Century's Prospect Theatre
41-10 Main Street,
Flushing,
NY
11355
41-10 Main Street,
Flushing,
NY
11355
9 people
favorited this theater
Showing 51 - 75 of 100 comments
No. 41st Road.
Here’s a website that has links to a number of seemingly cool resources that might be of service in trying to identify archaic street names and addresses in NYC. If one uses this particular page on Queens and looks up both Jagger and Prospect one will find that they were renamed Main Street and 41st Road, respectively.
I can’t testify as to the usefulness of some of the other resources linked from the main page, but they might be worth a look.
I don’t know, Warren. I think it’s impossible to tell from the photo… My perception of that photo is that I’m looking downhill almost the whole way with a slight leveling off around 41st or so. If anything, it might begin inclining upward again past the LIRR and up towards Northern. Certainly at the Flushing Post Office (the brick and limestone building on the left under the trestle), the grade becomes much steeper heading towrads Franklin Ave and beyond towards Jamaica. Tell you what, I’ll get over there real soon with a bag of marbles and put this whole thing to rest!
I should say, “the mystery of the location provided in that ad is solved.”
Memory can play awful tricks with you, Warren. I worked on Main Street off 42nd Street for 5 years and could swear the uphill incline was from south to north, tapering off as it crossed under the LIRR trestle. No matter. If there was in fact a Prospect Avenue that intersected Main/Jarret, the mystery of that ad’s location is solved.
Interesting thought, Warren. Although, the grade of Main Street runs pretty steadily (if only slightly) uphill from the south THROUGH the spot where the Prospect Theater stood and on up towards its terminus at Northern Blvd. The grade is much steeper to the south of 41st than it us to the north – which is the direction of downtown Flushing. Perhaps you’re right that this was once a “prospect point” where that grade sort of leveled out offering an overview of the lower lying lands to the south and east – and possibly to the west across nearby Flushing creek and towards Manhattan.
Prospect wasnt the name of the street, they are refering to the theater, Prospect at Jagger, like the Mets at Shea. Jagger was Main st north of the lirr. I also beleive Kissena blvd was known as Jamaica blvd back then.
Interesting to see the old street names used for the location of the Prospect in that ad. Prospect at Jagger. I assume Prospect was the former name of Main Street and that Jagger is either 41st Ave or 41st Rd. I know that numbered streets had previously been named, but I had no idea that Main Street was ever known by any other name. At least not as relatively recent as 1928. Or, could one of these names refer to what is now known as Kissena Blvd?
I just came upon this site quite by accident. Reading all these entries about the Prospect, Keith’s, Gloria’s, Master’s (bought the first beatle album there!) really takes me back. I know this site is dedicated to talking mostly about the bygone years of the great movie houses that are no more, but I can’t help think what has happened to Flushing in gerneral. Growing up in College point and now residing in Bayside, I am a diehard Queens resident. I see a little of the “asian” transformation in Bayside but not to the degree it has become in Flushing. I drive to work (LIC) but occasionally take the Q27 to Flish and then the 7. My God .. the smell of old fish and garbage exiting the bus is enough to knock me to the ground. Restaurant and after restaurant after restaurant. It’s astounding. Please .. don’t get me wrong. I think America is great because of all the ethnic groups that are here and contribute, but Flushing has become little more than a festuring pool of eateries and cheap goods. I suppose this is progress.
Thanks, EdSolero. At the same time “Porky’s” came out, there was a Moral Majority Quiz in Mad Magazine, one question being, “When you shower, do you soap the faucet so you don’t accidentally see yourself nude ?”
I remember laughing my tail off when I first saw “Porky’s” – probably at the Sunrise Multiplex in Valley Stream. Of course, it is unabashedly crude and lewd, taking its lead (as did all of the sex-filled gross-out comedies of the period) from “Animal House” and pushing the envelope farther than Harold Ramis and the folks at National Lampoon ever imagined. In any event, I haven’t watched the movie in many years, but I will always be thankful to “Porky’s” for introducing the word “tallywhacker” into my vocabulary.
View link
Thanks, perhaps I will. Here’s a link to those scenes.
Thanks, I just answered my own question by looking in Celebrity Movie Archives. One sees her bare butt, but not her breasts. Yes, I know she was one of the four ferocious sex kittens in “Sex and the City”. Thanks for the recommendation of “Porky’s”. Hollywood should keep on doing what it does “breast”(best).
