Color me flabbergasted! How many times I’ve passed by on Fresh Pond Road and even seen the upper building as evidenced in Bway’s May ‘05 photo and never dreamed that a theater had been there in the early 1900s??? Dang, my old bank at that location is gone, Niederstein’s in Middle Village is recently gone, the diner at Metropolitan Ave. is gone, the Oasis and Madison are gone, the wooden gate and Q cars of the el are gone…
pausing momentarily to dry my eye
BUT Nagengast’s Hardware is still there!!! Located diagonally across from the bank (and the old Whitney), away from the station, it has the feel of those oldtime hardware shops, so totally unlike Home Depot. The gent who runs it comes from a long line of relatives who also ran it. He’s an affable guy with a ton of Ridgewood history stored up in his mental vaults. (He filled me in last March as to what exact building on Fresh Pond and what time it was going to be blown up by the producers of “The Sopranos” for an upcoming episode.) If anyone drops in and asks him something, he’ll tell you what he knows. Neat guy. A real life local reference source…
This was one of San Diego’s finest venues. That neon shot posted by Lost Memory is worthy of San Diego’s being a bedroom community to Tinsel Town 125 miles north.
I was only a patron twice, once for a fairly memorable Speilberg movie, “E.T.” in ‘82, and the other for a not-so-memorable one in 1980, “The Blue Lagoon.”
I’m impressed that Bookstar had and still has the vision of the Loma’s eventual restoration. Sadly, that day may never come. In my 28 years here, I’ve seen this city slide into a severe no-culture zone. There are small exceptions, but overall, it’s all ancient history to the powers-that-be and to many current residents.
DanW, I’m aware that this is the downtown Roxy, but was refering to Chuck 1231’s comments back in May ‘05 about the one in PB. If you know that it has a CT site of its own (as it damn well should) could you please post the link here? Much appreciated!
Hey, Lost Memory! Fancy meeting you here in Baltimore!
A more panoramic shot of same “Joan of Arc” photo of the Walbrook is printed in Herbert H. Harwood, Jr.’s book, “Baltimore and its Streetcars” (1984, Quadrant Press, NY). The movie was out in 1948, but here it is in January 1951 re-release.
Two other theaters for which I did not find separate entries have photos in the same book:
1) Keith’s at Lexington & Park. Marquee shows “Red Hot and Blue” with Betty Hutton and Victor Mature in Nov. 1949.
2) Linden on Linden Ave. Sept. 1949. This time it’s “Red River” with the Duke, Montgomery Clift and Walter (“Old Rivers”) Brennan.
I don’t have the technical capability to scan and post, so I’m hoping someone in Baltimore (or anywhere else, for that matter) can track down this softcover book at a local library and add the photos to their respective sites. Thx & good luck!
The Jeffery Theater, on Jeffery Blvd. at the old Bryn Mawr (now 71st St.) station is way off my beaten path – between the “right” and “left” coasts, but I just received a comp copy of the Lake Shore Historical Society’s “First and Fastest” magazine and had to share this info with you.
If any of you Chicagoans and/or midwesterners have access to the Summer 2006 copy of F&F, you’ll spot a dynamic B&W pic of the Jeffery in 1939. The marquee shows that “The Sun Never Sets” (with Barrymore, Rathbone & Atwill) was playing at the time. Good shot of the theater’s water tower, too, and more. I have no capability to scan and post, so I’m dropping the ball in your laps. Good luck!
I remember the Cass St. Roxy in Pacific Beach. It should have its own entry on Cinema Treasures.
It was the first theater I encountered when I moved here in 1978. What was most memorable about this old beach theater was the 4 colorful murals that adorned the north side wall: W.C. Fields, Marilyn Monroe, and two others. I have a photo of it from about 1980, prior to demoltion, that I’ll try to post once I find it, unless someone puts up a link before then…
In 1969-‘70, we only knew this theater as the Austin up on Lefferts Blvd. My first fiancee and I were repeat customers many times during this timeframe. Since we were without cars then, we’d walk up from the BMT el on Jamaica Avenue to the Austin, perched atop a fairly steep hill. (Rough to climb in those windy winter months!)
The movie programs were varied and good, and the admission prices were always reasonable in those days. Saw a ton of movies there, including Liza Minelli’s “Sterile Cuckoo,” the re-release of Gable’s “Gone With the Wind” (1939!) and the first run of George C. Scott’s “Patton.” Brilliant!
The only downer is that Antonina had her wallet stolen out of her purse by one slick dude who was sitting behind her in the balcony one evening. (Dick Tracy Crimestopper tips in the Daily News always warned her about thievery like this, but she was one careless gal. Oh, well. So sad, too bad…)
The Austin is one local neighborhood theater I miss a lot and will will have to check out the Kew Gardens Cinema next trip back to NY.
