Ridgewood Folly Theatre

The Triangle furniture building was built in 1909. It opened as the Ridgewood National Bank. One year later the bank moved to Cypress avenue and Myrtle avenue. The building became a dance emporium until 1926 at which point plans were underway to convert it to a theatre. The deal fell thru and the building was sold. It was used for boxing matches until the late 1930’s. That is the extent of my knowledge on this building.

S.G. Cogan
Queens Genealogy Workshop

My organization does not do theatre research. I am doing this work as a favor to Sally who I might add is very distraught over her information leading you gentlemen astray.

Thank you SG Cogan. A dance eporium and sports arena can explain what I have witnessed as the store having a “high ceiling”, and the marquee, and it not being your typical “apartments over stores” building. To this day, I don’t believe those windows above the VG Nichols store are apartments, and don’t look like them observing from the street. This doesn’t explain the map (or whatever Sally was looking at) that she mentioned she saw that the Triangle site was a theater on that map (and a saloon). Any information on that Triangle site would be appreciated.
I guess we can now ask cinematreasures to change the address above to 659 Granndview Ave. It was on the site of or next to the Grandview Theater, however is not the same building, nor the same theater. The Ridgewood Folly is an important theater, as it was the first to show movies in Ridgewood.

Not to go crazy on this, but how do we know for sure now that this is correct. This would not be the first time that we thought we solved this mystery. This time I am not considering this solved until I see in print that this is the proper location. Too many people have said it was in one place, only to be corrected a time later that it was in another. John seems pretty sure, but then again, so did Sally a few days ago for a different location, along with other people saying it was somewhere else.
John, how do you know for sure that this theater was on on Grandview Ave? No offense, but this time I have have to be skeptical, because this happened too many times already.

The theatre depicted in the photo was located on grandview avenue between linden street and gates avenue within walking distance of Ms Franz home. The theatre and adjoining buildings were removed and replaced with the grandview theatre. I was invited here to set the record straight. I have no recollection of the theatre myself but I am told it could accomodate about 200 people. I also have no knowledge of the triangle building.

Unfortunately, the replacement theater at the Ridgewood Folly site, whatever it’s name (Ridgewood Folly again or some other name), that is now the VG Nichols building was obviously an unsuccessful theater, that probably closed soon after it opened, maybe just a few years. Unfortunately, there is only a span of a few years that it may have been a theater, so very little information exists on it.

Thanks Sally, and we couldn’t have solved this one without your input.
As for the address, I don’t know how cinematreasures deals with the address changes. What I mean is the current address of the Ridgewood Folly’s location (the VG Nichols Building) is 55-05 Myrtle Ave. That is of course in the Queens Numbering system that was implemented through the 20’s and 30’s. However, when the Ridgewood Folly operated, Myrtle Ave was still using the Brooklyn numbering system. I don’t know if cimematreasures would want the current address or the “dead” address of the location from when the theater operated.
Warren, since the Ridgewood Folly is only a few buildings west of the Ridgewood Theater, and we have the old Brooklyn system number for the Ridgewood (#1673), is there a theater listed in your Film Daily books on Myrtle Ave that is only a few numbers less than 1673? The Ridgewood Folly had to be 16XX Myrtle Ave in the Brooklyn numbering system. Since the Ridgewood was 1673 Myrtle and the Madison was 1562 in the Brooklyn system, and the Ridgewood Folly had to be between 1562 and 1673, but very close to 1673 because the Folly is only a few stores down from the Ridgewood Theater.
Personally, I think it should be listed as 55-05 Myrtle Ave, since that location was that number since the 1920’s when Queens went into the new numbering system.

