UA Quartet
16006 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11358
16006 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11358
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Showing 26 - 50 of 113 comments
Hey intass123… Kurt already posted those pics last month. Click on the “photos” tab at the top of this page to see them all.
Cant wait to see the pics. Please post them soon.
I was the assistant manager at the Quartet Theatre in the summer of 1980 under Rose G. I found her to be a nasty and vulgar person who would not have survived the era of political correctness that we have today. On more than one occasion I witnessed here mouthing off to patrons and wondered how she got away with such awful behavior.
In late August Beverly replaced Rose and I was shipped off to another theatre. I returned to the Quartet in January 1981 as the manager and remained there for exactly five years to the day.
I’ve noticed the many posts regarding Eddie Hambrect. I’d like to share my memories.
Eddie played Santa Claus for us for three Christmas seasons and did an outstanding job. He was loved by both patrons and our staff, his efforts were greatly appreciated. I’m saddened to hear of his passing. He will always be remembered warmly.
Many others contributed valuable efforts over a long period that helped me get over some rough spots. I’d like to thank Lisa C., Kathryn S., Ritsa G., Barbara G., Graham H., John D., Julie H., Vito Q., Sean O., Paul F., Dennis O., Jerry M., Diedre L., Liz G., Mike H., Anthony T., Jane D., Richard B., John M for all your help. My apologies to anyone I may have missed and to those whose stay was shorter but not any less appreciated.
Together we overcame three fires in my first six months, all of them suspicious. There were a group of jerks in the neighborhood who I’m sure had a hand in these incidents. Thankfully no one was ever hurt.
The summer of 1982 featured Rocky 3 on two screens and ET on two screens. We sold out each show all day, everyday, for three months. It was exhausting and my thanks again to everyone who got us through that summer.
In August of 1983 on the opening night of Nightmare on Elm Street 3 we drew such a rowdy crowd of maniacs I feared for our safety. We needed about half a dozen police cars to disperse the crowd and we closed the theatre at 8:30. UA got their panties in a twist over the lost ticket and concession sales, they didn’t care about us.
We featured a Walt Disney film each Easter and Christmas which was challenging on a different level. Hundreds of kids each day and what a mess they made, popcorn everywhere.
I wish I had kept notes at the time, there are so many stories to tell.
If anyone sees this entry that worked for me, please say hi.
I’ll attempt to post a couple of pictures showing the renovation of the lobby in 1985 and craziness of Halloween in 1981.
I’ll attempt to post a couple of pictures showing the renovation of the lobby in 1985 and craziness of Halloween in 1981.
I remember seeing Karate Kid, Teenage Mutant Ninjas Turtles, No Hold’s Barred, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Street fighter, Vegas Vacation, Beavis and Butthead’s Do AMERICA, ACE VENTURA, From Dusk Till' Dawn, etc etc … That’s funny as hell that other’s commented about it feeling a Lil' creepy, whenever I went to the bathroom by myself, “I WENT FAST” LOL ! Somebody also brought up the BIG numbers … ahh it’s all coming back to me now ! The Reception House, WIG CITY, Jack in the Box (TACOS) , Rock Bottom’s , even R&S STRAUSS , Good memories! It’s a shame how Flushing changed … but it will always be my hometown !
I remember Eddie. He also worked at “Save More” (now marinos) on 29th avenue. Eddie was always a sweet man.
Sorry to hear of his passing. I am sure he is in heaven. He was super nice.
To those of you still interested, Edward “Eddie” Hambrecht was my uncle. If you would like information regarding him feel free to contact me. Eddie passed away a few years ago, he was the hardest working person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Contact info- fishncopper@ yahoo. com
Does anyone remember the “Coin Box”, it was there before Mike’s Comic Hut. I sold them a 1927S Penny for 25 cents. I wish I’d never done that.
One thing that perplexed me about the Quartet was the never-used door in the front right of the theater, the inside of which was empty for years in the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps it was too small to rent out? Towards the end, when they were in the process of closing up they finally rented it if I recall correctly.
I saw many movies here – Grease, Back to School, Commando, Flash Gordon (yaa, it played there, I saw it at the Quartet), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Peggy Sue Got Married, Time Rider and many more. I saw Commando with my grandmother, because she wanted to see who the actor was (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who had married into the Kennedy family. Me and a friend went to see Once Bitten but the projector broke five minutes into the movie and everyone got a refund.
I was too young to see R rated movies in the 1970s and 1980s but I do remember posters to thrillers and horror movies, such as the Dressed to Kill poster, a phrase which I did not understand at the young age I saw the poster, never mind the pun. That the Quartet used to show X rated movies is something I forgot, although I vaguely recall adults talking about this topic 35 years ago or so. I don’t know what’s more surprising in that old ad – that an X-rated movie was playing at the Quarter, or that a Swedish art film with Liv Ullmann was playing at the Quartet.
