RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
favorited this theater
Showing 726 - 750 of 1,251 comments
I was there yesterday. I saw a comment by an Edwin Ramos yesterday posted on one of the photos of my old Ridgewood home. He mentioned he and his parents having lived at 350 and 351 Cornelia Street. I Googled it, and found those addresses were at Irving Avenue. I used to walk by there alot on my way to and from the Irving Branch library. There are recent photographs of the four corners of Irving and Jefferson Avenues, a block away, on the Bushwick Buddies site.
It would be great to do a “then and now” study on Bushwick Buddies with all those old photos of Bushwick from the two Bushwick pages of Brooklynpix.com. Maybe I could start it by posting a link to those photos. Cobblestoned streets, trolleys and trolley tracks, canvas awnings, horse-drawn vehicles, Model T type cars, ladies in long dresses ….
Haven’t seen you in a while at “Bushwick Buddies” … please don’t forget about us … we’ve got quite a few new “buddies” who are quite vocal.
No problem, bushwickbuddy.
No Peter … the barber shop was in the basement of the children’s store … sorry for the misunderstanding.
My aunt is able to hear a dog whistle BrooklynJim. Perhap’s she has the same hearing gift as you. Earplugs could have been a solution to the shopping problem.
Thanks, bushwickbuddy, for mentioning this detail. I never knew that 5 and 10 had a barber shop in its basement.
The McCrory’s was a W.T. Grant’s in the early 50’s and late 40’s. In the children’s store in the lower level was a barber shop that had a hobby horse for the children to sit in for haircuts. I remember my mother taking my brother there for his haircuts main times, and he was born in 1947. I believe he had his first haircut there … he had a head full of curls … I was about 8 when he had them cut … of course I’m 7 years older than he is lol.
I was never so affected, BklynJim, but thanks for mentioning it.
I could never shop at that second Woolworth’s beginning in the winter of ‘69-'70. They had installed an electronic high-frequency alarm system that most people were unaware of, but to those of us who could hear those upper frequency pitches, it was piercing enough to cause an instant headache. Nobody mentioned this in the weekend posts, so I thought I’d toss it in to see if anyone else was so affected.
I have a similar recolection of the marquee of the old Gramercy theater on 23rd St in manhattan…..I would pass under it everyday for a year when I used to go to that neighborhood everyday….I can tell you almost every movie that was in there back then, as like you said, I guess you just look up as you walk under, and it all stashes into memory….
I remember the change of Woolworth’s to a Foot Locker. Like yourself, I have no clear memory of the two stores it then became.
I also know what you mean about decent-looking stores, as opposed to what my mother used to call “shit shops”, which she took as a sign of the neighborhood deteriorating, although even they are better than vacant buildings or empty lots used by junkies as “shooting galleries” or places for the homeless to squat, which was the fear of what the RKO Madison would become, as it stood vacant and unused in 1978 and 1979, before it went back into use as a store.
I’m not as clear as you are as to what stores the RKO Madison became, perhaps because, once it had become a store, I perceived it as “safe”, as opposed to the threat I saw it was when it was vacant and derelict, and no longer paid much attention to it, although I passed it every day on the way to and from work, as I used to pass it every day on the way to and from school : first, St. Brigid, then Saint Francis Prep, then Cooper Union. I remember how the RKO Madison’s marquee was the first thing I would notice coming up out the subway onto the street at the southeast corner of Myrtle and Wyckoff on my way home. Then, once the marquee was gone, it was other signs hanging over the sidewalk, like the one for the “Joyeria” in spring and summer 1991.
You could be right PKoch, I remember shopping in Woolworths there when going back to Ridgewood for something, but couldn’t place the date. It was after I moved out of the area though. Right after it closed as Woolworths, it became a Foot Locker or Athlete’s Foot sneaker store, which didn’t last long. Currently, the store has been cut up into two stores, and I think they are a higher end children’s clothes store, and I forgot what the other one is. to my surprise, they are both decent looking stores, not the “99 cents” and the like type of stores I usually seem to see coming along Myrtle Ave often times.
Thanks, Bway. I am grateful to this site as a place to show off and exercise my memory. Remembering Woolworth’s and the RKO Madison go hand in hand because they were adjacent to each other.