Another good film I was pleased to view at the Midway in 1970 was the Jack Nicholson-Karen Black vehicle, “Five Easy Pieces.” Debbie and I watched it from the Midway’s comfy balcony one very chilly May evening. It was quite intense, viewing-wise, and I later discovered that many people who’d seen it had hated it. I thought, who could ever hate tortured musical rebel Bobby DuPuis and his thoroughly dysfunctional family? The plot was considerably offbeat, and I thought the acting was pretty darn good overall.
Most people seem to remember the one classic scene in the diner. Yep, the chicken salad sandwich order, Bobby with an attitude, the snotty waitress and the two rough-talking but amusing hitchhiking lesbians were certainly the stuff of Hollywood legends. But equally memorable is the scene in which he wheels his mute and Alzheimer’s-afflicted dad onto an open area overlooking a cliff one frigid morning in the Pacific northwest and tries to communicate with him. Touching and brilliant. So was the closing scene at the gas station just before the credits began to roll.
For years. to no avail, I tried to obtain the soundtrack (which played extremely well over the Midway’s sound system) in LP, cassette or CD format. Fruitless. Epic Records really did one crappy job marketing and distributing one, if it even existed. I wanted it as much for the classical pieces as well as for the Tammy Wynette “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”-type material. Well, it did acctually exist and I managed to snag a mint LP copy for two bucks last year at Ray & Sharon Courts' Hollywood Collectors Show at the Beverly Garland Hotel in North Hollywood. (It had been held there four times a year for ages, but has since switched over to a hotel at LAX. Ray claimed that Garland adamantly refused to upgrade her hotel’s decrepit air-conditioning system True! www.hollywoodcollectorsshow.com for anyone who may wish to attend. The shows are held in LA, Chicago and NY, and perhaps in even more cities now. Seeing and meeting many older actors such as John Agar, Larry Storch, Linda Blair, etc. is a total hoot!)
NUTS! Add “Cannot Find Server” to my aforementioned list as the latest loser of submitted posts. Just lost another one! Caramba y mierda del toro! All of us pride ourselves on taking the time to craft our little essays to be as entertaining and as informative as possible, only to have ‘em gobbled up into some black hole somewhere in Cyberspace. I tell ya, Peter, this site has more ups & downs than a hooker on El Cajon Blvd. on a Saturday night! It is in dire need of some fixing. Mebbe it grew too fast and outgrew its software and hardware capabilities?
Back to the ‘66 transit strike…your grandfather and my dad were two of the stubborn stalwarts by walking, and it may be what caused my dad to go out on disability later that year. The strike lasted for three weeks, through an early snowstorm and then the milder weather you recall. (January can often show its Janus-based faces, huh?) I remember getting a lift out to college classes at SJU, and also being a music nut, absolutely had to get the Hollies’ “Look Through Any Window” on Imperial. Great song and got it at Triboro Records on 165th St., right up the block from the Chock Full o' Nuts shop you cited regarding you and your dad. See? It all ties in. LOL!
Just as a fun P.S., folks always referred to Greg & me as the “M&M Kids.” He was Movies, I was Music – but then he also loved Music and I loved Movies. So there ya have it. Dual passions of a good life between a father and a son. Happy Father’s Day!
Nah, it wasn’t, OldMariner. Lovethoseoldtheaters and I would both quickly add the Arion to the category of dump theaters. Unlike the many films I’d watched at the Peerless of my ‘50s youth, and that was a Class Z dive (“The Itch,” according to my dad), I’d experienced only a few movies at the Arion in Middle Village in the middle '70s.
The Arion could have been a really good neighborhood outlet, and perhaps in its younger days it did serve a good purpose for the kiddies, but what can one say after MV goes and loses the landmark Niederstein’s Restaurant to a blasted fast food corporation, too? Where have the oldtime business values gone?
Once a grand theater, loaded with history, it kind of hurts to see how it ended and what’s there now, with a complimentary nod to Bobs for the current photo he posted back in ‘05.
Was there only once with my movie-addicted fiancee. We’d never been to a midnight triple bill, so off we went to Archie Bunker country and to the Astoria Theater to see:
“Earthquake” (dumb!)
“The Towering Inferno” (dumber!)
“Invasion of the Blood Farmers” (more dumberer of ‘em all, Goober!)
I kid you not about that last one. Made in ‘72 by rank kindegartners with a couple of bucks, it must go down into history as one of the all-time stink-o wretched bombs. Victims were hooked up to blood-transfer machines and faked the violent throes of orgasm as they were drained. So laughable it was sad! We’re halfway through it when the vampire character is asked if he wanted a drink at this guy’s house. Before he answers, I say loudly in a Pottsylvanian-type accent, “I would like a Bloody Mary.” Immediately the actor on screen sez the EXACT same line in the EXACT same accent! Then a guy midway down the aisle turns around and asks me menacingly, “You have something to do with this P.O.S.? You write this crap?”