Does anyone remember the theater renovation done a few years before the Quartet closed? If I recall correctly, the upstairs and lobby had gotten a little bit dumpy by the mid/late 1980s, but was renovated a bit nicer at that time.
I remember Eddie in the Quartet, and pretty much every other store in Flushing and Bayside. I was, like so many other, yelled at by Rose.
I also remember Mike’s Comic Hut, Murrays, Bridies, Kam Ying, Happy Days Pizza, the Reception House, Scaturros, Jack in the Box and the diner. Didn’t the pet store have two entrances? One an aquarium and one a pet store. I remember seeing all the fire trucks when it burned down. Across from Mike’s, Bridies and Happy Days was the music store with the guitars, the shoe store and a florist.
Correcting my comment above: The issue of Boxoffice I cited used a variant spelling of the architect’s name. It should read Maurice D. Sornik.
The August 30, 1971, issue of Boxoffice published an article about the UA Quartet. A cutaway drawing illustrating the arrangement of the new auditoriums was included. The architect for the conversion of the Roosevelt Theatre into the UA Quartet was Maurice Sornick.
Update, the orange Korean supermarket is in full swing, went in for a peek and got the look of death, aka “what the hell are YOU doing in here” . Hard to believe I went on dates here through the 80’s and with my grandma in the 70’s. Saw all the classic 80’s horror flicks there! Kinda disgusting, they sell these softball size live frogs to boil and eat out of an old rubbermaid. ….Probably have illegal dog and cat too…
Orange, its freaken orange now. I would have been better off torn down now. Now its gonna be a korean supermarket, but worse, a orange one.
Lefty:
I hope you get to see this.
Can you tell me how you know that Mr. Warhop passed away? I knew him from before he was with UA Theatres and when he was only a young guy managing local theatres in Queens. He was a friend of many years. His second wife (the young one) from South America somewhere gave birth about the same time when we had my son. So the boys are about the same age now. The news you relayed here is truly distressing for me to read. I never knew he had the cancer or that he passed away from it. The last time I saw hime was when my son was about a year old or so(same age as his son) and he was happy and healthy. We had a friendship where he would have told me his issues with his health, and he never told me of anything wrong. What a shame since I know he purchased a home to retire to in FL with his new family along with his older kids. If anyone can shed light on this, I would appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks all.
I just posted my UA Quartet photo on my Flickr page:
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I hacve a feeling the theater will be torn down after all for a restaurant or a bank.
Great to see whats going on to the area, the “new” stores that took the theaters place are now gone and the entire place is empty, just a matter of time before the job is done and its all torn down for “another” restaurant!
One last thing I forgot to mention about the Quartet, from the time I was little I was always afraid of that Brady Bunch style sair case. As another commenter on here wrote the place was spooky, as I got older I would go to the bathroom as fast as I could because the upsatirs had an eerie silence to it and towards the end the downstairs would look like a ghost town there was no one ever working behind the counters either.
I grew up on Crocheron ave. Just up the road from the Quartet movie theatre. I saw so many movies there in the 80’s and 90’s. We loved this place because we could go there by ourselves. I do remember Eddie and I remember the first movie I saw after the Quartet closed was Titanic at the Bayside theater and there Eddie was taking our tickets at the door. I loved that area we always had Chinese food after the movie at Kam Ying. We also would go to Murray’s to get my girl scout uniforms. I loved Flushing so much in those days. The best part about the Quartet is that when we were in Junior High School we would all chip in and buy one ticket then the rest of us would ride our bikes around to the back door and and the person inside would open the side door and sneak the rest of us in. Those were the days. We also would sneak in from one theatre to the next. One time these teens that were working there caught my little brother sneaking in and they brought him upsatirs to some office and they had him in a chair with a lamp on him making him cry and called my parents to come pick him up. At the time he was so scared but looking back it’s really funny. The Highlight of my movie time at the Quartet was seeing E.T., the lines were wrapped around the block. I saw it twice. The only movie I ever saw in the movies twice. When ever I drive down to that area I am saddened by the disgusting look of the area. When I was a kid you had the Pizza Place, Kam Ying, Murray’s and good old Cookie King where my mom always bought cookies for the holiday’s. Let’s not forget Bridie’s Pub that became T.J. McCarthy’s my high school drinking hole. Ooh those were the days.
Hey AJGNYC11:
Do you remember the two old matrons that used to work at the Quartet throughout the 1970’s. I believe they were sisters. One was named Marguarite. She was old and withered looking and used to talk out of the side of her mouth. The other one was, I think her sister, she had a fuller face. She was less hard on the eyes than Marguarite.
Also, do you remember a guy who worked there. He was a young usher with a red headed afro?
Hey AJGNYC11:
Do you remember the two old matrons that used to work at the Quartet throughout the 1970’s. I believe they were sisters. One was named Marguarite. She was old and withered looking and used to talk out of the side of her mouth. The other one was, I think her sister, she had a fuller face. She was less hard on the eyes than Marguarite.
Also, do you remember a guy who worked there. He was a young usher with a red headed afro?
