Loew's Triboro Theatre
2804 Steinway Street,
Astoria,
NY
11103
2804 Steinway Street,
Astoria,
NY
11103
15 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 90 comments
Warren Thank You very much for the above info, i never knew that.
What a shame. It seems like it was quite original.
Great photo Warren, brings back memories of how I remembered the theater. I recall this theater and the RKO Keith were the only ones where I used to prefer to sit in the balcony section to see the features so I could admire the architectural reliefs on the walls and ceiling.
Thanks Warren that was a great shot!!
A pair of Jerry Lewis re-releases were running at the Triboro the weekend JFK was assassinated:
Fab-u-Lewis – LI Star Journal 11/23/63
I bet the prospect of back-to-back Lewis features was a lot scarier than the alleged horror twin bill that was advertised as coming to the Triboro the following Wednesday.
One the Steinway Street side (the front) there is a row of stores with two stories of apartments above. One the back side (38th street) is a row of two family homes. Today the tought of tearing down the Loews Triboro for something so mundane and ordinary boggles the mind.
What is on the current site of the former Loews Triboro?
Warren THANK YOU THANK YOU< it was great to see the inside again.
Thnaks for the photos of the inside of the theater, it brings back alot of memories. What a glorious theater it was, and what a disgrace politics allowed to be razed for a bunch of rowhouses. I recall hearing during 1974 that there was going to be a large department store built in it’s place, so I was very suprised when houses went up in it’s place. What a waste. Go figure.
Nobody has added the Manhattan Roosevelt on 145 St see the ad I have posted on the 125 St Apollo and Cinerama site.
That’s a great photo of today’s Steinway and 28th Street. I recently circumnavigated the neighborhood looking for the great Titan Greek Supermarket, all the while wondering where the Triboro had once stood. This block of rowhouses would never have occured to me as the location.
The Triboro Theatre located on 125th Street, Harlem was known as the Gotham Theatre, already listed here http://cinematreasures.org/theatre/6523/
The Triboro (which I’m too young to have attended) was torn down for THOSE?!? What… a… disgrace…
Here is a shot of the marquee at night.
I grew up in the triboro. it was beautiful, fun place to see a movie. not only did i see movies there but my graduation form bryant
high school was held in the triboro. i still miss it.
Ah, that answers the question. The Broadway is the cinemas that was on Broadway between 31st and 32nd Streets just east of the subway stop. The Strand at one time was I believe some sort of studio, like Kaufman/Astoria Studios. What they filmed, or still film, there I don’t know; I never went in there. There were (and are) retail stores in the building that must have been the Strand. There was also a bowling alley at one time in the same complex I believe that was in the basement and that closed some time since I moved to Astoria in the 1970s.
How can I find out when the Strand and Broadway closed?
I have lived in Astoria since ‘87 and didn’t know there were four theatres on Steinway! Only the dreadful Astoria six-'plex was open when I moved here and now that is closed.
I noticed that the theatre on Crescent & Broadway was mentioned. That was the Strand.
I take it that the Triboro was on the northwest corner of Steinway & 28th Avenue. Those apartments are the pits, though there is nice coffee shop/bar on the corner.
What block was the Steinway? I don’t recall a Brothers store off the top of my head, but the building on the southwest corner of 30th Avenue and Steinway looks like it could have been a theatre at one time.
Then there was the Olympia on Steinway & 25th Street. That must be just south of the Grand Central on the same block where the Triboro used to be.
Where was the fourth Steinway Street Cinema located?
And there must have been a cinema on the corner of 32nd Street and Broadway, now the site of a bank. The building looks like it was a cinema at one time.
BoxOfficeBill: Thanks for the Mickey Rooney suggestions. I looked up “Quicksand” on Amazon, and it doesn’t seem to be the movie I’m thinking of. I wonder if I’ve mixed up Mickey Rooney with another actor? Or perhaps it wasn’t a carnival or circus, but something else that seemed to me — a kid — to be a carnival or circus side show? (Maybe it was a horse racing stable?)
It’s funny how memories are, though. In my mind it is a relatively vivid image (I can see them in some kind of hayloft), and I distinctly remember being none too pleased with the fact that my father seemed to be laughing so much and so thoroughly enjoying this scene in the movie (as though he was putting all kids — including me — into the same category as the kid on the screen).