I was totally stunned. I stopped laughing long enough to counter, “Not me, pal. Just a wild and lucky guess.”
That shut him up for the moment, but not wanting any trouble over one of the world’s worst flicks, I decided not to be my usual wisecracking self and to keep my lip zipped. And we never got to see how it ended. Didn’t wanna know, it was that bad.
Although we eventually divorced in ‘91, we had to keep in touch for the sake of the kids. A year ago, I spotted a DVD of “Blood Farmers” and considered getting it for my ex for Christmas or her birthday. But then, I decided I didn’t really hate her all THAT much.
Tough ol' Irishman that he was, Quill used to refer to the newly-elected mayor as “Lindsley” just to tick him off. It worked, too! Hizzoner never had a clue how to work with any of the unions.
SteveD, really glad ya liked those oldtime pix!
On a side note, an unhappy side note, I’ve gotta add here and now that I may not decide to “live” on the CT site. Its goals are lofty, but it keeps crashing, a huge disservice to the many hundreds of guests and a ton of diehard regulars. I couldn’t even log on this morning, let alone find a theater. How often does this happen? I’ve seen way too much of it during my short time here:
“Theater Guide"
"Page Not Found
"Use Our Search Engine"
"Oops. We couldn’t locate your theater.”
Helige Schiese! Does it EVER work??? Color me frustrated and disenchanted, not to mention pissed off…
So, for all you (former) Ridgewoodites who are old enough to have schlepped around to school and jobs in the Q-Car era (‘58-'69) of the Myrtle el when tokens, not MetroCards, cost 15-cents* a ride, this URL is for you. I posted it a few days ago on the Peerless site, but that doesn’t get anywhere near the traffic that Ridgewood theaters do.
Photog Michael Littman posted some 50 or so B&W pix covering the Bridge-Jay St., Navy St., and Vanderbilt Ave. stations up to Bway-Myrtle where service ended 10/69. Some are artsy, others evocative. Hope ya enjoy going back to a bygone era!
*Transit Union boss Mike Quill did get the city to raise it a nickel in the summer of ‘66. I remember it had cost me 30 cents for the double fare zone into Far Rockaway, but 40 cents to come home. I was not a happy beachgoer.
Those super cockroaches can pass as doormen for that kind of rent. San Diego as a playground for the very wealthy is not much different these days, but minus the big bugs on steroids. We save that kind of stuff for pro baseball.
My memories of the seedy Drake Theater are not favorable at all. In the late ‘60s, they ran a number of foreign softcore X films, mostly in B&W. I watched a few out of curiosity, but they were pretty bad, especially when the moviemakers tried to throw in some redeeming social value. There was even one (“491” or something like that) with a Biblical connection! I’d seen other non-erotic films there, but upon leaving the Drake, I always felt that I needed to shower, and real fast!
Earlier today, I posted on the State 4 site about viewing “The Godfather” in ‘72 and seeing some scenes filmed the previous year. I was unaware that the original site had been demolished in the late '80s and that a quad had been erected in its place. (EdSolero was kind enough to point that out, and I’m sure this new one does not have that ornate crystal chandelier overhanging the lobby foyer!)
Two comments on the movie. When Kay and Michael exited Radio City Music Hall, they spotted the newspaper headlining his father’s attempted rubout. When he went to phone Sonny from a booth, a small but somewhat significant detail caught my eye. The phone cord was coiled metal, ‘70s-style. Someone must have mentioned that to Coppola the Perfectionist, and he got it fixed, probably via computer graphics. By the time the video was available years later, the cord was now a solid cloth type, '40s style. The magic of movies!
Another magic of the movies involves a fascinating piece of basic human nature. Virtually every character in the movie was a dirtbag, devoid of any redeeming social values (but they did love their families!). So what happens? We end up rooting for the Corleone family as they destroy all the enemies to their family business. The least of many evils, eh?
Yep, Shep’s short stories provided the impetus for the film, Jeffrey1955.
Some of my posts, like this one, only incidentally relate to a specific theater. This was my one and only experience at the Elmwood, off the beaten path for me as I moved to CA in ‘78, but I do recall its severe lack of heating during the late '83 cold snap. Took about a third of the movie for my feet to regain some semblance of feeling! BklynJim became FrostbiteJim.
Two items on Jean you may or may not know. One, he did a cameo in this. Late in the movie when Ralphie returns to the department store to see Santa, he and his brother get on line. A gent in a black overcoat, a fedora and a mustache w/goatee firmly intones, “Hey, kid! The line ends back there!” Listen to the voice – that’s Shep.
The second is why in his writings he always referred to his beloved hometown of Hammond, Indiana, “Hohman.” Just learned myself that Hohman was the name of a popular movie theater in Hammond! LOL!
I used a buddy’s addy to log on to this wonderful site. The poor guy just found some 20 CT messages telling him that someone had responded to my posts. After I stopped laughing, I told him it was A-OK to delete ‘em wholesale.
