So many of these drive-ins survived into the 1980’s.
The 1980’s was a bad time for them, as the multiplexes were popping up everywhere, and it was the final straw for many of them. Ironically, some of the multiplexes even replaced the drive-ins on their exact location, such as the UA Movies at Coram being built on the Coram Drive-In site, and the UA Movies at Patchogue 13 being built on the Patchogue Drive-In site. Interestingly, UA did not replace it’s Shirley UA Drive-In with a multiplex, presumable because it was fairly close to Patchogue.
By the way, the map above doesn’t work because Bridgehampton is one word. It confuses me all the time too….East Hampton is two words, but Bridgehampton and Westhampton are one word – go figure.
I used to always go to the Forest Hills theaters when I was a teenager, as soon as I was old enough to “leave the neighborhood”. I “abandoned” the Ridgewood for the most part when I was about 16, and was only back once or twice in my early 20’s. It was more fun to take the subway to the theater than to simply walk to it, it sort of made a whole day out of it. And once in my early 20’s, I abandoned the FOrest Hills theaters for the Manhattan ones like the Zeigfeld and the others. And now I’m down to the multiplexes, as that’s all what’s basically around where I am now….(although do vistit some of the Manhattan ones occasionally.
BTW, I believe the Oasis was Ridgewood, not Glendale, but that’s just a minor nitpick, I know what you mean.
Well, I guess the Oasis was already sporting the skaters when “Back to the Future” came out in 1985, but if you’d like, we can enter a Delorian at the corner I am standing at to take the photo, hit 88mph at the entrance ramp to the parking lot, and smash through the front doors of the Oasis in 1985, see the roller rink for a while, and then drive in 1985 to Broadway Brooklyn, and then hit 88mph again under the el for a trip to 1925 Brodway Brooklyn, for a drive under the el and a look at all those theaters and the neighborhood there!!
Oh, and just to clarify further, if I wasn’t clear (and sicne the theater is partly demolished, it’s hard to tell where the front was unless you knew).
The red car is on Fresh Pond Rd, headed towards Metropolitan. The marquee and lobby used to be the area by the parking lot, near the phone booth, and the driveway into the parking lot. If in a time warp driving into the parking lot, you would be driving right under the marquee, and into the front doors of the Oasis.
We are on Fresh Pond Rd looking towards Metropolitan Ave from I believe Grove St (either that or Menahan, I’m not sure which one intersects by the Oasis), but either way, we are looking “northeast”.
By the way, when you click the mapquest link above, it brings you to the wrong location, too near to Myrtle Ave, instead of there the Oasis was near Metropolitan Ave. I don’t know why, because when I type in the same address manually into Mapquest, it brings me to the correct location, or at least within a block of the correct location.
I also posted a current photo of the Oasis site in it’s section: /theaters/4624/
Unlike the Whitney which was demolished in the 20’s, the Oasis building still partly survives. The lobby, the entire right side of the building, and the stores connected to the theater on the Fresh Pond Road frontage was torn down in the mid 1990’s. However, the main auditorium still remains, and new exterior walls put on it from where the other parts were ripped off. It is currently a CVS.
The stores that faced Fresh Pond Rd were in the same Egyptian design on their one storry fasades as the main part of the theater. Unfortunately, all of that is now gone.
The Whitney and the Oasis are not the same theater. The Oasis opened as the Oasis in the early 1920’s and was located on Fresh Pond Rd, near Greene Ave or Menahan St, not near the subway tracks.
The Whitney was located right next to the subway tracks, and there are photos of it from the 1910’s showing the theater next to the tracks. The Oasis and the Whitney are seperate theaters, both on Fresh Pond Rd, but quite a few blocks apart.
I’m a little confused about the “7 screens” when I was there about 10 years ago, the original auditorium was intact. Are the additional 6 screens built adjacent to the original theater? I can’t imagine that they would have cut up the main auditorium.
Yes, I also had assumed it was gone. I had parked on Monroe St a few times in this location (before the other day), to get photos of the RKO Bushwick, and to go to the McDonalds across Monroe, and it would have been a little hard to miss a building that once was a 1700+ seat theater! It had to be a rather large building when it existed.
As for why it was razed, it could be for the reason you mentioned above. That area really was put into hell in the 70’s, and is only now recovering from it. I am going to assume the building became so derrelict, that it had to be removed. We all know what the RKO Bushwick nearby looked like for the previous 30 years, (although now thankfully at least partially preserved), although was probably also a haven for illegal activity for many years before being converted to the school it is now (and really improving the entire neighborhood around it). The RKO Bushwick’s recent good fortune seems to be rubbing off on the surrounding neighborhood, which is getting exponentially nicer and better each time I visit.
