RKO Bushwick Theatre
1396 Broadway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
1396 Broadway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 301 - 325 of 418 comments
Well, Bway & PKoch, thank you both kindly for your responses to my postings from across the continent, “the left coast.” I, too, will be informing some dedicated film buffs on both coasts about this site so they can also enjoy this forum.
Tried to post a number of times today, but could hardly bring up anything at all. The one I finally got in for the Peerless was DOUBLE posted. Does this kind of stuff happen often here? Hope not, because I have a ton of theaters from NY to LaLaLand to post about. Ha! My PC committed suicide by electrocution several years ago, so I’m forced to use the ones at a local public library. The filter they use won’t allow me to access the RKO Albee! $%#@!?#…
To stay O/T, let me say that I really appreciated the overhead pic of the Bushwick’s interior that someone posted a year or two ago. Whoa – almost got a nosebleed. We can all collect flight pay, huh?
Thanks, Bway, for recounting some of our cyber-interaction history.
Ooops, I meant 2004, not 2003.
Brooklyn Jim, thanks so much for your comments on the Bushwick Theater. I have to say that the Bushwick theater is actually THE theater that made me find this site back in 2003, so the RKO Bushwick is actually to blame. While it was actually the RKO Keith’s Richmond Hill Theater that got me somewhat interested in theaters when I was a kid (going to it long after it closed to movies, but as a flea market in it’s diamond in the rough condition), it was actually the Bushwick that made me find this site. I was always interested in the deteriorating, and in shambles theater passing on J trains on the el, and one day did a google search for the theater, and that search found this page and this site. I soon brought PKoch over too, as he and I used to exchange emails about theaters, Ridgewood, and other things, and knew he would enjoy this site too. So there you are. This theater brought both PKoch and I to this site….and I guess all of you are stuck with us, haha… You can blame the RKO Bushwick!!
I remember “House on Haunted Hill” at the Bushwick. I also recall the skeleton being pelted with paper clips and candy as it floated across the theater, (surely it was self-defense).
Thanks, BrooklynJim. My pleasure !
I, too, attended parochial school : St. Brigid’s in Ridgewood.
Punishment poll ? Let’s see those cards; hold ‘em high !
Thumbs up ? Mercy. Thumbs down ? No mercy.
Castle only ever filmed the “no mercy” ending.
Haven’t seen “Matinee” yet.
The first time I saw a first-run Castle film was summer 1965 at the RKO Madison : “I Saw What You Did”(and I know who you are !)
Cinemaphiles obviously abound on this site. Less than 20 minutes after I posted, PKoch adds a marvelous reply, the second one I’ve received today.
Nope, never got to see “Mr. Sardonicus,” although that punishment poll seems all too reminiscent of my parochial school days. And you remember very well the names of those special effects employed by the purveyors of shlock.
The Castle & Co. gimmicks spawned a nostalgic little flick about a dozen or so years ago: “Matinee” with John Goodman. Don’t think it’s on DVD yet (I have a VHS copy), but it deserves to be.
Thanks for posting your memories here, BrooklynJim. “The number 15 train” is a reference to the old BMT route numbering system. I know those William Castle-directed “gimmick” films very well, although I experienced them at Film Forum in lower Manhattan, rather than at the RKO Bushwick, Madison or Ridgewood Theater in their original release.
Stephen King and his kid pals referred to “Macabre” as “McBare”. As a kid, I mispronounced it as “MAC-A-BREE”. “The Tingler”’s gimmick was “spine-tingling Percepto”, “House on Haunted Hill” was “bone-chilling Emergo”, and the glowing plastic skeleton was on the left side of the Film Forum screen.
Did you see “Mr. Sardonicus” with its “punishment poll” ?
I can almost feel your loss of a molar to Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy ! Ouch ! I remember the TV commercials for it in the early ‘60’s.
I, too, am pleased to see the Bushwick survive, albeit as a school instead of a theater.
Having just posted about the old Peerless Theater at 433 Myrtle Ave., I’ve read with keen interest your memories and photos of the RKO Bushwick. On a recent trip earlier this year, I passed by on the J train train and saw how good the renovations looked.