I’ll have access to a relative’s e-addy when I return to Brooklyn later this year. We’ll make contact then. Thx!!!
LMAO – Debbie was the 1963 incarnation of Doris Day!
You certainly nailed the Chambers St. station. I had that one in mind. There’s another in lower Manhattan – I’ll have to check a transit map somewhere near Canal St. or so – where you connect with the line you want by passing through an old abandoned IRT station platform. If you wait for a train there, you’ll die waiting. This one pops up occassionally in my “NY Nightmares Department.”
Speaking of Canal St., I was returning from a late date (4-5 A.M.) in my single days, only to encounter a rat almost the size of a cat at the end of the corridor. I made a lound sound by jumping (with boots on), and the rat turned and skittered down a round drain pipe at the base of the wall. Today’s rats are totally unintimidated by the comings and goings of those underground metal behemoths. Watched them with a curious eye a few months ago at Penn Station/34th St. of the IND A train. They fear no one at all. Willard and Ben live!
Loew’s State had a great rep for their NYC premieres and for showing top first-run movies. It was glitzy and ritzy. Who could ever forget that crystal chandelier? I remember attending the opening of Brando’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” in ‘62. A decade later, the same actor had morphed explosively into a cunning Mafia don.
In the spring of ‘71, I was working for a former ambassador, a relic of the Eisenhower administration. His offices were high up in Rockefeller’s International Building, and from there I could see a movie crew at work. During lunch hour, I headed over to 5th Avenue between 51st and 52nd St. The street was closed off. There was a snow blowing machine hard at work and a bunch of colorful 1940s-style taxicabs. Best & Co., a store that had been closed for a year, had its 5th Ave. windows stocked with Christmas goods. Two young actors, who turned out to be Al Pacino and Diane Keaton, were doing their Christmas shopping in that scene.
A few days later, I watched the pair film a nighttime scene outside Radio City Music Hall where Kay and Michael spotted the headlines that Don Vito had been gunned down and he called Sonny at the mall on Long Island.
All this activity in midtown and Little Italy in lower Manhattan produced a groundswell of interest for “The Godfather.” Puzo’s book sold copies numbering in the stratosphere.
Finally, in the late spring of ‘72, it opened at the State. My boss surprisingly gave the entire staff their choice of a morning or an afternoon off to see the movie! Whattaguy!
The time was late December, 1983. My wife and young son had flown from CA to NY to spend the winter with her parents in Ridgewood. I was able to fly in for a week or so (part business, part pleasure) between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Landed at JFK with the temp at a balmy 51. Nice CA weather. That night, it fell to 4 below and stayed around there for the remainder of my trip. $%#@! NY weather.
One evening, my wife suggested we see a movie. I wanted to see Al Cappuccino in “Scarface” at the Ridgewood, but she wasn’t up for that one, based on the reviews. Too violent. She did notice, however, that Jean Shepherd’s ‘66 novel, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” had been made into “A Christmas Story.” She told me and I was sold. (Shepherd, late of WOR radio and top Playboy humorist, was one of my fave writers, then and now.) Taking my youngest sister-in-law with us, off we went by bus in frigid weather to the Elmwood.
Loved the movie, thought it was a tour-de-force hoot. So did my wife. Unfortunately, our sentiments were not shared by her sister. Only when younger brother Randy stuck his face into the mashed potatoes to show his mom how piggies ate did she laugh, but that was it, just that one time. (Shoulda sent her to see “Scarface!”
Later, I was disappointed that “A Christmas Story” hadn’t caught on with audiences. It took years and multiple TV viewings. Now it’s a holiday classic. (You know that’s so when a website pops up to tell you every error in continuity, place and dialog within this low-budget flick. Some people get their jollies in strange ways.)
To demonstrate how miniscule the budget was: Kathy Hawkins, a nurse and former neighbor of mine, had a grandfather in Cleveland where the film was shot. He loaned the director a wind-up tank that is given a decent close-up early on when the kids are oogling all the great Christmas stuff in the window of Higbee’s Department Store. For his donation, he and the family received passes to see the movie.
Today, living directly across the street from me, is a pack of dogs that turns on their primitive howling at top volume whenever they hear fire engines nearby. Naturally, my neighbors and I refer to them as…the Bumpus hounds. What else?
Yep. North, it ‘tis. Funny – I always referred to any residental areas as “below.” If Debbie had lived in the park or on the parkway, we would’ve frozen off a few parts of our joint anatomy in February!
The ‘67 color version was downright eerie – grasshoppers that could fly interstellar craft, and then land them in the London tubes. I think I know of a few NYC subway stations that could also creep us all out.