Peter, the question you had of whether the Halsey was demolished or not for sure is solved. I drove past the other day, and the building no longer exists. A large apartment building now occupies the site. It looks like those standard late 1960’s to 1970’s type of large apartment buildings so it was probably demolished during that time.
Actually, it’s two stores in that photo, one is obscured by the awning of the Meat Market. The meat market is the corner, and the other one story store is right next to it, on the next lot, then the wooden apartments.
That map thing is wrong. 67-05 Fresh Pond is between 67th Ave and 68th Ave (hense the “67-XX” address, indeed further south, and at the elevated tracks, not Metropolitan Ave. 68th Ave is right there at the tracks, so it’s mapquest that is messed up.
The United theater is demolished.
I drove by yesterday, and currently there is a very large building on it’s site. The building appoears to have been built in the 70’s or so.
Right. The first building is the same address as the bus depot, and the TA property.
The first building after the “shack” is the Greenpoint Savings bank building.
I drove by the state theater site yesterday, and it is indeed gone, and a large building on it’s site, just as mentioned above.
Does anyone know of a theater that was located at 882 DeKalb Ave? In some section on this site (forgot where) someone mentioned 882 DeKalb, so it was on my list when I was checking out some of the other theaters in the area. Currently, 882 is a church, but it does have a high theater-like roofline. Any information would be appreciated.
Ken, I have the “Old Queens” book that Warren mentions. (not here, so I can’t check now). However, if it’s the photo I am thinking of, it is similar to photo 053 in the Ridgewood section of Queenspix.com
The Century theater building has been demolished at some point. (It can be changed to “closed/demolished” above).
Currently a little store is on the site of 850 Monroe. The theater was right next to the Monroe Theater, which was at 4 Howard Street. The Monroe is also gone, and is the vacant land to the lefy, next to the Century. Curiously, the Bushwick was to the left of the Monroe, right across the street! Three theaters all adjacent to each other!
Click here for a photo of the site.
Notice the vacant lot to the left (the Monroe), and the RKO Bushwick building in the distance to the left of that.
Warren, if you look in my photo above, there is a small space between the “theater site” and the tracks. Currently, a one story building occupies the corner parcel, and houses “Minimart”. A search on the ownership of the building found that the New York CIty Transit Authority owns the little minimart building, suggesting that what you said is absolutely correct. In fact, the minimart building is slightly under the elevated tracks.
The building that is now on the site, although does look “theater-like” was not the same building that housed the Whitney theater. The Whitney is just out of view in this photo (linked below) in a timesnwesweekly article that lostmemory sent me a few weeks ago. The building is different, but is indeed in the same location (note the “elevated tracks” were on the ground until 1914, but the tracks are just in the foreground).
By the way Warren, I have updates on the Century and United Theater sites that you had asked for in their sections (you submitted those theaters), check there later when I post the info. I figured I’d tell you to check here, because you never posted in the Century section, and wouldn’t get a “someone just posted email”.
Below is a link to a current photo of the Whitney site. The corner building is Minimart, and is sort of under the el structure.
The current 67-03 and 67-05 were built as one structure, and I assume the the Whitney also took up both properties.
Interestingly, if I hadn’t heard that the Whitney was demolished (is that accurate, or was it just “closed in 1926?”, I would have assumed the building was a theater. This building always fascinated me since I was a kid. It is “theater-like”, but I guess it was actually built for a bank.
The Acme building is in neglected shape. After the Victoria House Caterers left, the building has not been all that well maintained, at least on the exterior.
The building is currently for lease. Hopefully once a new tenant is found, it will be cleaned up.
Here’s a photo of the Acme taken today. Sorry, that it’s not the best angle or photos, but the traffic around the site was horrible. There was no place to park, and trucks double-parked everywhere, and cars everywhere. After being disgusted from circling by the theater four times, I finally decided to just snap the photo out the window of my car, and be done with it.
So many of these drive-ins survived into the 1980’s.
The 1980’s was a bad time for them, as the multiplexes were popping up everywhere, and it was the final straw for many of them. Ironically, some of the multiplexes even replaced the drive-ins on their exact location, such as the UA Movies at Coram being built on the Coram Drive-In site, and the UA Movies at Patchogue 13 being built on the Patchogue Drive-In site. Interestingly, UA did not replace it’s Shirley UA Drive-In with a multiplex, presumable because it was fairly close to Patchogue.
