RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
favorited this theater
Showing 426 - 450 of 1,251 comments
Whoever is the one to open the door and find Madison’s long lost treasure I wish them luck..and photo’s to share!
“Donde esta el banyo? Esta puerta, si?” – Jaime del Brooklyn
there might be ghosts of moviegoers past in that building, heck, there might be some scary bats and boogeyman right around the corner…
So tempting to open that door, isn’t it ?
Yes, all I want to do is open that door….even if just for a few minutes….
Thanks, Bway and Panzer65. No, Bway, I didn’t go in last Friday, but intend to do so this coming Friday.
Bway,
Judging by the current dimensions in the furniture area , I would say you are quite correct, the area behind that wall and and through that door most likely are the rear half of the balcony. Would that be great if one of us had permission to open that door and go back in time to see that magnificent domed ceiling and the chairs still in place?
If you look closely at the image that Warren posted, and Panzer reposted, notice that there are three entrances with ballistrade railings into the balcony. From that point, you could either go up to a high balcony seat, or below to the lower balcony. I believe that the door in the furniture area leads to that middle opening with the ballistrade railing around it. If you opened that door, you would probably see the area that was the sloped lower end of the balcony. The furniture department is directly next to that area, and that was the old balcony mezzanine area. Above the current furniture area would be the upper part of the old balcony.
Looking further at that photo, notice the curver of the balcony. That curve is readily noticable currently in the Liberty department store. Currently, right at the area where that plaster edge of the balcony ends, and the small railing is, is where the fake drop ceiling cuts through the theater over the old hig ceiling area. Then, they also added another, but lower drop ceiling where the the lighting is under the balcony, and that extends all the way into what was once the inner and outer lobbies.
Panzer, I also am stumped on the balcony. My assumption, as I speculated here somewhere before, is that when you get to the top of the stairway into the furniture dept, that you are actually in the balcony MEZZZANINE, and not the actual balcony. I am convinced that behind that door on the left up there when you come up, leads into the space that used to be the balcony, the sloped area. I severely doubt they leveled anything up there, I believe that that space is actually the balcony mezzaine. Perhaps when someone else visits the site, they can shed some more light on their idea.
By the way peter, did you ever get over to the Madison again the other day to see the edge of the balcony curve through the store from the orchestra level?
Thanks, guys, for all your input. I won’t have any more input myself until I’ve been there this coming Friday (postponed from last Friday.
and have had yet another chance to walk and look around inside.
It would be good to have a computerized brain, like The Terminator, to be able to superimpose the stored and downloaded layout of the original interior of the RKO Madison over what one sees now, walking around inside the Liberty Dept. Store at 54-30 Myrtle Avenue, to facilitate making a comparison.
Good point, BklynJim : “The staircases were ancient, too worn to be anything other than the Madison’s original.” I wasn’t sure.
My apologies Warren, hopr it will help us uncover that mystery in the balcony.
Bway, I went back to your old postings about your discoveries in the balcony and then viewed that 1927 photo, and there really has to be some alterations done up there judging by the photo, it seems to be that the balcony was split in two, its just not the same dimension in the picture as far as from the edge to the back wall, and it was drastically leveled, to the point where its flat.
View link
This link is a 1927 Photo of Madison’s interior from a previous posting on microfilm, showing the view from the stage out on to the orchestra and up to the very large balcony.
Warren, the whole store is open to the public. I have described here many times how you CAN see the curve of the balcony in the store…. The curve cuts right through the store. In the inner and outer lobby area, and the auditorium area that was below the balcony, the drop ceiling is about 2 to 3 feet lower than if you walk into the area of the store that was away from the balcony. The curving swoop of the entire balcony can be seen, and then they have a fake drop ceiling in the rest of the theater is a little bit higer than the area that was below the balcony. There is NO mistaking the balcony, and that was there since it was Odd Lot….and through the Busy Bee Flea Market era too before Liberty. The only time that only the lobby areas was open was back around 1980 when it was a COnsumers store. That’s the only time there was a wall blocking off the former lobby area from the rest of the theater, and the theater itself was used as the warehouse. But ever since Odd Lot, the entire theater (or at least most of it) was open to the public. The balcony itself has just recently reopened again, about a year ago, but had been opened on and off in the past as retail space over the years (I think they used in the Busy Bee Flea Market era too).