Color me flabbergasted! How many times I’ve passed by on Fresh Pond Road and even seen the upper building as evidenced in Bway’s May ‘05 photo and never dreamed that a theater had been there in the early 1900s??? Dang, my old bank at that location is gone, Niederstein’s in Middle Village is recently gone, the diner at Metropolitan Ave. is gone, the Oasis and Madison are gone, the wooden gate and Q cars of the el are gone…
pausing momentarily to dry my eye
BUT Nagengast’s Hardware is still there!!! Located diagonally across from the bank (and the old Whitney), away from the station, it has the feel of those oldtime hardware shops, so totally unlike Home Depot. The gent who runs it comes from a long line of relatives who also ran it. He’s an affable guy with a ton of Ridgewood history stored up in his mental vaults. (He filled me in last March as to what exact building on Fresh Pond and what time it was going to be blown up by the producers of “The Sopranos” for an upcoming episode.) If anyone drops in and asks him something, he’ll tell you what he knows. Neat guy. A real life local reference source…
This was one of San Diego’s finest venues. That neon shot posted by Lost Memory is worthy of San Diego’s being a bedroom community to Tinsel Town 125 miles north.
I was only a patron twice, once for a fairly memorable Speilberg movie, “E.T.” in ‘82, and the other for a not-so-memorable one in 1980, “The Blue Lagoon.”
I’m impressed that Bookstar had and still has the vision of the Loma’s eventual restoration. Sadly, that day may never come. In my 28 years here, I’ve seen this city slide into a severe no-culture zone. There are small exceptions, but overall, it’s all ancient history to the powers-that-be and to many current residents.
DanW, I’m aware that this is the downtown Roxy, but was refering to Chuck 1231’s comments back in May ‘05 about the one in PB. If you know that it has a CT site of its own (as it damn well should) could you please post the link here? Much appreciated!
Hey, Lost Memory! Fancy meeting you here in Baltimore!
A more panoramic shot of same “Joan of Arc” photo of the Walbrook is printed in Herbert H. Harwood, Jr.’s book, “Baltimore and its Streetcars” (1984, Quadrant Press, NY). The movie was out in 1948, but here it is in January 1951 re-release.
Two other theaters for which I did not find separate entries have photos in the same book:
1) Keith’s at Lexington & Park. Marquee shows “Red Hot and Blue” with Betty Hutton and Victor Mature in Nov. 1949.
2) Linden on Linden Ave. Sept. 1949. This time it’s “Red River” with the Duke, Montgomery Clift and Walter (“Old Rivers”) Brennan.
I don’t have the technical capability to scan and post, so I’m hoping someone in Baltimore (or anywhere else, for that matter) can track down this softcover book at a local library and add the photos to their respective sites. Thx & good luck!
The Jeffery Theater, on Jeffery Blvd. at the old Bryn Mawr (now 71st St.) station is way off my beaten path – between the “right” and “left” coasts, but I just received a comp copy of the Lake Shore Historical Society’s “First and Fastest” magazine and had to share this info with you.
If any of you Chicagoans and/or midwesterners have access to the Summer 2006 copy of F&F, you’ll spot a dynamic B&W pic of the Jeffery in 1939. The marquee shows that “The Sun Never Sets” (with Barrymore, Rathbone & Atwill) was playing at the time. Good shot of the theater’s water tower, too, and more. I have no capability to scan and post, so I’m dropping the ball in your laps. Good luck!
I remember the Cass St. Roxy in Pacific Beach. It should have its own entry on Cinema Treasures.
It was the first theater I encountered when I moved here in 1978. What was most memorable about this old beach theater was the 4 colorful murals that adorned the north side wall: W.C. Fields, Marilyn Monroe, and two others. I have a photo of it from about 1980, prior to demoltion, that I’ll try to post once I find it, unless someone puts up a link before then…
In 1969-‘70, we only knew this theater as the Austin up on Lefferts Blvd. My first fiancee and I were repeat customers many times during this timeframe. Since we were without cars then, we’d walk up from the BMT el on Jamaica Avenue to the Austin, perched atop a fairly steep hill. (Rough to climb in those windy winter months!)
The movie programs were varied and good, and the admission prices were always reasonable in those days. Saw a ton of movies there, including Liza Minelli’s “Sterile Cuckoo,” the re-release of Gable’s “Gone With the Wind” (1939!) and the first run of George C. Scott’s “Patton.” Brilliant!
The only downer is that Antonina had her wallet stolen out of her purse by one slick dude who was sitting behind her in the balcony one evening. (Dick Tracy Crimestopper tips in the Daily News always warned her about thievery like this, but she was one careless gal. Oh, well. So sad, too bad…)
The Austin is one local neighborhood theater I miss a lot and will will have to check out the Kew Gardens Cinema next trip back to NY.
Here’s a NYC transit website you can live in for a bit:
www.subwaywebnews.com
Great archives!
Another good film I was pleased to view at the Midway in 1970 was the Jack Nicholson-Karen Black vehicle, “Five Easy Pieces.” Debbie and I watched it from the Midway’s comfy balcony one very chilly May evening. It was quite intense, viewing-wise, and I later discovered that many people who’d seen it had hated it. I thought, who could ever hate tortured musical rebel Bobby DuPuis and his thoroughly dysfunctional family? The plot was considerably offbeat, and I thought the acting was pretty darn good overall.
