Koletty’s did indeed sell chocolate candy. I remember my mom and I getting a chocolate Easter bunny for my first grade teacher at St. Brigid School, Sister Mary Joyce, for Easter 1962. When I gave it to her, she asked if she ate it, would she turn into a bunny rabbit ? I answered, no, I don’t think so.
Thanks for your recollection of Gottlieb’s, Eleanor. They did indeed re-open in Kew Gardens, a smaller place on Queens Blvd. near Union Turnpike and the courthouse, but it wasn’t the same. There, they either became, or had competition from, Pastrami King.
Madison as “grind house” : I was referring to the product rather than the schedulling.
Gottlieb’s on Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood closed in mid to late September 1975. There was a sardonic hand-printed message in the window from the owner / manager, Ira Gottlieb, “thanking” the waiter’s union for forcing him to close his restaurant.
Yes, Byhoff Bros. Record Store was on the south side of Myrtle, between Seneca and Onderdonk, just east of Weirfield. Closer to the Ridgewood Theater was Action Records, also on the south side of Myrtle, one or two doors east of Cornelia Street.
Panzer65, you’re welcome. What was the FIRST LP record you ever bought ?
“Never borrow money needlessly, but when you need to borrow .. call HFC … Household Finance !”
It was a record store, Panzer65. I remember albums in its window, The SalSoul Orchestra, “Nice N Nasty”, the bare-assed chick looking over her shoulder at you, and Redd Foxx, “You Gotta Was Your Ass”. Madison’s foyer / lobby was never part of the store.
Thanks, frankie, for your post about your old neighborhood theater. Good to know there’s an image of it on Brooklynpix.com. There are some great pictures on that site.
The original beautiful elliptical balcony lobby, with its beautifully molded, fixtured and medallioned ceiling, was not intact, not at all as I remembered it from when I saw “Friday The 13th” there on Tuesday June 17, 1980. What is now the balcony lobby, entrances to upper cinemas 3, 4 and 5, is about 1/3 the floor space of the original balcony lobby, and is dimly lit. The walls are painted in two shades of dark blue-gray, similar to how the outer lobby of the Madison was painted for “The Godfather” in summer 1972.
The photos posted by Ken Roe will give you some idea.
I think what struck me most about the Ridgewood on this most recenr visit was the large number of stairs we had to climb from the balcony level lobby to the upper cinema, then, once we were seated, the fact that roughly half the seats in the cinema were above where we entered. Many stairs going very high up.
Yes, Jim had socks on, as well as shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt with an old trolley car on it. frankie wore a t-shirt featuring “Bela Lugosi meets the Gorilla From Brooklyn”. I’m serious. No, Jim wasn’t looking for Mae West, but you should have heard the belly laugh that came out of him when I mentioned Fast Eddie and Mae in the balcony of the Madison over the phone.
Yes, much of the interior of the Ridgewood is still intact. No, sorry, didn’t notice if the two floors above the entrance were being used for anything, Hank’s Billiards, or anything else.
Yes, the Ridgewood is still in business. We spoke briefly with the managers after we’d seen our movie. The idea that the Atlas Park 8 would put the Ridgewood out of business never made any sense to me. Why take a bus and walk for 20 minutes to get to Atlas 8 when you’re within walking distance of the Ridgewood ?
Bway’s plan of action for Evergreen and Grove reads like a good one. My best wished to you and Ed and Bway about this.
No, Lost Memory, Bway was at a football game last Saturday. “Bourne” was O.K. Don’t know the first 2 stories : “Identity” and “Conspiracy”. Bourne = James Bond + The Saint + Live Free or Die Hard. I thought it was the most intelligent of the five films showing there. Jim and Frank complimented my choice.
We were touring. When Frankie and I got on the L bound for Manhattan at Myrtle and Wyckoff, Jim said he was heading into the Liberty / Madison to buy some socks. Didn’t notice any radiators while I was inside. Sort of the last thing I’d be thinking about and looking for on a 105 degree day.
While we ere at the Ridgewood, I mentioned your post on the RKO Bushwick page about the theater once at Evergreen abd Grove, and Jim remarked that you seem to have some remarkable access to NYC Bldg. Dept. info. More power to you for that, and please keep up all your fine work. Thanks.