Sorry about your problem with the C word, Warren, and you’re probably right, but Rosie was bad news. She used to work at both the U.A. Bayside and the Quartet. She was an epileptic and sometimes she would have seizures on the lobby floor of the Quartet in the 1970’s, which was more fun to watch than some of the exploitation fare. If I seem like a p k about this it is because she would throw kids out for the hell of it, just to have something to do, complaining that they were talking too loud. Once in the summer of 1980 I saw her across the Street from the U.A. Bayside where the BLUES BROTHERS was playing. We looked at each other as if we might have knew each other. I said something to the effect of ‘didn’t you work at the Quartet?“ And she replied "and the Bayside as well. How many times did I throw you out?” laughing as she said it. Anyway, I thought that strange. So, I guess one person’s poison is another’s champaigne.
Sorry about your problem with the C word, Warren, and you’re probably right, but Rosie was bad news. She used to work at both the U.A. Bayside and the Quartet. She was an epileptic and sometimes she would have seizures on the lobby floor of the Quartet in the 1970’s, which was more fun to watch than some of the exploitation fare. If I seem like a p k about this it is because she would throw kids out for the hell of it, just to have something to do, complaining that they were talking too loud. Once in the summer of 1980 I saw her across the Street from the U.A. Bayside where the BLUES BROTHERS was playing. We looked at each other as if we might have knew each other. I said something to the effect of ‘didn’t you work at the Quartet?“ And she replied "and the Bayside as well. How many times did I throw you out?” laughing as she said it. Anyway, I thought that strange. So, I guess one person’s poison is another’s champaigne.
Sorry about your problem with the C word, Warren, and you’re probably right, but Rosie was bad news. She used to work at both the U.A. Bayside and the Quartet. She was an epileptic and sometimes she would have seizures on the lobby floor of the Quartet in the 1970’s, which was more fun to watch than some of the exploitation fare. If I seem like a p k about this it is because she would throw kids out for the hell of it, just to have something to do, complaining that they were talking too loud. Once in the summer of 1980 I saw her across the Street from the U.A. Bayside where the BLUES BROTHERS was playing. We looked at each other as if we might have knew each other. I said something to the effect of ‘didn’t you work at the Quartet?“ And she replied "and the Bayside as well. How many times did I throw you out?” laughing as she said it. Anyway, I thought that strange. So, I guess one person’s poison is another’s champaigne.
After re-reading the reference above to an Ed(die),
was that the same Eddie who also worked nearby at Bohack (which became
Scaturros (the Bohack B automagic door opening mats were
in service long after Bohacks demise)) and possibly
King Kullen, Shea & ½ the stores in the neighborhood?
Happy, blonde crew cut guy resembling frank fontaine a little?
Agreed, parking in that area was always a problem. I remember some limited
parking behind the theater but when i patronized it I was too young to drive
Mr Warhop was the District Manager in charge of all the UA theatres throughout the 5 boroughs. Anyone that knew him will remember how much of a heavy smoker he was. Mr Warhop retired because he was contracted lung cancer and had a lung removed. He was married to a beautiful woman that was younger than he was. He also had an infant son when he contracted lung cancer. Even though he lost a lung and went through chemotherapy, he still couldn’t shake the habit of smoking. He went on to die of lung cancer.
As for Michael Hockstein and Henry, I don’t know what happened to them.
I know that Jerry the projectionist was going to retire when the QUARTET closed.
I remember that UA was considering converting the QUARTET from a quad to a sixplex. They were going to some remodeling and make the stores on either side of the building into theatres. The plan didn’t go through because a community group didn’t want the theatre to become a multiplex. They said that they didn’t want the extra traffic.
The community group was lead by a bitterly obnoxious woman that was extremely overweight and greasy-looking. She was one of those housewives that thought that she knew what was best for everyone else in the community and that she knew everything. She was a real nasty piece of work. (She also had two tubby sons who were exactly like her. She would give them enough money to see one movie and expected her kids to be able to see every movie that was playing within the QUARTET at the time. She would come down and yell whenever her kids weren’t allowed to enter the theatre with outside food/drinks which was the policy and when her kids weren’t allowed to switch theatres. She was a nasty piece of work.) She would protest and show up with a petition whenever a horror movie would play in the QUARTRET or a movie that was R-rated was playing.
Meanwhile they allowed a nightclub to be open a few blocks down, near the catering hall. The nightclub turned out to be worse for the neighborhood than allowing UA to build the extra two theatres ever would have. The nightclub was associated with drug dealing, money laundering, several stabbings, and attracted an extremely rowdy crowd. There was a major difference between the cliental that went to the club when it first opened and later on. At first the crowd was calm and went to dance. There was rarely any news of problems. The original crowd was discouraged from attending and was replaced by a rowdy club full of hoodlums and drug dealers.
If the neighborhood hadn’t blocked UA’s plans to make the QUARTET a multiplex the theatre would probably still be open today.