Most people seem to remember the one classic scene in the diner. Yep, the chicken salad sandwich order, Bobby with an attitude, the snotty waitress and the two rough-talking but amusing hitchhiking lesbians were certainly the stuff of Hollywood legends. But equally memorable is the scene in which he wheels his mute and Alzheimer’s-afflicted dad onto an open area overlooking a cliff one frigid morning in the Pacific northwest and tries to communicate with him. Touching and brilliant. So was the closing scene at the gas station just before the credits began to roll.
For years. to no avail, I tried to obtain the soundtrack (which played extremely well over the Midway’s sound system) in LP, cassette or CD format. Fruitless. Epic Records really did one crappy job marketing and distributing one, if it even existed. I wanted it as much for the classical pieces as well as for the Tammy Wynette “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”-type material. Well, it did acctually exist and I managed to snag a mint LP copy for two bucks last year at Ray & Sharon Courts' Hollywood Collectors Show at the Beverly Garland Hotel in North Hollywood. (It had been held there four times a year for ages, but has since switched over to a hotel at LAX. Ray claimed that Garland adamantly refused to upgrade her hotel’s decrepit air-conditioning system True! www.hollywoodcollectorsshow.com for anyone who may wish to attend. The shows are held in LA, Chicago and NY, and perhaps in even more cities now. Seeing and meeting many older actors such as John Agar, Larry Storch, Linda Blair, etc. is a total hoot!)
NUTS! Add “Cannot Find Server” to my aforementioned list as the latest loser of submitted posts. Just lost another one! Caramba y mierda del toro! All of us pride ourselves on taking the time to craft our little essays to be as entertaining and as informative as possible, only to have ‘em gobbled up into some black hole somewhere in Cyberspace. I tell ya, Peter, this site has more ups & downs than a hooker on El Cajon Blvd. on a Saturday night! It is in dire need of some fixing. Mebbe it grew too fast and outgrew its software and hardware capabilities?
Back to the ‘66 transit strike…your grandfather and my dad were two of the stubborn stalwarts by walking, and it may be what caused my dad to go out on disability later that year. The strike lasted for three weeks, through an early snowstorm and then the milder weather you recall. (January can often show its Janus-based faces, huh?) I remember getting a lift out to college classes at SJU, and also being a music nut, absolutely had to get the Hollies’ “Look Through Any Window” on Imperial. Great song and got it at Triboro Records on 165th St., right up the block from the Chock Full o' Nuts shop you cited regarding you and your dad. See? It all ties in. LOL!
Just as a fun P.S., folks always referred to Greg & me as the “M&M Kids.” He was Movies, I was Music – but then he also loved Music and I loved Movies. So there ya have it. Dual passions of a good life between a father and a son. Happy Father’s Day!
Nah, it wasn’t, OldMariner. Lovethoseoldtheaters and I would both quickly add the Arion to the category of dump theaters. Unlike the many films I’d watched at the Peerless of my ‘50s youth, and that was a Class Z dive (“The Itch,” according to my dad), I’d experienced only a few movies at the Arion in Middle Village in the middle '70s.
The Arion could have been a really good neighborhood outlet, and perhaps in its younger days it did serve a good purpose for the kiddies, but what can one say after MV goes and loses the landmark Niederstein’s Restaurant to a blasted fast food corporation, too? Where have the oldtime business values gone?
Once a grand theater, loaded with history, it kind of hurts to see how it ended and what’s there now, with a complimentary nod to Bobs for the current photo he posted back in ‘05.
Was there only once with my movie-addicted fiancee. We’d never been to a midnight triple bill, so off we went to Archie Bunker country and to the Astoria Theater to see:
“Earthquake” (dumb!)
“The Towering Inferno” (dumber!)
“Invasion of the Blood Farmers” (more dumberer of ‘em all, Goober!)
I kid you not about that last one. Made in ‘72 by rank kindegartners with a couple of bucks, it must go down into history as one of the all-time stink-o wretched bombs. Victims were hooked up to blood-transfer machines and faked the violent throes of orgasm as they were drained. So laughable it was sad! We’re halfway through it when the vampire character is asked if he wanted a drink at this guy’s house. Before he answers, I say loudly in a Pottsylvanian-type accent, “I would like a Bloody Mary.” Immediately the actor on screen sez the EXACT same line in the EXACT same accent! Then a guy midway down the aisle turns around and asks me menacingly, “You have something to do with this P.O.S.? You write this crap?”
I was totally stunned. I stopped laughing long enough to counter, “Not me, pal. Just a wild and lucky guess.”
