block to snap some proper shots.
I passed by there today… One day I’ll have to go in for a peak around and maybe enjoy the choir. And BrooklynJim, don’t forget the sequel to “Blacula”… “Scream Blacula Scream” featuring the lovely Pam Grier as a modern day voodoo priestess!
An excellent point. However, as it is the custom in Queens to use the identifying neighborhood in the address, I think that’s how most folks visiting this site looking for their old “itch” would perform the search. If including the word Queens in the address along with the neighborhood (as Lost has suggested in his previous post) doesn’t impact any of the mapping tools used by this site, then I think that is a fair comprimise – even if it goes against the convention used by the Post Office.
Sorry… Fruedian slip. I typed the word “prurient” (and mispelled it to boot) where I meant “puritan” and as a result said the complete opposite of what I intended! Anyway, it probably should have been “puritanical” anyway. Hopefully you caught my drift.
PKoch… you should have seen what was offered up on 42nd Street (and I don’t mean porno) during the ‘70’s and '80’s!!! I was too young for the '70’s, but I saw stuff from about 1979-80 through the late '80’s there that was just unbelievable! But you are right… in the '90’s and into today there seems to be a more purient attitude towards sex in films. I think its all about demographics. Distributers want that PG-13 rating.
I have seen “Horror of Party Beach” – perhaps on Creature Features or Chiller Theater when I was a kid. You should catch its 1980’s update called “Humanoids from the Deep” one day! The same scaly monstrosities menacing bikini-clad babes – but they rip the bikinis right off of them in this one! And you get Doug McClure thrown in for good measure!
I agree with Warren. I don’t like the generic “Queens, NY” designation and prefer to keep the neighborhoods in the mailing addresses. There’s already enough clean-up work required on CT with respect to addresses!
By the way, the former Loew’s Bay Terrace building now houses both the Applebees restaurant as well as a Victoria’s Secret store. However, I believe the Applebees entrance on the corner of the building closest to Bell Blvd is where the theater’s entrance was so that address is probably correct. The building sits in the south east corner of the parking lot for the Bay Terrace Shopping Center – a corner formed by 26th Ave and Bell Blvd. People in the area typically and informally refer to the neighborhood as “Bay Terrace”. Since they converted the building and expanded the mall, a newer building now sits even closer to the corner (flush with the intersection) and obscures the building from the sidewalk somewhat.
The newer theater was built on vacant land adjacent to the shopping center on its western border further down 26th Avenue. While there is a seperate parking lot for the new multiplex, which sits on higher ground than the main part of the center, several ramps and a multi-level garage now connect the lots together.
The co-feature is not identified. Did these two theaters have a common ownership at the time? My edition of this paper does not have a Brooklyn movie clock, but the December 12th NY Post Movie Clock shows that one of the Rugby’s auditoriums day-and-dated a different kung-fu double feature just a few days earlier while the other auditorium featured a late release of the gang film “Warriors”, which had been playing nabes all over town on a double bill with Richard Gere’s “American Gigilo” – however at the Rugby, I guess the pot-fueled antics of Cheech and Chong in “Up in Smoke” were deemed more appropriate:
That’s what my grandfather told me, BrooklynJim… but this is something of an urban myth. The first paragraph in the following archived 1961 article from Time Magazine spells out the origins of the discount store’s name quite nicely:
The article also reveals that the very first Korvettes opened in Manhattan in 1949… before there was even a SINGLE Korean Veteran (Jewish or otherwise).
Here’s another ad from just a couple of days later, showing the David’s programing had quickly turned over and featuring the photo of a gentleman who looks startlingly like Gabe Kaplan:
The Ritz (that is, the uptown Ritz) was on W. 54th so I presume this was the David Theater that Greenpoint saw when he visited The Ritz in ‘93. The original Ritz, by the way, was downtown on East 11th just off 4th Avenue and is now known as Webster Hall.
Anyway… an ad for the David on 54th can be found in this cluster of porn ads from the NY Post in 1982:
I wonder what the subject of the symposium was? I love all the info they pack into the small ad.
“Live shows! 5 boys 5 times a day!”
I think it also says “Dynamite Marathon with 14 boys and a SPECIAL Duo Treat!” for Fridays and Saturdays.
“FREE snacks and refreshments!” Gadzooks!!!
The intro at the top says this was also known as the Kings Cinema. There was also a Kings XXX male house on the south side of 50th Street between B'way and 8th.