Sally, this is good news. This is the first time I have clearly heard that the current Triangle Furniture (VG Nichols Buildings) was in fact a theater at one time, even if ever so briefly.
Through private email, me and lostmemory had determined that the current VG Nichols buiding was built in 1918, and was a replacement theater to the original Ridgewood Folly (name of replacement theater unknown). It was a very short lived theater. In 1918, the movie business was still an open slate, and there were many small theaters in the area, so it was a good idea to replace the older Ridgewood Folly building. However, once in the 1920’s when movies became more popular, and the legit theaters in the area (the RKO Madison and the Ridgewood Theatre) started playing movies, it probably was a big blow to the little theaters such as this one. By the 1930’s the “New Folly” (or whatever it was called) closed and the building was slightly altered, and Triangle Furniture took over the site…putting their name on the marquee (wouldn’t it be ironic it it was the “Triangle Theater”?). This would explain why the building has a marquee, why it has a high ceiling in the store, and why the building doesn’t look like your typical “apartments over stores” building….because it was a theater!
I think the mysterious “Ridgewood Folly” has finally been uncovered. It was located at 55-05 Myrtle Ave.
Now we just have to figure out if the short lived replacement theater was also called the “Ridgewood Folly” or if it had some other name for it’s short existence in the VG Nichols Furniture building.

There didn’t need to be a nother building there between 1918 and 1928. If the original Folly closed in 1918 and the new building built in 1928, the original Folly Building could have sat there either vacant or in some other use until it was torn down around 1928 to build what is now the VG Nichols building. It only says the Folly closed in 1918, not that the building was removed too in 1918, I don’t think.
But this still doesn’t solve the fact that the Triangle Furniture building still screems that it was built for the use of a theater!

Thanks Sally. While the current building located on that site is definitely not the old Folly seen in the photo. The current building is the same building as seen in the queenspix.com photo of Triangle Furniture, and probably does date to the 1920’s. I still believe the Triangle building may have started as a theater, perhaps a replacement of the Folly at first.
If you can, please find out what you can about it.

Interestingly, the building is different than the surrounding buildings if you look at the photo in the link postd above at queenspix. The building has larger windows than the normal apartments over stores buildings, and like I said, the downstairs appears to have a high ceiling in the back.
Yes, i do believe that the VG Nichols (Triangle) building appears newer than it’s neighboring buildings, but not by much. I will say that it looks pre-1930. It is very possible that the VG Nichols building was built after the Ridgwood Folly was torn down (and it fits into the puzzle). Now whether VG Nichols was a theater before Triangle Furniture is still a mystery, but it does seem like more than a cooincidence that the VG Nichols building keeps coming up as a potential theater site. It just may be the proper location of the RIdgwood Folly, but I can’t say for sure.

I don’t know if we solved the Myrtle Theater mystery yet. Maybe Warren can help us out with his Daly books if 55-05 was ever a theater. The more I research it, the more it leads me to believe that VG Nichols was a theater at some point, even if long ago, and for a short period of time. The VG Nichols building is definitely not the same building that is shown in the above Ridgewood Folly photo. However, remember that the Ridgewood Folly closed in 1918, and the current VG Nichols building built on it’s site, maybe a short lived theater before becoming the furniture store.

It still is also possible that 60-15 Myrtle, now a Blockbuster was also built as a theater as mentioned above. What’s difficult is that Both Blockbuster and VG Nichols buildings could have been a different number in the old numbering system of Queens.

Ah yes, I think that is the building that Blockbuster is in now, not the building that still has the marquee a few stores down. That building is different than the rest of the block, right across from where the A&P used to be. In the early 80’s, it became a different furniture store, with a few floors of furniture, and they removed the marquee, and refaced all four floors of the fascade of the building. It closed in the early 90’s, and now Blockbuster video occupies the main floor. Yes, I am tempted to believe that was a theater at one time, but certainly not sure. If we can find out the address of Blockbuster, maybe we can research it further.
The VG Nichols building is very likely to have been a theater, but now that you mention it, so does this one.
Kind of ironic if a former movie theater is now a Blockbuster Video….

I know exactly which building you mean. The marquee is still there, IINM. I think it was also “Ideal” women’s clothes at one time. I don’t know if that was a theater or a marquee for a fancy store originally. The buiding does have the same brickwork as all the surrounding buildings that are your typical “apartment over stores” buildings, so I am not sure about that one….unless you mean the building where Blockbuster now is, which I think also had a marquee at one time, but was removed years ago (when it became Roman’s? Furniture, before becoming Blockbuster).