Right on, frankie, and thanks again to you and BrooklynJim for the pleasure of your company. The diner we went to was known as the Castillo Diner when police detective Anthony Venditti was gunned down there around January 21 1986. Just so everyone knows, it’s on the triangle formed by Myrtle and St. Nicholas Avenues and Woodbine Street, now a pedestrian mall between St Nicholas and Myrtle, where the smelly old chicken market and gas station used to be, pre-1965.
When we ate there this past Saturday, what used to be counter space with stools to sit at, as it was when I last ate there, July 1968 through May 1982, is now steam tables full of food. We sat at a booth by the plate glass window looking out on Myrtle Avenue.
Yes, it’s still enormous inside what was once the Madison, yet, it seemed, most of what was once the orchestra, bordering on Madison Street, where the stage, screen and proscenium arch once were, is not floor area with goods open to the shopping public (it’s now a Liberty Dept. Store). Perhaps it’s now a storage / warehouse area.
Back to the Ridgewood : “The Bourne Ultimatum” was showing in the middle of the three cinemas made from the balcony. A bit of the large circular decoration still visible on the balcony ceiling was cut off on each side by the walls put up to separate the cinema we were in (# 4) from balcony cinemas 3 and 5 on either side of us. It was clean and comfortably air-conditioned inside. Downstairs, the outer lobby was still in great condition. We were charged $ 5 admission for the first show of the day, and got printed paper receipts as tickets.
Another factor may have been that the Madison was on the AIP grind run by the 1970’s, although it still showed top films like “Taxi Driver” in May 1976. That was the last really good film I saw at the Madison.
RobertR, I don’t have any memory of this, but I can’t say for sure it didn’t happen.
When did you see “Squirm” and “Tentacles” at the Madison ? Summer 1976 ? What is the date on the block ad you cut out of the Daily News for these two films ?
Thanks for correcting me, EdSolero. I looked up “French Connection II” on the IMDb, saw the release date of 1975, then knew I couldn’t have seen it summer 1973, but I couldn’t think of the film’s correct name. Yes, it WAS “Badge 373”, and its connection to “French Connection” now makes sense to me. Thanks.
That’s a very interesting thought about that 1/25/1978 NY Daily News movie clock listing of a Ridgewood, Queens theater. If it WAS the Madison, it was definitely closed, and a designated eyesore, etc. exactly a month later, as I had posted earlier.
Television helped to bring about the end of many smaller neighborhood theaters like the Parthenon, Majestic, Wyckoff (at Bleecker St.) and Glenwood. It must have resulted in some loss of income for the larger theaters like the Madison and the Ridgewood, which nonetheless stayed in business, perhaps mostly because they WERE that much larger.
Perhaps the Madison’s money loss was so great, the last owner was afraid to invest in multi-plexing as a way of remaining in business, because of the fear of the great uncertainty involved.
Panzer65, you’re welcome, and thank YOU for your compliment. “Up From The Flames”, an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society, on Pierpont St., about Bushwick and the July 1977 blackout, and its recovery therefrom, began on August 7th, and might still be there. Some images from it are posted on the Bushwick Buddies website :
Yes, NYC’s darkest hour. In fall 1975 the Ford Administration had refused NYC financial aid, so it was about to go into default on its municipal bonds.
I think you are correct about the Madison’s demise. Yet the question still remains : why did the Ridgewood survive, when the Madison did not ?
Panzer65, I was just wondering that myself. The July 13 1977 blackout, and the crime, arson, and looting in Bushwick that resulted from it, must have had some impact on the RKO Madison as well as the rest of Ridgewood.
I don’t think the Madison sustained any major damage in the blackout that could have affected revenue. It didn’t burn during the blackout, rather, I recall it having burned in late 1978 or early 1979, by early April 1979, in any case, perhaps deliberately, for insurance money.
By the last Saturday of February 1978 the Madison was a designated neighborhood eyesore, with a sign out front that read :
THIS IS HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD STARTS TO DECAY !!!!
IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, CALL (phone # of local action group)
Warren mentioned the date of 23 September 1977. Halloween 1977 was mentioned by someone else earlier on this page.
The devastation that resulted in Bushwick from the July 1977 blackout greatly accelerated the Hispanic influx to Ridgewood. I’m not exactly sure how this affected the Madison. Four years before the blackout, in summer 1973, I remember seeing “French Connection II” at the Madison with my parents, and when a Hispanic character in the film, Sweet William, I believe it was, towards the end of the film, shouted out something about “peace, love, justice, and all that white Anglo-Saxon bullshit !”, there was a tremendous ground-swell cheer from the heavily Hispanic audience.
