Loew's Valencia Theatre
165-11 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
165-11 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
36 people
favorited this theater
Showing 326 - 350 of 480 comments
1954 Lucy & Desi in “Long Long Trailer"
View link
The Valencia was playing Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth in “You Were Never Lovelier” in Jan of 1943. Note at the top of the Loew’s ad that wartime shortages of gasoline made them proclaim “There are Bus, Trolley, Subway or El Lines serving all Loew’s theatres”.
View link
Actually, smoking policies varied greatly acorss the nation, since the Constitution did not give such authority to the Fed. government, and the state governments regarded that as a local concern, so that was a matter left in the hands of local municipalities. Prior to the disastrous fire of 1904 in the notorious IRIQUOIS theatre in Chicago, smoking policy was usually up to the theatre management, but after that well-publicized event, many authorities enacted smoking restrictions on many places of public assembly, even though that fire was not caused by smoking materials. Here in Milwaukee, for example, local ordinance forbade it, but neighboring cities did not. Pity more did not, for if they had, we may have had fewer people with continual lung problems that we all now pay for in some disability taxes. Of course, merely having a law against it doesn’t help if there are no ushers to enforce it, hence the fire in the RIVERSIDE theatre in Milwaukee in 1966 when a patron tossed a cigarette upon the stage, igniting the screen and draperies. Thank goodness they had installed automatic sprinklers back stage, for they saved the building until the firemen arrived.
There were ash tray’s on the backs of some seats in the balcony at The Loew’s Paradise.
I can just imagine the projection cutting through the smoke. I believe that many of the theaters had the smoking section in the balcony.
Warren, no wonder you “hate” the “desecration” of the valencia….I didn’t know you worked there at one time!
this movie house was the pride of queens .it looked better inside than half of the movies on broadway.some of the movies i saw there were one thousand and one nights,the great john l,samson and delilah,battle ground,red river, the tender trap and yolanda and the theif also kismet. with the following stars cornell wilde, doug mcclure,victor mature hedy lamar van johnson, john wayne,frank sinatra, debbie reynolds, fred astaire,and howard keel and victor damone
Bway, I like your implicit naming of the ex-Valencia’s current interior color scheme : puke camouflage !
Yes, the color scheme is dreadful, but at the building is well maintained, and it’s obvious the church is proud of their building. It certainly could be worse, and it’s definitely still restorable.
Yes, paint is only paint, and the interior still survives. It could be worse. Think of the former RKO Madison in Ridgewood (# 4621 on this site).
Yeah, I do agree, the colors are gaudy, if that’s even the word for it. I think poor John Eberson would probably fall over in his own puke if he was to walk into the theater, but then again, you may not notice the mess he made, as it would blend right in with the colors on the walls…
But then again, at least it’s being maintained….it could be worse, just think of the condition of the Keith’s and others…..at least the Valencia survives….and paint is just that, paint. The plaster is and ornamentation is all intact.
The theater looks to be in beautiful condition, and extremely well kept – even if the colors are sort of gaudy now….
Here are a few pics I took when viewing the interior in 2003
View link
View link
View link
View link
View link
The Lewis tour was done by bus, and I believe they had a police escort for certain parts of the tour. As far as lunch, they had time set aside on the schedule for meals.
Other tours of that period include Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis in full make-up for MUNSTER, GO HOME. And Adam West with Burt Ward in costume for BATMAN.
Showmanship was alive and well at that time. Those were the days!
If you’ve seen RobertR’s photobucket scan of a newspaper ad for Lewis' Bellboy tour… doesn’t it make you wonder if Lewis made it exactly on time to all of his scheduled appearances? How long were these appearances, exactly? Can you imagine trying to keep such a hectic schedule running around the Loew’s circuit having to deal with NYC traffic? I think the ad has Lewis going from the Kings or Oriental in Brooklyn to the Valencia in something like 45 minutes, mid-afternoon! Maybe it was Saturday? Still… that’s cutting it close if you ask me. And where’d he fit in lunch?
I saw a similar ad in RobertR’s collection for the Dave Clark Five who made the rounds on the RKO circuit just a few years later for their film “Catch Us If You Can.” The timing for their slate of appearances was on a par with Lewis' schedule and I have to wonder if they merely appeared to wave their hands and say “hello” to the crowd… surely they couldn’t have set up to play a song or two at each appearance! Anyway… they appeared across the street from the Valencia at the RKO Alden as part of the promotion.
These days, it seems, personal appearances are limited book signings at Barnes and Nobles or the odd CD-signing by an up and coming recording artist. There doesn’t appear to be any sort of “showmanship” left to the art of motion picture marketing.
Jerry Lewis has 35mm color footage of that tour, and some of it appears on the new DVD of “The Bellboy.”
You find the craziest stuff! That’s wild though. quite cool.