By the way, the map above doesn’t work because Bridgehampton is one word. It confuses me all the time too….East Hampton is two words, but Bridgehampton and Westhampton are one word – go figure.
I believe USA Auto Parts once occupied the theater’s store when it was converted. Currently Eckerts occupies it’s space.
Robert, do you know when it closed?
I used to always go to the Forest Hills theaters when I was a teenager, as soon as I was old enough to “leave the neighborhood”. I “abandoned” the Ridgewood for the most part when I was about 16, and was only back once or twice in my early 20’s. It was more fun to take the subway to the theater than to simply walk to it, it sort of made a whole day out of it. And once in my early 20’s, I abandoned the FOrest Hills theaters for the Manhattan ones like the Zeigfeld and the others. And now I’m down to the multiplexes, as that’s all what’s basically around where I am now….(although do vistit some of the Manhattan ones occasionally.
BTW, I believe the Oasis was Ridgewood, not Glendale, but that’s just a minor nitpick, I know what you mean.
Well, I guess the Oasis was already sporting the skaters when “Back to the Future” came out in 1985, but if you’d like, we can enter a Delorian at the corner I am standing at to take the photo, hit 88mph at the entrance ramp to the parking lot, and smash through the front doors of the Oasis in 1985, see the roller rink for a while, and then drive in 1985 to Broadway Brooklyn, and then hit 88mph again under the el for a trip to 1925 Brodway Brooklyn, for a drive under the el and a look at all those theaters and the neighborhood there!!
Oh, and just to clarify further, if I wasn’t clear (and sicne the theater is partly demolished, it’s hard to tell where the front was unless you knew).
The red car is on Fresh Pond Rd, headed towards Metropolitan. The marquee and lobby used to be the area by the parking lot, near the phone booth, and the driveway into the parking lot. If in a time warp driving into the parking lot, you would be driving right under the marquee, and into the front doors of the Oasis.
We are on Fresh Pond Rd looking towards Metropolitan Ave from I believe Grove St (either that or Menahan, I’m not sure which one intersects by the Oasis), but either way, we are looking “northeast”.
By the way, when you click the mapquest link above, it brings you to the wrong location, too near to Myrtle Ave, instead of there the Oasis was near Metropolitan Ave. I don’t know why, because when I type in the same address manually into Mapquest, it brings me to the correct location, or at least within a block of the correct location.
Thanks. I will have to check that out next time I am in the Patchogue.
I also posted a current photo of the Oasis site in it’s section:
/theaters/4624/
Unlike the Whitney which was demolished in the 20’s, the Oasis building still partly survives. The lobby, the entire right side of the building, and the stores connected to the theater on the Fresh Pond Road frontage was torn down in the mid 1990’s. However, the main auditorium still remains, and new exterior walls put on it from where the other parts were ripped off. It is currently a CVS.
The stores that faced Fresh Pond Rd were in the same Egyptian design on their one storry fasades as the main part of the theater. Unfortunately, all of that is now gone.
The Whitney and the Oasis are not the same theater. The Oasis opened as the Oasis in the early 1920’s and was located on Fresh Pond Rd, near Greene Ave or Menahan St, not near the subway tracks.
The Whitney was located right next to the subway tracks, and there are photos of it from the 1910’s showing the theater next to the tracks. The Oasis and the Whitney are seperate theaters, both on Fresh Pond Rd, but quite a few blocks apart.
I’m a little confused about the “7 screens” when I was there about 10 years ago, the original auditorium was intact. Are the additional 6 screens built adjacent to the original theater? I can’t imagine that they would have cut up the main auditorium.
Yes, I also had assumed it was gone. I had parked on Monroe St a few times in this location (before the other day), to get photos of the RKO Bushwick, and to go to the McDonalds across Monroe, and it would have been a little hard to miss a building that once was a 1700+ seat theater! It had to be a rather large building when it existed.
As for why it was razed, it could be for the reason you mentioned above. That area really was put into hell in the 70’s, and is only now recovering from it. I am going to assume the building became so derrelict, that it had to be removed. We all know what the RKO Bushwick nearby looked like for the previous 30 years, (although now thankfully at least partially preserved), although was probably also a haven for illegal activity for many years before being converted to the school it is now (and really improving the entire neighborhood around it). The RKO Bushwick’s recent good fortune seems to be rubbing off on the surrounding neighborhood, which is getting exponentially nicer and better each time I visit.