So, perhaps more so, post-blackout summer 1977. I can’t be sure. The last movie I saw at the Madison was “Lipstick” in June or July of 1976. There was a pretty young Hispanic gal sitting across the left aisle from me, to my right. In the scene in that film when we see Chris Sarandon in the nude, in weird colored lights, crank-calling Margaux Hemingway with those equally weird electronic sounds, we looked at each other as if to say, “What the #$%@ is this weird shit ?” After Margaux Hemingway blew him with a rifle away near the end, I think I said to her, “He’s not gonna make any weird phone calls any more !” She smiled.
Warren, so far as I remember, the exterior signage of the Madison remained the same, despite the change in management. Thanks for continuing to try to find the Madison’s closing date. It’s something I’ve wondered about myself, and an item of some frustration, because in the fall of 1977 I walked by the Madison nearly every day en route from home (Ridgewood) to school (Cooper Union in lower Manhattan)(via the L line from Myrtle Avenue to 3rd and 14th)but didn’t take note when it stopped showing movies. Or, if I did, it’s a detail I’ve forgotten.
Perhaps we’ll have to settle for the weekend of September 23 1977 to Halloween 1977 as a range of the closing date of the Madison.
That spotty newspaper coverage of the Madison from 1973 onward was probably indicative of its rapidly declining status as a movie house in its last few years of operation. A far fall indeed from its “glory days”.
I saw “Suspiria” and “The Fury” at the Ridgewood in late May 1978. The exact date escapes me. I would have to figure it out. All I can recall offhand is coming out of the theatre at about 8 p.m. and being surprised how bright it still was outside.
Koletty’s did indeed sell chocolate candy. I remember my mom and I getting a chocolate Easter bunny for my first grade teacher at St. Brigid School, Sister Mary Joyce, for Easter 1962. When I gave it to her, she asked if she ate it, would she turn into a bunny rabbit ? I answered, no, I don’t think so.
Thanks for your recollection of Gottlieb’s, Eleanor. They did indeed re-open in Kew Gardens, a smaller place on Queens Blvd. near Union Turnpike and the courthouse, but it wasn’t the same. There, they either became, or had competition from, Pastrami King.
Madison as “grind house” : I was referring to the product rather than the schedulling.
Gottlieb’s on Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood closed in mid to late September 1975. There was a sardonic hand-printed message in the window from the owner / manager, Ira Gottlieb, “thanking” the waiter’s union for forcing him to close his restaurant.
Yes, Byhoff Bros. Record Store was on the south side of Myrtle, between Seneca and Onderdonk, just east of Weirfield. Closer to the Ridgewood Theater was Action Records, also on the south side of Myrtle, one or two doors east of Cornelia Street.
Panzer65, you’re welcome. What was the FIRST LP record you ever bought ?
“Never borrow money needlessly, but when you need to borrow .. call HFC … Household Finance !”
Keep up the good work, guys. Does the Sanders-Pavillion Theatre have a page on this site yet ? If not, maybe you guys can start one.
That should have been “You Gotta Wash Your Ass”.
I owe this thread some comments. Back tomorrow !
It was a record store, Panzer65. I remember albums in its window, The SalSoul Orchestra, “Nice N Nasty”, the bare-assed chick looking over her shoulder at you, and Redd Foxx, “You Gotta Was Your Ass”. Madison’s foyer / lobby was never part of the store.
Your old neighborhood theater is in good Brooklyn company with Ebbetts Field itself in now being apt. bldgs. !
Thanks, frankie, for your post about your old neighborhood theater. Good to know there’s an image of it on Brooklynpix.com. There are some great pictures on that site.
The original beautiful elliptical balcony lobby, with its beautifully molded, fixtured and medallioned ceiling, was not intact, not at all as I remembered it from when I saw “Friday The 13th” there on Tuesday June 17, 1980. What is now the balcony lobby, entrances to upper cinemas 3, 4 and 5, is about 1/3 the floor space of the original balcony lobby, and is dimly lit. The walls are painted in two shades of dark blue-gray, similar to how the outer lobby of the Madison was painted for “The Godfather” in summer 1972.
The photos posted by Ken Roe will give you some idea.