On a similar note, I have an old record with a recording of Christmas Carols on the Manhattan Paramount’s organ. I always loved that recording since I was a kid, and my father played it at Christmas. I still have the record, but don’t have a record player anymore, so haven’t heard it in quite some years.
BTW, does the Valencia’s organ still searve the church? Or was it taken out before the conversion from theater to church. IINM, the church that uses Loews 176th St in Manhattan still uses the original organ.
As a teen ager during the 1950’s two or three of my friends and I would get together on Friday nights (Saturday was date night) and go down to Jamaica to see what was playing. Each week one of us would have the choice of selecting what picture to see. On warm summer evenings it was difficult to pass the Valencia without being pulled in by the blast of cold air as you passed by. The front doors were always opened to let that cold air help you decide where to go. There always were lined to get into the theatre and then again to get a seat. We’d usually go to the balcony. One night while “Kiss Me Kate” was playing in 3-D, some wags had taken their 3-D glasses and put them on the heads of a number of the statues that were part of the theatre’s decor.
I worked at the Carlton, a “nabe” only a few blocks away, but a world away in stature. A school mate of mine worked at the Valencia and for some reason like to swap Valencia passes for Carlton passes.
I never figured it out, but didn'nt complain.
The metal halide lights I mentioned above were used quite successfully in the former STANLEY in Jersey City, NJ when it was converted to an Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The blue sky was painted over in white to best reflect white halide up-lights hidden behind the building facades along the horizon line, but when they give tours, dozens of such lights in BLUE are turned on as the white ones are turned off, and with the stars, the effect is quite convincing. Pity the VALENCIA could not have been treated in much the same way. We must acknowledge the efforts of the Witnesses in preserving so much of that and other theatres which they have converted. And at the STANLEY and at many of their other such conversions, they give free tours —and with free refreshments!
I agree, if it was still a theater, the chandelier would be a horrible addition, but we must remember, that it’s not a theater anymore, it’s a church. And the building has to be functional for it’s current use. Whereas as a movie theater, the place was meant to be dark, as a church, it has to be lit up.
Instead of being upset with the chandelier, we must be VERY thankful that the Valencia DID get a church to fill it’s walls. Think of all the other theaters that we could only hope a huge gaudy chandelier was the biggest problem. Think of the Keiths in Flushing, or the spectacular RKO Madison in Ridgewood, and I could go on infinitely with this list. I only wish the least of all the gutted theaters was a gaudy chandelier.
It’s too bad the Valencia no longer shows movies anymore. But it has to be remember, that out of all the after-theater uses a theater can get that “can’t” be a theater anymore, a church is the least destructive to the integrity of the building. Sure, the Valencia is now painted gaudy colors, has a huge chandelier hanging from it’s ceiling, and has an altar and a cross hanging where there “should” be a movie sceeen. However, the building is being maintained, and for the most part, all of it’s ornamentation is still there in all it’s glory (although I heard they covered things like the naked cherobs). I think other theaters like the Keith’s only wishes the least of it’s problems was a chandelier hanging from the clouds.
Opps: “humnals” above, are, of course, ‘hymnals.’
Indeed the atmosphere was ruined by the “gaudy”! chandelier hung from the stars and clouds (‘atmospheric’) ceiling, but we must not be harsh in condemning this attempt to get more light to those trying to read their humnals or count their donations in the seats below. True, I recommended in a previous post that at least they could have painted an angel upon the ceiling with his arm outstretched as though holding up the chandelier, but we must be thankful that “Rev. Ike” did not also have the midnight blue ceiling painted white to reflect the meager light from the chandelier. Really, if light is what he wanted, he would have been better off to insert black-liner, recessed metal halide lamps into the dark ceiling; these down-lights would have projected far more lumens to those needing them, without doing much damage to the vista of the ‘sky’. Still, should the church decide to leave the place, it could be returned to theatre use without too much money, if the churches changes have been as meager as claimed. Let us hope.
Christmas of 1961 the Valencia and other Loew’s were showing “Exodus"
View link
Ah, memories good and bad. I traveled from Glendale, sometimes on the B53 bus, to see movies at the Valencia. My graduation from Richmond Hill High School occurred there in 1966, and I recall whispering to my Dad as I marched down the aisle that he had to run over to the Gertz parking lot to drop some money in their meters because I was sure I was running low.
Later, waiting for the B53, years later, just a few years before it closed for good as a movie, I was surrounded, a la Bernhard Goetz, but several youth with sharpened screwdrivers. But I was lucky. I kept jiving with the youth until a police car passed. I sidestepped, ran into the street, got their attention, the dear old B53 came and while the cops pinned “da youts” to the wall of the Valencia, I rode off. One “yout” got free and gave chase for a bit but gave up.
And so I lived and remember the lovely gold fish and darkened outline of buildings and stars with a big screen in the middle!
A marquee shot
http://www.agilitynut.com/p/tab204.jpg