Ridgewood Theatre
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
31 people
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The Evergreen section is up and running, so let’s finish the Evergreen discussion there: /theaters/8026/
Correction : 69th St. : Fisk Avenue
It’s the 10 percent non-compliance I find interesting.
The last time I was in the Triangle Hofbrau of Richmond Hill, Friday November 11, 1994, I saw a beautiful aerial perspective map of Richmond Hill which showed all the original named streets. 102nd St. was Freedom Avenue, 104th St. was Oxford, 111th was Greenwood. The last two names survived awhile as station names on the A train (Liberty Avenue elevated line). The S-shaped drive through Forest Park, from Myrtle Avenue, just east of the Forest Park Drive bridge, to Park Lane South and 102nd Street, is still known as Freedom Drive. It’s a Q-55 bus stop on Myrtle Avenue.
The Flushing # 7 elevated line also “remembered” named streets :
33rd : Rawson, 40th : Lowery, 46th : Bliss, 52nd : Lincoln, 69th : Bliss
And at Queens Blvd. in Forest Hills, 71st Avenue is Continental, 75th Avenue used to be Puritan Avenue.
I agree with you, lostmemory. Have you, Bway, Warren or anyone else started pages on this site yet for the Evergreen and Van Cortlandt Airdromes ?
That is very bizarre. Another conflict is that the Daly you mentioned had it at 1200 seats in 1926 (after when the property was sold in 1921!). The bank was built on the property I believe between 1927 and 1929. Something still doesn’t add up here. I think the Ridgewood Times article this came from may have something confused. Could it be that when they say it was expanded by 1500 seats, that’s when they ADDED the Evergreen theatre next to the Evergreen Airdrome? It makes more sense – you had the Airdrome, the indoor theater expanded that by 1500, the Airdrome was closed, (thus decreasing it), and by 1926 maybe more seats were taken out leaving to 1200.
I am now positive that the VanCortlandt Airdrome was at the Flowerama site. 59-35 Myrtle is accurate, however remember that the area was still in the Brooklyn numbering System when the theater operated. (after all, even 71st Ave hadn’t entered the Queens named system yet, as it was still Van Cortlandt Ave at the time).
The two story stores built adjacent to the Van Cortlandt Airdrome by the same owners are the two story group of stores to the east of Flowerama (the corner of which is the carpet store).
BTW, I added the Evergreen. Hopefully all the great information provided by you, Peter, and Warren will make it to the Evergreen’s section once it is added by the webmasters.
Actually, I’m thinking that the homes to the right of “C-Town” are Standard Matthews Flat 6 Family homes. Most of the Matthew flats were built in Ridgewood in 1910-1918. I’m thinking those tenaments were probably built when the Evergreen building was still standing, as I don’t believe the Evergreen was torn down before 1925, although the property was sold some time in late 1921.
Those Matthew Flat houses were converted into stores on the ground level (at least some of them), but many still retain their original stoops and original railings with posts at the end!
The Bank Building is listed as 918 Seneca, the C-Town is listed as 928 Seneca, and the first Matthews building is listed as 930 Seneca. 926 is now a dead address, but falls on the supermarket property – obviously the theater took up a few address numbers.
lostmemory, on the southwest side of Seneca Avenue, between Hancock and Weirfield Streets, going from Hancock to Weirfield, was the Chase Manhattan Bank (now Banco Popular), Pachtmann’s Toy Store, Bohack Supermarket (these two are now a C-Town supermarket) a few
three-family houses, and the Elco Bar and Grill, on the western corner of Seneca and Weirfield.
It was right at the intersection of Myrtle, Seneca, and Hancock…right where you are thinking.
Where do you think the Van Cortland Airdrome was, where the Flowerama building is now? Or on the other side of 60th, where the Carpet store is now? I believe it is on the Flowerama side of Myrtle.
Warren, The Chase Manhattan Bank building (now Banco Popular) was built in the late 20’s and that is partly on the site of the old Evergreen. A Bohack supermarket (then Associated, Trunz, and now C Town is on the remainder of the property, but that building is not as old as the Chase Bank building.
I have been trying to find out about that theater for uite some time. I will add it to the site.
Warren, thanks so much as usual for finding out about the Luxor!
Yes, it is starnge that a theater with the responses such as the ridgewood would be missing “any” information at this point, especially something as basic as the seating capacity. I, like Peter, have been in the Ridgewood countless times, both before and after the chopping it up into a 3plex, and then a 5plex, but have never been in the Jamaica Fox to be able to compare.
I guess the 5 theaters in the Ridgewood could be added up to get how many seats the building has now, but also remember that with the chopping up, seats probably were lost, unless they build the new walls right down existing aisles without ripping out seating in the process. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be any more accurate than choosing either the 1957 or 1926 entrees from the Film Daly.
Lost Memory, yeah, it would be good to put the information on “new” found theaters as theaters on the site, people can add information to the appropriate section as time goes on A name and address for the “new” theaters is enough to add a theater, although the more information the better of course. I have seen many theaters added with minimal information, and either the webmasters catch the changes in the comments for the theater, or you can click somewhere on this site a link that tells you where to send changes. Even if the Ridgewood theater’s section doesn’t gets lost somehow, the information on other theaters may get lost in the shuffle of this huge section.
Warren, I’ve been inside the Ridgewood many times, but not the Fox Jamaica. I’ve never tried to estimate the Ridgewood’s seating capacity. Based on my experience of the RKO Madison and Ridgewood, 2000 seems about right for the Ridgewood.
How about finding out the seating capacity of each of the Ridgewood’s current five cinemas, and adding them, to approximate the original seating capacity ?