Back in ‘58-'60, I used to take the number 15 train from East New York to the Gates Ave. station. The going rate for a movie was now 60 cents, 3 times that of the Peerless! But as the Bushwick was a classy place with a very long history, promotion and gimmick guys had a field day: outside the theater when “Macabre” ran, there was a parked ambulance and we had to sign a waiver freeing the moviemakers and theater from all liability if we suffered heart attacks; Vincent Price reeled in the skeleton from the left balcony in “House on Haunted Hill” ('59); and I was actually “tingled” by “The Tingler!” I also lost a blasted molar from a bar of Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy on some other non-memorable occasion.
I’m very pleased to see this distinctive edifice survive into the 21st century!
Yes Peter, that’s it!
OK, Bway, thanks. That’s what I thought you meant. Overall, Queens housing is newer than Brooklyn housing, and Ridgewood seems to be transitional between the two housing types.
I don’t know what it is, but the housing in Ridgewood seems more “Brooklyn-like” than Queens like. I always think of Queens as looking “newer” (think Middle Village, Glendale, upper Queens, etc). Ridgewood has more of a “Brooklyn” look to me, I guess because of the timeframe when the buildings were built. I mean it as a compliment by the way, not a citicism. I like Brooklyn’s housing stock much better than that of Queens (in general of course).
Bway, I think I know what you mean about Brooklyn and Queens feel of housing, but please elaborate.
I’ve seen those beautiful, high brownstone-stooped, two and three-story, three-window bay front, brick houses in Bushwick and Bay Ridge, to name two Brooklyn neighborhoods, as well as Ridgewood, albeit not always made of “Ridgewood” orange and yellow Kreischer brick.
Yes, it was the zip code that was Brooklyn, even though in Queens (this goes for Glendale too). The Brooklyn-Queens border was slightly changed also, but not that far. They took what was a straight line border running right through the middle of blocks (and homes/porperty for that matter), and zig-zagged it down streets instead, as to not have half a house (or block) in Brooklyn, and another half in Queens. This was before the Madison Theater (or Ridgewood Theater) were built, so it wouldn’t have affected their “Queens Status”. Then for years afterwards, as PKoch has mentioned, Ridgewood while in Queens, was served out of the Brooklyn post office until 1980 for some strange reason.
I think the real reason for the advertising both the Ridgewood and the Madison in Brooklyn was a marketing plus for some reason, so that’s why they did it. The border is close enough, that it would be able to be done, and truthfully, even though Ridgewood is Queens, it has more of a Brooklyn feel than a Queens feel in it’s housing stock in general.
EdSolero, it’s also that Ridgewood and Glendale, though in the borough and county of Queens, were for many years, until January 1980, in the 11227 postal zone, which was part of the Brooklyn post office.
PKoch… I think this occurs with Ridgewood because I believe that once upon a time the neighborhood was in fact located in Brooklyn before the county border was officially changed. This occured sometime in the 20th century, so maybe this was a nod to some residual association of Ridgewood with Kings County.
Hey, Robert R: I know this is 2 years after your comment, but I couldn’t resist ! If that double bill of Gypsy and Music Man was in 1967, I took my 2 kid sisters to see it at the RKO Prospect in Park Slope (now a supermarket – sob !) when I was on leave from the Army.
Ridgewood seems to be the only neighborhood that this Brooklyn-Queens border error is seen in. I’ve never seen it, for example, in Cypress Hills adjacent to Woodhaven.
Age old controversy…..Interesting how RKO promoted the RKO Madison (in the same ad) as being in Brooklyn, when it is, and always was in Queens!!
Bway :
It’s like Jay Leno said, they’re not movie theaters any more, they’re concrete bunkers at the end of the shopping malls !
Warren :
I love New York, especially in the evening !
Both probably. He must have done it all day, at various times when the movies began at the various theaters. Apparently, Jerry Lewis got around promoting this film….as I noticed Bob’s post in a few theaters mentioning this.
My father remembers these sort of appearances well at the RKO Madison Theater. He said stars often came to that theater. I am sure that the RKO Bushwick, like the Madison was one of the showcase theaters where these sort of events took place.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the stars still did this nowadays. But then again, it’s not as glamorous going into the nondescript multiplexes as it was entering these old showcase theaters.
Which one ? RKO Bushwick or RKo Madison ?
To promote his new film “The Ladies Man,” Jerry Lewis appeared on stage at this theater on July 13, 1961.
Yeah, sorry. I don’t think I am doing it right. I’ll try again.
Bill, there’s no link or photo in your post. Please repost the link to the photo, as I am sure we would all love to see it!