That shut him up for the moment, but not wanting any trouble over one of the world’s worst flicks, I decided not to be my usual wisecracking self and to keep my lip zipped. And we never got to see how it ended. Didn’t wanna know, it was that bad.
Although we eventually divorced in ‘91, we had to keep in touch for the sake of the kids. A year ago, I spotted a DVD of “Blood Farmers” and considered getting it for my ex for Christmas or her birthday. But then, I decided I didn’t really hate her all THAT much.
Tough ol' Irishman that he was, Quill used to refer to the newly-elected mayor as “Lindsley” just to tick him off. It worked, too! Hizzoner never had a clue how to work with any of the unions.
SteveD, really glad ya liked those oldtime pix!
On a side note, an unhappy side note, I’ve gotta add here and now that I may not decide to “live” on the CT site. Its goals are lofty, but it keeps crashing, a huge disservice to the many hundreds of guests and a ton of diehard regulars. I couldn’t even log on this morning, let alone find a theater. How often does this happen? I’ve seen way too much of it during my short time here:
“Theater Guide"
"Page Not Found
"Use Our Search Engine"
"Oops. We couldn’t locate your theater.”
Helige Schiese! Does it EVER work??? Color me frustrated and disenchanted, not to mention pissed off…
…And $1500-2K a month over the hill in ENY!
So, for all you (former) Ridgewoodites who are old enough to have schlepped around to school and jobs in the Q-Car era (‘58-'69) of the Myrtle el when tokens, not MetroCards, cost 15-cents* a ride, this URL is for you. I posted it a few days ago on the Peerless site, but that doesn’t get anywhere near the traffic that Ridgewood theaters do.
View link
Photog Michael Littman posted some 50 or so B&W pix covering the Bridge-Jay St., Navy St., and Vanderbilt Ave. stations up to Bway-Myrtle where service ended 10/69. Some are artsy, others evocative. Hope ya enjoy going back to a bygone era!
*Transit Union boss Mike Quill did get the city to raise it a nickel in the summer of ‘66. I remember it had cost me 30 cents for the double fare zone into Far Rockaway, but 40 cents to come home. I was not a happy beachgoer.
Those super cockroaches can pass as doormen for that kind of rent. San Diego as a playground for the very wealthy is not much different these days, but minus the big bugs on steroids. We save that kind of stuff for pro baseball.
My memories of the seedy Drake Theater are not favorable at all. In the late ‘60s, they ran a number of foreign softcore X films, mostly in B&W. I watched a few out of curiosity, but they were pretty bad, especially when the moviemakers tried to throw in some redeeming social value. There was even one (“491” or something like that) with a Biblical connection! I’d seen other non-erotic films there, but upon leaving the Drake, I always felt that I needed to shower, and real fast!
Earlier today, I posted on the State 4 site about viewing “The Godfather” in ‘72 and seeing some scenes filmed the previous year. I was unaware that the original site had been demolished in the late '80s and that a quad had been erected in its place. (EdSolero was kind enough to point that out, and I’m sure this new one does not have that ornate crystal chandelier overhanging the lobby foyer!)
Two comments on the movie. When Kay and Michael exited Radio City Music Hall, they spotted the newspaper headlining his father’s attempted rubout. When he went to phone Sonny from a booth, a small but somewhat significant detail caught my eye. The phone cord was coiled metal, ‘70s-style. Someone must have mentioned that to Coppola the Perfectionist, and he got it fixed, probably via computer graphics. By the time the video was available years later, the cord was now a solid cloth type, '40s style. The magic of movies!
Another magic of the movies involves a fascinating piece of basic human nature. Virtually every character in the movie was a dirtbag, devoid of any redeeming social values (but they did love their families!). So what happens? We end up rooting for the Corleone family as they destroy all the enemies to their family business. The least of many evils, eh?
Yep, Shep’s short stories provided the impetus for the film, Jeffrey1955.
Some of my posts, like this one, only incidentally relate to a specific theater. This was my one and only experience at the Elmwood, off the beaten path for me as I moved to CA in ‘78, but I do recall its severe lack of heating during the late '83 cold snap. Took about a third of the movie for my feet to regain some semblance of feeling! BklynJim became FrostbiteJim.
Two items on Jean you may or may not know. One, he did a cameo in this. Late in the movie when Ralphie returns to the department store to see Santa, he and his brother get on line. A gent in a black overcoat, a fedora and a mustache w/goatee firmly intones, “Hey, kid! The line ends back there!” Listen to the voice – that’s Shep.
The second is why in his writings he always referred to his beloved hometown of Hammond, Indiana, “Hohman.” Just learned myself that Hohman was the name of a popular movie theater in Hammond! LOL!
I used a buddy’s addy to log on to this wonderful site. The poor guy just found some 20 CT messages telling him that someone had responded to my posts. After I stopped laughing, I told him it was A-OK to delete ‘em wholesale.
I’ll have access to a relative’s e-addy when I return to Brooklyn later this year. We’ll make contact then. Thx!!!