Thank you, Warren. According to MapQuest, 431 Central Avenue is indeed in the heart of Bushwick, about 5/8 of the way southeast from Woodbine Street to Madison Street, completely within the context, lostmemory, of the April 2001 “Our Neighborhood” article you gave me the link to last week. Warren is like Kojak ? Who loves ya baby ! OK lostmemory, please keep working !
Why not start pages for the Luxor and Starr Theaters on this site, and let the information be filled in later, if possible ?
Bway and lostmemory, thanks for looking for the Luxor in Brooklyn !
I believe the Amphion Theater was a playhouse, not a movie theater (so it wouldn’t be on this site, as that is one of the criteria, that it showed movies at some point, hense many of the legit theaters here – listed if they had a cinema history).
Anyway, I don’t know where it was, but there was a “Amphion Hotel” and club listed at 125 Division Ave. Many clubs may have had a theater attached. I don’t know if this is the same one, or even where Division Ave is in Brooklyn. I believe that Broadway was actually called “Division Ave” originally, because it was the division between Bushwick and Bed-Stuy.
As for the Luxor, I have no idea, but I saw it in a Ridgewood Times Our Neighborhood section as a “popular” theater. It seems endless the amounts of theaters that were in the area.
Don’t know about the Amphion Theater in Bushwick. How about the Luxor Theater, in either Bushwick or Ridgewood ?
Lostmemory… I’m sorry but I’m a little fuzzy after I pass the Madison theater on my left when walking along Myrtle Ave. towards Wycoff Ave. I’ll be 60 this year, so I guess I have a pretty good memory excuse. I definitely remember the Parthenon theater that Erwin M identified by address and maybe I got it mixed up with the Knickerbocker theater, but I don’t think so. There’s a difference between a Kickerbocker theater and a theater on Knickerbocker Ave.
I’m always amazed at how many theaters operated at the same time in the 1950s within walking distance in Ridgewood/Glendale. I also used to take the old el train to the last stop to see movies at the Brooklyn Paramount and Brooklyn Fox. I also saw the Alan Freed Rock and Roll shows there. The 1950s rocked!
Alan D.
I just came upon this website today and found all these comments fascinating. I attended P.S. 88 Queens from 1950-1958 (which includes one year in kindergarten). During my elementary school years, we went to the Ridgewood, Madison, Knickerbocker, Glendale and Oasis movie theaters. There sometimes were “rough” kids in the neighborhood but mostly I felt safe and walked all over to those theaters. I understood the Ridgewood to be in Queens but very close to Brooklyn. Without any real evidence, I always thought Wycoff Ave. began the border into Brooklyn on the old elevated train. I thought Myrtle Ave. on both sides was in both Queens and Brooklyn, depending where on the avenue you were. Anyway, the Ridgewood theater was large, dark and I guess I took it for granted. Looking back, I guess it was pretty glamorous. The only film I remember seeing there was a black and white “Riot in Cell Block 11.” I know I saw more after that but don’t recall them. I went more often to the Madison, Glendale and Oasis theaters. How great it was to have so many movies theaters in walking distance! Even today I’m a movie buff, probably thanks to those experiences.
Thanks for the compliment ! I have a Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and Brooklyn and Jamaica USGS quad sheets handy. They help alot. I still go to MapQuest for building numbers, though.
Myrtle and Knickerbocker Avenues intersect between Bleecker Street and Greene Avenue. The Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Greene triangle thus formed is about a third of the linear dimensions, and hence about a ninth of the area, of the larger Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Bleecker triangle. Triangles are formed, because Myrtle Avenue is at about a 45 degree angle to both the streets and avenues of the Bushwick-Ridgewood rectangular street grid.
As I have posted elsewhere, Cinema Tour lists a Grove Theater, closed, at 474 Wilson Avenue in Bushwick. The nearest cross street, according to Map Quest, is not Grove Street, but Jefferson Avenue.
Yes, there was a “Ridgewood Grove” building, that at first glance does sort of look like it may have been a theater. I is just north of the Myrtle-Wyckoff El station, on the right hand side of the el if going north. It is currently a huge Chineese Buffet, and Hispanic Restaurant-Nightclub, and also a Billard Hall.
It may or may not be what lostmemory remembers. There is a “Grove Street” that does interstect Knickerbocker Ave about a block or two from Knickerbocker-Myrtle, and many theaters are named for the Street they ajoin. The Ridgewood Grove is fairly far from the Knickerbocker-Myrtle intersection. I’m still thinking it may be a former name for the Rivoli, but really have no idea. Maybe there was yet another theater right near there.
Maybe it was the “Rivoli” Theater under a different name?
The Rivoli is at the Knickerbocker Ave station of the M line (on the Queensbound platform side). It is curently a church (like so many other theaters).
Here’s a link: /theaters/7087/
I don’t know if the Rivoli was called the “Grove” at some time, or if this is the theater you read about, but many theaters went through numerous name changes.
I always thought there should be a place on the site where you can ask general questions about theaters that you don’t have enough information about, like: “I know there was a theater at the corner of Myrtle and Seneca, but am trying to find more information about it”, or “What’s the theater next to the el tracks in this photo?”. It would sort of help prevent what has happened to the Ridgewood Theater page (not that it’s a bad thing, because I have found this theater page very interesting, not only because I have fond memories of the the Ridgewood Theater, but also because I was a resident of Ridgewood for over 20 years), and it seems to cover the theater and every other theater around Ridgewood too.
Neither can I. I think I will try to get a bit more information about the Evergreen Theater, and then add it to the site.
Amazingly, the Ridgewood Theater page has become the gathering point to try to put together all the pieces for all the other theaters in the Ridgewood-Glendale area. This is among one of the largest theater pages on this site. I have been trying to find out for quite some time about the theater at Seneca and Myrtle, and finally I have a name to go by now.
Thanks Warren too for the “Whitney” information; I will check my “Old Queens” book when I get home.