The balcony is the only area that confuses me. I “think” that the furniture store only uses the former balcony mezzanine area, and that a wall was put up to block that off from the actual balcony area, which would be much more sloped, and i “think” the rest of the balcony is behind a door that would be on your left when you are in the furniture area up there….and behind that door is probably what is left of the balcony, if not all of it. On the other side of that door “could” also be in view the ceiling dome of the theater too…but that of course, I have no idea. Either way, only part of the balcony seating area, if any is used for the furniture store. That’s the only part that I can’t figure out….but when you go, you will see that most if not all of the orchestra level of the Madison is used for the store. I too want to go in there one day with my camera in the near future, but will look forward to anyone else’s comments or photos when/if they go to the Liberty Dept store….
Warren, The whole store is open to the public.
Your welcome, just like Bway before me, I took a tour but did not bring my camera, enjoy!
Warren, The auditorium floor has been leveled (also the balcony)and is accessible to the public as retail space. The balcony, which the outline of the edge is visible,is used for furniture retail space. The lobby and auditorium are one open space.
While in Ridgewood recently for a “CT Convention of 3,” I decided to take a tour of the interior of the former RKO Madison, now Liberty Department Store. Despite its being a discounted (“slightly irregular”) place for folks on the low end of the socio-economic scale, I was surprised at how well the owners utilized the massive space within – and for both floors. The staircases were ancient, too worn to be anything other than the Madison’s original. I made sure to use the back exit stairs as well, but I failed to visualize where everything had been in the ‘60s, from the balcony to the restrooms to the concession stand.
And Bway, my apologies, bud: the Myrtle El DID have an express track from Wyckoff to the B'way-Myrtle split. I found a pic in my files that documented your earlier statement and put it on a floppy for PKoch. The track, complete with a layup dead-end just shy of the Seneca Ave. station, was built between 1915-16. (No info as to when it was removed.) Although the photo was undated, the 1904-built wooden gate cars looked scrubbed and well maintained. Am guessing the pic to have been taken anywhere between 1916 and 1920. The Knickerbocker Ave. station can be seen in the distance.
BTW, without the tower, the whole Wyckoff-Palmetto-Myrtle intersection looks totally different!
I may be wrong about the grand staircase dividing in two.
PKoch
Nice description, it really puts into perspective how Madison’s interior was arranged, when I visited Liberty Dept . store, I was trying to see the theater perspective behind that sheetrock and drop ceiling, now its crystal clear. One quick question, You mention the grand staircase,(which exists today, but renovated) split in two, one to the left and the other to the right. It did not appear that way in my visit, it was one wide stairway going straight into the balcony, which is separated from the orchestra by a large wall. I never seen such a large balcony in any theater I have been to.
This is what I remember of the interior of the RKO Madison Theater :
I remember the inner lobby as about six times as long (parallel to Madison Street) as it was wide (parallel to Wyckoff Avenue). The grand staircase up to the balcony was at the far end, close to the Wyckoff Avenue wall. The ceiling was very high, and from its center must have hung the grand chandelier. Either there, or over the forward half of the orchestra seats. There may have been a large mirror on the wall at the head of the grand staircase. The grand staircase may have had an intermediate landing, from which it divided in two (left and right) in completing its ascent to the balcony level, and the mirror may have hung on the wall of this landing. There were also mirrors behind the refreshment counter in the inner lobby. I remember seeing myself in one of them in January 1969 before getting seated to see “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave”.
I remember the balcony floor area (outside the seats) as extensive. I don’t have memories of walking around the balcony railing (marble balustrade ?) and looking down into the inner lobby, or of walking up that grand staircase. I DO remember, on Tuesday Sept. 6, 1966, while seeing “Die, Monster, Die !” there with my father, getting up from my balcony seat to go to the men’s room, and walking over tiled floors past old-fashioned underlit “pointing hand” signs for restrooms and telephones (in booths). The men’s room was long and narrow, the length at right angles to Myrtle Avenue, with a window onto Myrtle Avenue at its end, on the western side of the façade.