Warren… just to clarify, the theater’s entrance ornamentation on the exterior of the Paramount Building is replica, not remaining from the original. If you walked down Broadway just 6 or 7 years ago and looked up at the building’s facade, you’d just see the same repetition of squared windows and spandrels within the limestone as is the motif along the entire perimeter of the building’s lower floors. The old entrance arch was completly demolished and had to be recreated from old photos (not even the blueprints were available) for the 2001 installation of the WWF theme restaurant.
Bway… if you scroll up you’ll find this question has come up from time to time on this page. All traces of the original theater were completely removed from the site. Even the Broadway facade was patched over to pick up the pattern from the rest of the building so that one would never have known there was ever a theater in the building. The high arch window and marquee we now see advertising the Hard Rock (and the WWF restaurant prior to this) is 100% replica, constructed around 2000/2001. No original elements were used at all.
As for the interior, it had been completely gutted (lobby and auditorium) and replaced with generic office and retail space). As with the WWF Restaurant before it, the Hard Rock exists almost 100% below street level in the basement of the building. Only a small street level entrance foyer (carved from the retail space that had occupied the site for some 35 years since the theater’s demolition in 1966) exists where the former Paramount entrance pavillion had been located.
Here’s a 1966 photo of the former auditorium space that should give you an idea as to the extent of the demoltion: Paramount Gut Job
Wow… I’m surprised to see this theater listed here! I suppose that when all is said and done, I come down on the side of the argument that says CT should be an all-inclusive database for theaters of all kinds… If the word “Treasures” in the site'a name ever intended to distinguish those wonderfully ornate palaces from the 1920’s, it quickly lost that connotation when every strip mall twin and sheetrocked multiplex wound up finding a listing here! And while we’re at it, bring on the storefront porn houses too! So, who’s going to add the Pussycat 2 (which I think was located downstairs from the Ramrod on 49th), the Night Shift, the Harem on 42nd Street, the Roxy Twins also on 42nd (both of them), Show Follies on 7th Ave, Show World on 8th Ave? The Doll? The Avon 7? Or, are they already listed? I don’t know much about those places, but I have a number of movie ads from the Post and News in the early ‘80’s I could post on many of those would-be CT pages!
Thanks B'klynJim… I found the photo on the website and snagged it for my photobucket collection. The film on the marquee is “The Beguiled” from 1971 with Clint Eastwood:
Alden 165th Street marquee
The marquee looks a bit closer to Jamaica Avenue in the photo than the spot I would have assumed it existed based on my drive down the block the other morning, but then… those telephoto lenses tend to mess with the field of depth. I remember that for a few years after the elevated J line was dismantled, the concrete bases of those support stanchions were still embedded along the edge of the sidewalk. I seem to recall that the steel girders were actually cut just above the concrete base rather than being completely torn out.
Anyway, you’re right… A great photo.
To further this tempest in a teapot, I see nothing wrong with including the word “Queens” in addresses for the borough in addition to the customary neighborhood. I know that I, for one, would like to be able to sort for every theater in the borough without having to remember every single possible neighborhood name. As a NYC movie theater entuhsiast, I’m not just interested exclusively in those local neighborhood theaters that I attended growing up but in all theaters across the 5 boroughs. This seems to me to be a minor accomodation that would allow such searches while maintaining the integrity of Queens' unique addressing convention. That might open the door for people in say, Suffolk County, who might want to be able to do a County-wide search as well, but I think Queens is a rather unique situation and it has a sufficiently high concentration of theaters to warrant the special treatment.
Lost… perhaps you should get in touch with Bryan and see what he thinks.
PKoch… that is my favorite Bissell line of all time!
I wasn’t around in those days, being in my early 40’s, but I did catch a lot of those old movies on WPIX channel 11 and WNEW channel 5 growing up! I shouldn’t forget channel 9, WOR TV. Or even the local programming no the network owned stations! The Late Show on WCBS, the 4:30 Movie on WABC… the Million Dollar Movie… Chiller Theater… Creature Features… Fright Night…
DVD and cable TV pretty much put an end to watching old movies that way… As much as I miss the intro’s to some of those shows (the 6 fingered claymation hand rising from the swamp on Chiller Theater is a fave), I gotta say I love watching unedited and uninterrupted classic-era films on Turner Movie Classics. And the prints they run are usually pristine.
Anyway… are you telling me that Whit Bissell was even more ubiquitous than John Agar?!? Or John Carradine?!? I love this site.