At the risk of “the wrath of Warren”, how does Kim Cattrall look in the nude in this one ?
The infamous “Porky’s” had a sneak preview at one of the three Prospect auditoriums (as well as a select number of other theaters around the Metro area) in March of 1982:
NY Post 3/6/82
According to the movie clock in that same edition, the regular film playing with the preview (back in the days when you actually got to see both movies on the same ticket) was Charles Bronson’s “Death Wish II”.
Here’s a shot of the Prospect (with a trolley in the way) from 1948 that I think might have been previously posted here:
Prospect 1948
Unfortunately, it’s a tiny shot. I think this is the same subway.org shot that PeterK posted back on Aug. 11 2004. I’m sure the original opened much larger, but if you go to Peter’s post, you’ll see that the linked image has been replaced.
As someone who lived just down the street from the Prospect in the 1960s, 70s & 80s, I have a lot of fond memories of this movie palace and it’s neighborhood. I vividly remember a line around the block for American Grafitti, saw Superman (1978) here three times, and I think I remember me and my parents walking out in the middle of George Lucas' THX-1138 because we thought it was too cerebral and pretentious (George Lucas!) at this theater. Concerning the fondly remembered Gloria’s Pizza, someone working at one of the Gino’s Pizzaria Chain told me that when Gloria’s went out of business, Gino’s bought their recipe. Don’t know if it’s true, but I can say that whenever I have a Gino’s slice, it seems to taste better than most others (maybe they switched to the same supplier?)! What with Woolworths, Gertz, Kleins, TSS, Bargain Books (for comics), a great Te-amo down Main Street at the corner of Roosevelt for loads of candy, a wonderful library (complete with a quiet courtyard in the middle of all this), and so much more, this was truly a great neighborhood!
The park on route 110 is “Adventure Land”, took my daughter there last year and yes its still open. Judging by the looks of everyone in attendence, looks like thats where all the old residents of flushing moved off to. The college point park was “adventures inn"which wasnt across the street from the old amusment park but on an angle on the corner. I vividly remember going there and for years parts of the sidewalk was blocked off because it sank into the ground! By the way, since we are so off track here, does anyone have any pictures of the prospects interior?? There are so many of the keiths but all the shots i’ve seen of the prospect have been from the side or a back wall, any front shots??
The park on route 110 is “Adventure Land”, took my daughter there last year and yes its still open. Judging by the looks of everyone in attendence, looks like thats where all the old residents of flushing moved off to. The college point park was “adventures inn"which wasnt across the street from the old amusment park but on an angle on the corner. I vividly remember going there and for years parts of the sidewalk was blocked off because it sank into the ground! By the way, since we are so off track here, does anyone have any pictures of the prospects interior?? There are so many of the keiths but all the shots i’ve seen of the prospect have been from the side or a back wall, any front shots??
I’ve always remembered the Route 110 place as Adventurer’s. Perhaps it was also known as Adventurer’s Adventure Land.
Thanks for the info on Whitestone Cinemas. My wife and I had discussed seeing a film there when my father lived near there in a nursing home on Union Street in Flushing, but we never did.
P.S… Wasn’t the Route 110 place called Adventure Land? I went there whenever we’d visit my great-grandfather’s grave in St. Charles Cemetary. Actually, the amusement park is still there, isn’t it? Or was until very recently.
Even after Adventurer’s Inn was demolished, the arcade on the corner across the street was still in operation well into the 1980’s. The multiplex there is not a bad place to see a film, if you avoid the smaller auditoriums close to the center lobby area (they would be #’s 1, 6, 7 and 12). In the other rooms, the screens are nice and big in relation to the size of the room, with brightly lit images and excellent surround sound reproduction. The wait for concessions, however, is painfully long.
I, too, remember the Adventurer’s Inn (combination eatery and amusement park) in College Point, with the smiling boy pirate logo, although my family and I usually went to the Adventurer’s Inn on Route 110 near Amityville, Long Island, instead.
Yes, I think the small cinema on Main Street in the mostly Hassidic neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills still shows first run films. I saw the James Bond film with Timothy Dalton as Bond and Mariam Dyabo as the cellist, there, in August 1987, “Disclosure” there in January 1995 and “The Bridges Of Madison County” there in June 1995.