I remember the balcony seating area as roughly half the size of the orchestra seating area. I remember the ceiling over the rear orchestra seats, directly below the balcony seats, as decorated with ringed half-globes that, to me, looked like the planet Saturn embedded in the ceiling.
I saw similar ceiling decoration in the Corona Plaza Theater on Roosevelt Avenue at 103rd Street when I saw the Matthew Broderick – Jean Reno “Godzilla” there in late May 1998.
Looking forward to the Madison’s screen, I remember the “opera boxes” on the sides, and a small blue-white luminous clock on the wall, above and to the left of the screen.
Other than “Die, Monster, Die !” I remember sitting in the balcony for only two other films, “The Odd Couple” and “The Green Berets”, both summer 1968, the latter, August 2nd. I remember that date because I saw that movie then, instead of a Doors concert at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadow Park. I was probably better off with the movie, as I’ve read about that Doors concert turning into a near-riot. I probably sat in the balcony then so that the adult I was with (dad, mom) could smoke.
I remember the outer lobby as opulent, mirrored, with a tiled floor, covered with corrugated rubber runners, and of course with lobby cards on the walls, and maybe also with sandwich board signs for upcoming films scattered about the floor. Although the outer lobby seemed spacious, it probably only amounted to maybe one-ninth the total floor area of the theater.
I remember the inner lobby carpet as either dark maroon, with maybe an Oriental design, or dark maroon and green with a fern leaf design. I remember the inner lobby carpet gradually being obscured by shoe-blackened discarded chewing gum, just like a city sidewalk outside a candy store.
Progressing forward in time from the first film I remember seeing there, “Reptilicus”, in summer 1961, to the last, “Lipstick” in summer 1976, I remember less and less of the interior décor of the theater, perhaps because of its deterioration, and became increasingly focused on simply going in there, seeing my movie, then leaving.
I hope this all helps you recall more of your own experiences at the RKO Madison. I’d like to read more of your recollections, if you have any.
Thanks so much, Bway, for your reply, and for posting the link to the exhibit here. Over the next few days, I will be taking a good close look at it, both on its website, and of the photos you took of it, and then posted on Bushwick Buddies.
The “Up From Flames” exhibit was a wonderful exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Pierrepont St in Downtown Brooklyn. I attended it in August, but it just ended last weekend. I believe it’s still up and there are sobering photos on their website, which is www.upfromflames.com
Warren, I’m glad to read that the “Agony of Bushwick” articles are safely on microfilm at the central Queens library. What was your opinion of the articles after reading them ?
I know what you mean about downtown Jamaica seeming also in peril at that time, with the events you mentioned, and also the closing and eventual demolition of the el, starting at 168th Street in September 1977 and working its way west to the Queens Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue stations, but I don’t think there was anything like the devastation of Bushwick anywhere near Jamaica, and the proximity of partly destroyed Bushwick to Ridgewood made many Ridgewood residents fearful, and must have had some negative effect on Ridgewood.
Ridgewood was not devastated like Bushwick during and after the blackout, partly because the National Guard was stationed on Myrtle Avenue, the main commercial area, so that the stores on Myrtle Avenue were not broken into and looted, but in the years that followed, whenever a store or office on Myrtle Avenue went out of business, there was always the fear it would remain vacant, and become a shooting gallery for junkies, or squatted on by the homeless, thereby beginning the process of Ridgewood following nearby Bushwick into devastation and ruin.
To get this back on topic : hence the sign on the front of the derelict former RKO Madison in Feburary 1978 :
THIS IS HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD STARTS TO DECAY !
IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, CALL …
The “Up From Flames” exhibit makes the point that the low point of the 1977 devastation of Bushwick was, to many, a wake-up call, that “the line must be drawn HERE”, that the destruction could not be allowed to proceed any further, and conditions HAD to be improved from then on. That did lots of good for Ridgewood as well as Bushwick. But the loss of housing in Bushwick must have caused some overcrowding in Ridgewood, and the accelerated influx of Hispanics into Ridgewood, fear and resentmnet in Ridgewood’s less tolerant ethnic whites.
Excuse me …. the Ridgewood IS, IS, IS STILL SHOWING MOVIES on the north side of Myrtle between Putnam Avenue and Madison Street.