That would be a great scan to include on this site, B'klynJim. I passed by the area today and you can still clearly make out where the 165th Street entrance was because the facade appears to be pretty much intact. At least, it appears obvious to me. I had my camera on me, but the area was too congested for me to stop and take photos. I’ll have to get down there one weekend morning so I can park the car and walk around the block to snap some proper shots.
I passed by there today… One day I’ll have to go in for a peak around and maybe enjoy the choir. And BrooklynJim, don’t forget the sequel to “Blacula”… “Scream Blacula Scream” featuring the lovely Pam Grier as a modern day voodoo priestess!
JG… there is a seperate listing for the Regent Theater – which became the Hollyrock according to the Times article you linked.
An excellent point. However, as it is the custom in Queens to use the identifying neighborhood in the address, I think that’s how most folks visiting this site looking for their old “itch” would perform the search. If including the word Queens in the address along with the neighborhood (as Lost has suggested in his previous post) doesn’t impact any of the mapping tools used by this site, then I think that is a fair comprimise – even if it goes against the convention used by the Post Office.
Sorry… Fruedian slip. I typed the word “prurient” (and mispelled it to boot) where I meant “puritan” and as a result said the complete opposite of what I intended! Anyway, it probably should have been “puritanical” anyway. Hopefully you caught my drift.
PKoch… you should have seen what was offered up on 42nd Street (and I don’t mean porno) during the ‘70’s and '80’s!!! I was too young for the '70’s, but I saw stuff from about 1979-80 through the late '80’s there that was just unbelievable! But you are right… in the '90’s and into today there seems to be a more purient attitude towards sex in films. I think its all about demographics. Distributers want that PG-13 rating.
I have seen “Horror of Party Beach” – perhaps on Creature Features or Chiller Theater when I was a kid. You should catch its 1980’s update called “Humanoids from the Deep” one day! The same scaly monstrosities menacing bikini-clad babes – but they rip the bikinis right off of them in this one! And you get Doug McClure thrown in for good measure!
I agree with Warren. I don’t like the generic “Queens, NY” designation and prefer to keep the neighborhoods in the mailing addresses. There’s already enough clean-up work required on CT with respect to addresses!
By the way, the former Loew’s Bay Terrace building now houses both the Applebees restaurant as well as a Victoria’s Secret store. However, I believe the Applebees entrance on the corner of the building closest to Bell Blvd is where the theater’s entrance was so that address is probably correct. The building sits in the south east corner of the parking lot for the Bay Terrace Shopping Center – a corner formed by 26th Ave and Bell Blvd. People in the area typically and informally refer to the neighborhood as “Bay Terrace”. Since they converted the building and expanded the mall, a newer building now sits even closer to the corner (flush with the intersection) and obscures the building from the sidewalk somewhat.
The newer theater was built on vacant land adjacent to the shopping center on its western border further down 26th Avenue. While there is a seperate parking lot for the new multiplex, which sits on higher ground than the main part of the center, several ramps and a multi-level garage now connect the lots together.
This ad is for a kung fu double feature that day-and-dated with the nearby Rugby Twin:
Golden Arm – Daily News 12/14/80
The co-feature is never identified and my edition of the paper doesn’t have a Brooklyn movie clock.
This movie clock from 1982 shows the theater under RKO Century’s management:
NY Post Movie Clock 3/10/82
I’ll take a slice of cheese cake at Junior’s, BklynJim.
The Rugby was a twin by December 1980 when this kung-fu double bill day-and-dated with the single screen Granada Theater:
Golden Arm – Daily News 12/14/80
The co-feature is not identified. Did these two theaters have a common ownership at the time? My edition of this paper does not have a Brooklyn movie clock, but the December 12th NY Post Movie Clock shows that one of the Rugby’s auditoriums day-and-dated a different kung-fu double feature just a few days earlier while the other auditorium featured a late release of the gang film “Warriors”, which had been playing nabes all over town on a double bill with Richard Gere’s “American Gigilo” – however at the Rugby, I guess the pot-fueled antics of Cheech and Chong in “Up in Smoke” were deemed more appropriate:
NY Post 12/12/80 Movie Clock
That’s what my grandfather told me, BrooklynJim… but this is something of an urban myth. The first paragraph in the following archived 1961 article from Time Magazine spells out the origins of the discount store’s name quite nicely:
View link
The article also reveals that the very first Korvettes opened in Manhattan in 1949… before there was even a SINGLE Korean Veteran (Jewish or otherwise).