Peter, the question you had of whether the Halsey was demolished or not for sure is solved. I drove past the other day, and the building no longer exists. A large apartment building now occupies the site. It looks like those standard late 1960’s to 1970’s type of large apartment buildings so it was probably demolished during that time.
The Empire does indeed still exist, see the Empire’s section for a photo taken yesterday:
/theaters/7294/
Actually, it’s two stores in that photo, one is obscured by the awning of the Meat Market. The meat market is the corner, and the other one story store is right next to it, on the next lot, then the wooden apartments.
That map thing is wrong. 67-05 Fresh Pond is between 67th Ave and 68th Ave (hense the “67-XX” address, indeed further south, and at the elevated tracks, not Metropolitan Ave. 68th Ave is right there at the tracks, so it’s mapquest that is messed up.
The United theater is demolished.
I drove by yesterday, and currently there is a very large building on it’s site. The building appoears to have been built in the 70’s or so.
Right. The first building is the same address as the bus depot, and the TA property.
The first building after the “shack” is the Greenpoint Savings bank building.
I drove by the state theater site yesterday, and it is indeed gone, and a large building on it’s site, just as mentioned above.
Does anyone know of a theater that was located at 882 DeKalb Ave? In some section on this site (forgot where) someone mentioned 882 DeKalb, so it was on my list when I was checking out some of the other theaters in the area. Currently, 882 is a church, but it does have a high theater-like roofline. Any information would be appreciated.
Here’s a photo of 882 DeKalb taken yesterday
Ken, I have the “Old Queens” book that Warren mentions. (not here, so I can’t check now). However, if it’s the photo I am thinking of, it is similar to photo 053 in the Ridgewood section of Queenspix.com
The Century theater building has been demolished at some point. (It can be changed to “closed/demolished” above).
Currently a little store is on the site of 850 Monroe. The theater was right next to the Monroe Theater, which was at 4 Howard Street. The Monroe is also gone, and is the vacant land to the lefy, next to the Century. Curiously, the Bushwick was to the left of the Monroe, right across the street! Three theaters all adjacent to each other!
Click here for a photo of the site.
Notice the vacant lot to the left (the Monroe), and the RKO Bushwick building in the distance to the left of that.
Click here for close-up of the little store
Warren, if you look in my photo above, there is a small space between the “theater site” and the tracks. Currently, a one story building occupies the corner parcel, and houses “Minimart”. A search on the ownership of the building found that the New York CIty Transit Authority owns the little minimart building, suggesting that what you said is absolutely correct. In fact, the minimart building is slightly under the elevated tracks.
The building that is now on the site, although does look “theater-like” was not the same building that housed the Whitney theater. The Whitney is just out of view in this photo (linked below) in a timesnwesweekly article that lostmemory sent me a few weeks ago. The building is different, but is indeed in the same location (note the “elevated tracks” were on the ground until 1914, but the tracks are just in the foreground).
View link
By the way Warren, I have updates on the Century and United Theater sites that you had asked for in their sections (you submitted those theaters), check there later when I post the info. I figured I’d tell you to check here, because you never posted in the Century section, and wouldn’t get a “someone just posted email”.
Below is a link to a current photo of the Whitney site. The corner building is Minimart, and is sort of under the el structure.
The current 67-03 and 67-05 were built as one structure, and I assume the the Whitney also took up both properties.
Interestingly, if I hadn’t heard that the Whitney was demolished (is that accurate, or was it just “closed in 1926?”, I would have assumed the building was a theater. This building always fascinated me since I was a kid. It is “theater-like”, but I guess it was actually built for a bank.
Click here for Photo
The Acme building is in neglected shape. After the Victoria House Caterers left, the building has not been all that well maintained, at least on the exterior.
The building is currently for lease. Hopefully once a new tenant is found, it will be cleaned up.
Here’s a photo of the Acme taken today. Sorry, that it’s not the best angle or photos, but the traffic around the site was horrible. There was no place to park, and trucks double-parked everywhere, and cars everywhere. After being disgusted from circling by the theater four times, I finally decided to just snap the photo out the window of my car, and be done with it.
CLick here for Photo 1
Click here for Photo 2
The Belvedere is in great shape, and is a church. The church has maintained it beautifully.
Here is a current photo of the Belvedere taken today:
Click here for photo
Click here for closeup of “Belvedere” sign still on the building