I think what struck me most about the Ridgewood on this most recenr visit was the large number of stairs we had to climb from the balcony level lobby to the upper cinema, then, once we were seated, the fact that roughly half the seats in the cinema were above where we entered. Many stairs going very high up.
Yes, Jim had socks on, as well as shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt with an old trolley car on it. frankie wore a t-shirt featuring “Bela Lugosi meets the Gorilla From Brooklyn”. I’m serious. No, Jim wasn’t looking for Mae West, but you should have heard the belly laugh that came out of him when I mentioned Fast Eddie and Mae in the balcony of the Madison over the phone.
Yes, much of the interior of the Ridgewood is still intact. No, sorry, didn’t notice if the two floors above the entrance were being used for anything, Hank’s Billiards, or anything else.
Yes, the Ridgewood is still in business. We spoke briefly with the managers after we’d seen our movie. The idea that the Atlas Park 8 would put the Ridgewood out of business never made any sense to me. Why take a bus and walk for 20 minutes to get to Atlas 8 when you’re within walking distance of the Ridgewood ?
Bway’s plan of action for Evergreen and Grove reads like a good one. My best wished to you and Ed and Bway about this.
No, Lost Memory, Bway was at a football game last Saturday. “Bourne” was O.K. Don’t know the first 2 stories : “Identity” and “Conspiracy”. Bourne = James Bond + The Saint + Live Free or Die Hard. I thought it was the most intelligent of the five films showing there. Jim and Frank complimented my choice.
We were touring. When Frankie and I got on the L bound for Manhattan at Myrtle and Wyckoff, Jim said he was heading into the Liberty / Madison to buy some socks. Didn’t notice any radiators while I was inside. Sort of the last thing I’d be thinking about and looking for on a 105 degree day.
While we ere at the Ridgewood, I mentioned your post on the RKO Bushwick page about the theater once at Evergreen abd Grove, and Jim remarked that you seem to have some remarkable access to NYC Bldg. Dept. info. More power to you for that, and please keep up all your fine work. Thanks.
Right on, frankie, and thanks again to you and BrooklynJim for the pleasure of your company. The diner we went to was known as the Castillo Diner when police detective Anthony Venditti was gunned down there around January 21 1986. Just so everyone knows, it’s on the triangle formed by Myrtle and St. Nicholas Avenues and Woodbine Street, now a pedestrian mall between St Nicholas and Myrtle, where the smelly old chicken market and gas station used to be, pre-1965.
When we ate there this past Saturday, what used to be counter space with stools to sit at, as it was when I last ate there, July 1968 through May 1982, is now steam tables full of food. We sat at a booth by the plate glass window looking out on Myrtle Avenue.
Yes, it’s still enormous inside what was once the Madison, yet, it seemed, most of what was once the orchestra, bordering on Madison Street, where the stage, screen and proscenium arch once were, is not floor area with goods open to the shopping public (it’s now a Liberty Dept. Store). Perhaps it’s now a storage / warehouse area.
Back to the Ridgewood : “The Bourne Ultimatum” was showing in the middle of the three cinemas made from the balcony. A bit of the large circular decoration still visible on the balcony ceiling was cut off on each side by the walls put up to separate the cinema we were in (# 4) from balcony cinemas 3 and 5 on either side of us. It was clean and comfortably air-conditioned inside. Downstairs, the outer lobby was still in great condition. We were charged $ 5 admission for the first show of the day, and got printed paper receipts as tickets.
“Squirm” release date (USA) : 30 July 1976
“Tentacles” release date (USA) : 15 June 1977
Another factor may have been that the Madison was on the AIP grind run by the 1970’s, although it still showed top films like “Taxi Driver” in May 1976. That was the last really good film I saw at the Madison.
Good points, Panzer65. Thanks.
RobertR, I don’t have any memory of this, but I can’t say for sure it didn’t happen.
When did you see “Squirm” and “Tentacles” at the Madison ? Summer 1976 ? What is the date on the block ad you cut out of the Daily News for these two films ?
Thanks, Bway and Warren, for this information.
You and me both, Panzer65. Thanks.
Thanks for correcting me, EdSolero. I looked up “French Connection II” on the IMDb, saw the release date of 1975, then knew I couldn’t have seen it summer 1973, but I couldn’t think of the film’s correct name. Yes, it WAS “Badge 373”, and its connection to “French Connection” now makes sense to me. Thanks.