March 9th, 1982… “Indecent Exposure” day-and-dates at the Circus Cinema and Eastworld while “Oil Rig #99” World premieres upstairs at the Big Top:
Circus/Big Top – NY Post
By the following day the Big Top feature had already turned over:
Yellow Hanky Left – Post 3/10/82
December 11th, 1980:
Circus Cinema – NY Post
Big Top – NY Post
Thanks for the heads-up, Warren!
Found another ad for the 55th Street at the bottom of the “Stir Crazy” ad from December 1980:
Read Clive Barnes – Post 12/11/80
Here’s another ad from just a couple of days later, showing the David’s programing had quickly turned over and featuring the photo of a gentleman who looks startlingly like Gabe Kaplan:
Fantasy Island Post 3/10/82
Below are a pair of ads for the Kings Cinema from the NY Post, each seperated by a couple of days:
NY Post 3/8/82
NY Post 3/10/82
Apologies for how blurry that last image is.
The Ritz (that is, the uptown Ritz) was on W. 54th so I presume this was the David Theater that Greenpoint saw when he visited The Ritz in ‘93. The original Ritz, by the way, was downtown on East 11th just off 4th Avenue and is now known as Webster Hall.
Anyway… an ad for the David on 54th can be found in this cluster of porn ads from the NY Post in 1982:
Steve Scott Festival 3/8/82
There’s an ad for the Gaiety if you scroll down the page in the image below from 1982:
Symposium Night! Post 3/8/82
I wonder what the subject of the symposium was? I love all the info they pack into the small ad.
“Live shows! 5 boys 5 times a day!”
I think it also says “Dynamite Marathon with 14 boys and a SPECIAL Duo Treat!” for Fridays and Saturdays.
“FREE snacks and refreshments!” Gadzooks!!!
The intro at the top says this was also known as the Kings Cinema. There was also a Kings XXX male house on the south side of 50th Street between B'way and 8th.
“The incredible Roger in his farewell to motion pictures”:
Hunk Post 3/8/82
So… still all-male porn in early 1982.
Anyone remember the Rendezvouz across the street?:
Rhinestone Cowgirls Post 3/10/82
Warren… just to clarify, the theater’s entrance ornamentation on the exterior of the Paramount Building is replica, not remaining from the original. If you walked down Broadway just 6 or 7 years ago and looked up at the building’s facade, you’d just see the same repetition of squared windows and spandrels within the limestone as is the motif along the entire perimeter of the building’s lower floors. The old entrance arch was completly demolished and had to be recreated from old photos (not even the blueprints were available) for the 2001 installation of the WWF theme restaurant.
Bway… if you scroll up you’ll find this question has come up from time to time on this page. All traces of the original theater were completely removed from the site. Even the Broadway facade was patched over to pick up the pattern from the rest of the building so that one would never have known there was ever a theater in the building. The high arch window and marquee we now see advertising the Hard Rock (and the WWF restaurant prior to this) is 100% replica, constructed around 2000/2001. No original elements were used at all.
As for the interior, it had been completely gutted (lobby and auditorium) and replaced with generic office and retail space). As with the WWF Restaurant before it, the Hard Rock exists almost 100% below street level in the basement of the building. Only a small street level entrance foyer (carved from the retail space that had occupied the site for some 35 years since the theater’s demolition in 1966) exists where the former Paramount entrance pavillion had been located.
Here’s a 1966 photo of the former auditorium space that should give you an idea as to the extent of the demoltion:
Paramount Gut Job
Wow… I’m surprised to see this theater listed here! I suppose that when all is said and done, I come down on the side of the argument that says CT should be an all-inclusive database for theaters of all kinds… If the word “Treasures” in the site'a name ever intended to distinguish those wonderfully ornate palaces from the 1920’s, it quickly lost that connotation when every strip mall twin and sheetrocked multiplex wound up finding a listing here! And while we’re at it, bring on the storefront porn houses too! So, who’s going to add the Pussycat 2 (which I think was located downstairs from the Ramrod on 49th), the Night Shift, the Harem on 42nd Street, the Roxy Twins also on 42nd (both of them), Show Follies on 7th Ave, Show World on 8th Ave? The Doll? The Avon 7? Or, are they already listed? I don’t know much about those places, but I have a number of movie ads from the Post and News in the early ‘80’s I could post on many of those would-be CT pages!