Benjamin— here’s M. Rooney’s filmography for ‘53-'57: “Off Limits” (a Bob Hope service comedy), “Drive a Crooked Road” (M as race-car driver), “Atomic Kid” (M filled-up with uranium), “Bridges at Toko-Ri,” “Bold and the Brave” (war action), “Francis in the Haunted House,” “Operation Mad Ball” (Jack Lemmon service comedy),“Baby Face Nelson” (gangster bio). None of these fits your description. In 1950, Rooney acted in “Quicksand” as a hapless car mechanic needled by Peter Lorree, who runs a penny arcade. I don’t know whether the arcade bursts into flame at the end, or whether there’s a child actor involved.
Ken: From reading that webpage, the “Grand” seems to be the theater I’m thinking of (e.g., 2,178 seats seems about the right level of grandeur).
Sorry, that was my mistake regarding the addresses. Although I grew up in Queens, the street numbering system has always given me a problem, and with my map being cut in half, I read the map wrong.
Looking at the map again, Ditmars seems to be the equivalent of a 22nd Ave., and the next street to the south is 23rd Ave. I think the hyphenated addres works as follows: the first number reflects the number of the cross street at the north end of the block, and the number after the hypen relfects how far that building is from the northern end of the block (with odd numbers being on the eastern side of the street).
So, if I’m reading the map correctly this time, an address for the “Grand” at 22-15 (closer to 22nd St. and on the eastern side of 31st St.) and for the “Ditmars” at 22-68 (further away from 22nd St. and on the western side of 31st St.) would seem about right. (Although I don’t have any personal recollection of the “Ditmars” at all.)
Thanks again for your help! It seemed so strange that such a large theater (which was so bustling and full of life in my memory of it in the mid-1950s) was so much “under the radar.” But since it apparently closed in the mid-1950s, one can see how it more or less fell off the map. But I guess it’s the same as the Jamaica Theater west of Parsons Blvd. on Jamaica Ave. — except that that one closed before I ever saw it in operation.
Benjamin;
Try looking at the Grand Theatre /theaters/630/
I was just about to add the Ditmars Theatre but have now held back. My F.D.R. actually gives an address as 22-68 31st Ave but thats quite a way from Ditmars Blvd so I thought it could be a mis-print? Reading what you have just posted here and whats said about the Ditmars on the Grand Theatre page, i’m not so sure now. Maybe as a local you will know better than me and post a correct entry for the Ditmars.
P.S. — I haven’t been to that area in ages, but looking at the Hagstom, the particular block that I’m thinking about seems to be a double-sized block. (For some reason, 32nd St. discontinues at 23rd Ave. and then starts up again at Ditmars.)
Ken:
Looking at my Hagstrom, I get the impression that 22-68 31st St. would be approximately one subway stop further to the south from where I think the movie theater I’m talking about was. (It’s hard for me to read this particular map in my Hagstrom atlas because, wouldn’t you know it, the area is interrupted by the book’s spiral binding.)
It’s funny, and I may be way off, but in my recollection this theater is a “major” movie theater with a big marquee (in my mind, it is just one step below the Triboro in grandeur) and just about at the end of the line of the “elevated” along 31st St. (which even as a kid seemed too “delicious” for a disaster movie scene — with the “el” trains shooting off the end of the elevated structure).
In my memory the theater is on the corner, with the big marquee facing the elevated on 31st St. and the left side of the auditorium running along Ditmars. I think there was a “tunnel” foyer/lobby running east-west, until it hit a north-south “real” lobby running across the back of the orchestra level.
2) The Mickey Rooney movie (if there was one, and I haven’t mixed different movies/TV shows together in my mind) would have been around 1954, 1955 or 1956. (I once tried looking it up on Imdb, but it was very difficult to do — it might have been an earlier movie of his that was re-released or on a double-bill?)
Benjamin;
The closest I can get to your 31st St and Ditmars Boulevard address is in my 1950 Film Daily Yearbook, the Ditmars Theatre, 22-68 31st Street which had 597 seats listed. This is not currently listed on Cinema Treasures.
Approx what year was the Mickey Rooney movie?
Thanks (yet again!) Warren and BoxOfficeBill for the helpful info.
Since I’m not sure where else to place these questions, the Triboro site seems as good a place as any:
1) Does anyone know the name of the movie theater in Astoria on, I believe, 31st St. and Ditmars? I remember being taken there in the mid-1950s by some older neighborhood kids to see some kiddie matinee movie — maybe even “Our Gang” comedies.
2) Does anyone remember a Mickey Rooney movie where he plays a guardian of a young boy. The boy is rebellious (sp?) and uncooperative. But the kid becomes cooperative all of a sudden when they go to some kind of carnival or circus and get caught in a fire.
Thanks in advance for any info anyone has!