That’s a very interesting thought about that 1/25/1978 NY Daily News movie clock listing of a Ridgewood, Queens theater. If it WAS the Madison, it was definitely closed, and a designated eyesore, etc. exactly a month later, as I had posted earlier.
Television helped to bring about the end of many smaller neighborhood theaters like the Parthenon, Majestic, Wyckoff (at Bleecker St.) and Glenwood. It must have resulted in some loss of income for the larger theaters like the Madison and the Ridgewood, which nonetheless stayed in business, perhaps mostly because they WERE that much larger.
Perhaps the Madison’s money loss was so great, the last owner was afraid to invest in multi-plexing as a way of remaining in business, because of the fear of the great uncertainty involved.
Panzer65, you’re welcome, and thank YOU for your compliment. “Up From The Flames”, an exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society, on Pierpont St., about Bushwick and the July 1977 blackout, and its recovery therefrom, began on August 7th, and might still be there. Some images from it are posted on the Bushwick Buddies website :
http://www.bushwickbuddies.com
Yes, NYC’s darkest hour. In fall 1975 the Ford Administration had refused NYC financial aid, so it was about to go into default on its municipal bonds.
I think you are correct about the Madison’s demise. Yet the question still remains : why did the Ridgewood survive, when the Madison did not ?
Panzer65, I was just wondering that myself. The July 13 1977 blackout, and the crime, arson, and looting in Bushwick that resulted from it, must have had some impact on the RKO Madison as well as the rest of Ridgewood.
I don’t think the Madison sustained any major damage in the blackout that could have affected revenue. It didn’t burn during the blackout, rather, I recall it having burned in late 1978 or early 1979, by early April 1979, in any case, perhaps deliberately, for insurance money.
By the last Saturday of February 1978 the Madison was a designated neighborhood eyesore, with a sign out front that read :
THIS IS HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD STARTS TO DECAY !!!!
IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, CALL (phone # of local action group)
Warren mentioned the date of 23 September 1977. Halloween 1977 was mentioned by someone else earlier on this page.
The devastation that resulted in Bushwick from the July 1977 blackout greatly accelerated the Hispanic influx to Ridgewood. I’m not exactly sure how this affected the Madison. Four years before the blackout, in summer 1973, I remember seeing “French Connection II” at the Madison with my parents, and when a Hispanic character in the film, Sweet William, I believe it was, towards the end of the film, shouted out something about “peace, love, justice, and all that white Anglo-Saxon bullshit !”, there was a tremendous ground-swell cheer from the heavily Hispanic audience.
So, perhaps more so, post-blackout summer 1977. I can’t be sure. The last movie I saw at the Madison was “Lipstick” in June or July of 1976. There was a pretty young Hispanic gal sitting across the left aisle from me, to my right. In the scene in that film when we see Chris Sarandon in the nude, in weird colored lights, crank-calling Margaux Hemingway with those equally weird electronic sounds, we looked at each other as if to say, “What the #$%@ is this weird shit ?” After Margaux Hemingway blew him with a rifle away near the end, I think I said to her, “He’s not gonna make any weird phone calls any more !” She smiled.
It was a Saturday evening, May 20 +, 1978, the last or next-to-last Saturday of that month.
Warren, so far as I remember, the exterior signage of the Madison remained the same, despite the change in management. Thanks for continuing to try to find the Madison’s closing date. It’s something I’ve wondered about myself, and an item of some frustration, because in the fall of 1977 I walked by the Madison nearly every day en route from home (Ridgewood) to school (Cooper Union in lower Manhattan)(via the L line from Myrtle Avenue to 3rd and 14th)but didn’t take note when it stopped showing movies. Or, if I did, it’s a detail I’ve forgotten.
Perhaps we’ll have to settle for the weekend of September 23 1977 to Halloween 1977 as a range of the closing date of the Madison.
That spotty newspaper coverage of the Madison from 1973 onward was probably indicative of its rapidly declining status as a movie house in its last few years of operation. A far fall indeed from its “glory days”.
I saw “Suspiria” and “The Fury” at the Ridgewood in late May 1978. The exact date escapes me. I would have to figure it out. All I can recall offhand is coming out of the theatre at about 8 p.m. and being surprised how bright it still was outside.
frankie, you’re welcome to join some neighborhood chat on Bushwick Buddies at :
http://www.bushwickbuddies.com
You would be most welcome there.