LMAO – Debbie was the 1963 incarnation of Doris Day!
You certainly nailed the Chambers St. station. I had that one in mind. There’s another in lower Manhattan – I’ll have to check a transit map somewhere near Canal St. or so – where you connect with the line you want by passing through an old abandoned IRT station platform. If you wait for a train there, you’ll die waiting. This one pops up occassionally in my “NY Nightmares Department.”
Speaking of Canal St., I was returning from a late date (4-5 A.M.) in my single days, only to encounter a rat almost the size of a cat at the end of the corridor. I made a lound sound by jumping (with boots on), and the rat turned and skittered down a round drain pipe at the base of the wall. Today’s rats are totally unintimidated by the comings and goings of those underground metal behemoths. Watched them with a curious eye a few months ago at Penn Station/34th St. of the IND A train. They fear no one at all. Willard and Ben live!
Would love to, Peter, and I thanks ya for the invite. Unfortunately, I don’t currently have access to an e-addy. In time, perhaps…
Loew’s State had a great rep for their NYC premieres and for showing top first-run movies. It was glitzy and ritzy. Who could ever forget that crystal chandelier? I remember attending the opening of Brando’s “Mutiny on the Bounty” in ‘62. A decade later, the same actor had morphed explosively into a cunning Mafia don.
In the spring of ‘71, I was working for a former ambassador, a relic of the Eisenhower administration. His offices were high up in Rockefeller’s International Building, and from there I could see a movie crew at work. During lunch hour, I headed over to 5th Avenue between 51st and 52nd St. The street was closed off. There was a snow blowing machine hard at work and a bunch of colorful 1940s-style taxicabs. Best & Co., a store that had been closed for a year, had its 5th Ave. windows stocked with Christmas goods. Two young actors, who turned out to be Al Pacino and Diane Keaton, were doing their Christmas shopping in that scene.
A few days later, I watched the pair film a nighttime scene outside Radio City Music Hall where Kay and Michael spotted the headlines that Don Vito had been gunned down and he called Sonny at the mall on Long Island.
All this activity in midtown and Little Italy in lower Manhattan produced a groundswell of interest for “The Godfather.” Puzo’s book sold copies numbering in the stratosphere.
Finally, in the late spring of ‘72, it opened at the State. My boss surprisingly gave the entire staff their choice of a morning or an afternoon off to see the movie! Whattaguy!
The time was late December, 1983. My wife and young son had flown from CA to NY to spend the winter with her parents in Ridgewood. I was able to fly in for a week or so (part business, part pleasure) between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Landed at JFK with the temp at a balmy 51. Nice CA weather. That night, it fell to 4 below and stayed around there for the remainder of my trip. $%#@! NY weather.
One evening, my wife suggested we see a movie. I wanted to see Al Cappuccino in “Scarface” at the Ridgewood, but she wasn’t up for that one, based on the reviews. Too violent. She did notice, however, that Jean Shepherd’s ‘66 novel, “In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash,” had been made into “A Christmas Story.” She told me and I was sold. (Shepherd, late of WOR radio and top Playboy humorist, was one of my fave writers, then and now.) Taking my youngest sister-in-law with us, off we went by bus in frigid weather to the Elmwood.
Loved the movie, thought it was a tour-de-force hoot. So did my wife. Unfortunately, our sentiments were not shared by her sister. Only when younger brother Randy stuck his face into the mashed potatoes to show his mom how piggies ate did she laugh, but that was it, just that one time. (Shoulda sent her to see “Scarface!”
Later, I was disappointed that “A Christmas Story” hadn’t caught on with audiences. It took years and multiple TV viewings. Now it’s a holiday classic. (You know that’s so when a website pops up to tell you every error in continuity, place and dialog within this low-budget flick. Some people get their jollies in strange ways.)
To demonstrate how miniscule the budget was: Kathy Hawkins, a nurse and former neighbor of mine, had a grandfather in Cleveland where the film was shot. He loaned the director a wind-up tank that is given a decent close-up early on when the kids are oogling all the great Christmas stuff in the window of Higbee’s Department Store. For his donation, he and the family received passes to see the movie.
Today, living directly across the street from me, is a pack of dogs that turns on their primitive howling at top volume whenever they hear fire engines nearby. Naturally, my neighbors and I refer to them as…the Bumpus hounds. What else?
Always thought it was ironic that I saw “Midway” at the Midway.
Also, with lines around the block, it was where my future wife and I saw “Jaws” in ‘75. Kept a lot of us outta the water that summer…
Yep. North, it ‘tis. Funny – I always referred to any residental areas as “below.” If Debbie had lived in the park or on the parkway, we would’ve frozen off a few parts of our joint anatomy in February!
The ‘67 color version was downright eerie – grasshoppers that could fly interstellar craft, and then land them in the London tubes. I think I know of a few NYC subway stations that could also creep us all out.