Thanks for remembering the older five and ten stores on the northern side of Myrtle Avenue, between Seneca and Onderdonk Avenues (Kresge’s and Woolworth’s) and H.L.Green’s / Grant’s /McCrory’s between Onderdonk and Forest. I think the older Woolworth’s lasted into spring 1997, because I remember doing some shopping for my mother there, then.
PKoch, you have some memory! Not only remember when the Woolworth’s opened….but what was playing at the Madison too!
Yes, the “Big Woolworth” had a more modern sign, and looked pretty new in the 70’s from how I remember it. The older Woolworths bushwickbuddy mentioned, (which lasted until the end of the Woolworth’s chain by the way), still had the original “F.W. Woolworth’s” sign right to it’s final day. It closed some time in the early 90’s, along with what was left of the Woolworth chain back then.
Yes, Kresge’s was right next to the old Woolworths, and was the first to close. The one on the next block, between Onderdonk and Forest was a two story 5 and 10 (basement) “Mc Crory’s” (It may have been Grants before that, but that was before my time if so). Next to that was some children’s store, which also had a downstairs. Currently, “The Fair” which used to be a fixture at the corner of Onderdonk and Myrtle took over the old children’s store and Mc Crory’s in the mid 90’s when they moved from the original corner.
As I recall, the Woolworth’s near the Madison opened in the summer of 1969. “The Wild Bunch” was playing at the RKO Madison at the time.
You know, I used to go to the Madison on a regular basis in the 1950s and walked Myrtle Avenue quite a bit but don’t really remember a Woolworth’s being close to the Madison. There was one further down, past the Ridgewood and on the same side where we shopped often. Is it just my senility or was it put in after the 1960s?
Yes, I also remember that Woolworths on the Madison’s block. We used to call that one the “Big Woolworth”, because it had the downstairs (where the toys, etc were). We called it the “Big Woolworth” because there was another, smaller one a few blocks over on Myrtle (between Seneca and Onderdonk).
Thanks, Bway, I had forgotten about Consumers. I’m fairly certain the building burned after Odd Lot closed, I remember the old Woolworth’s was down the block from there around that time. I also recall hanging around in the Army/Navy recruiting station on that same block. It was up on the second floor and was air conditioned so we kids used to hang out in there to get cool during the summer.
I just noticed after all this time that the opening paragraphs of the Madison are wrong. At least the last part of the opening section:
Quote:
*I think the current retail space is only in the lobby and I wonder if the whole theater is still intact inside… *
That is incorrect, as there is no doubt the Liberty Dept Store takes up way more than just the lobby. You can actually see the old outline of the balcony when in the store, and you can esily see you are in the old auditorium. That should be corrected.
Yes, I have a similar recollection (vague) of when they were gutting the Madison. I also remember looking in, and seeing nothing but “black”, and also strings of lights hanging in there. Remember, the Madison was not converted from “The Madison” to Odd Lot. It was converted from The Madison to Consumers first. Consumbers was a Service Merchandise kind of store, where you stand at large table looking at catalogs, see what you want, right it down, and then give a slip to a worker. They then go in the back to get the merchandise item you ordered and bring it to you. Consumers occupied the front part of the building, at least the public part. It only took up perhaps the old lobby area, and I asssume the auditorium was used as the warehouse.
It wasn’t until after Consumers closed that the Madison became Odd Lot, and then you could wander into the whole theater area, except they put the fake drop ceiling in the auditorium area, although you could see the roundness outline of the old balcony, just like you can see today in Liberty Dept Store.
At some point the Madison Theater burned, but I don’t remember if it was between the Madison Theater and Consumers, or if it was between Consumers and Odd Lot. I believe it was after Odd Lot closed, but don’t remember.
Furthermore, after Odd Lot, the Madison theater became “Busy Bee Stores”, which was a flea market compartment store. That also didn’t last all that long.
I have this vague recollection of passing by the Madison Theatre some time after its closure when the ground level was being gutted out and being able to see behind the navy blue boarding out in front and there was some lighting strung inside at night. I just remember being really tempted to sneak inside and carry away a souveneir or two but being to chicken to do it. This was in the early 80s I think when I was a teen and walking home to my grandparents' house on Putnam & Wyckoff. Does anyone remember the transition from Madison Theatre to Odd Lot and the work that was being done inside during that time?
BklynJim, I think I’ve seen that Wyckoff Avenue el platform / RKO Madison view part of that film at the NYC Transit Museum Store in Grand Central Station in NYC, in June 2002 or 2003.
Just posted over on the Whitney Theatre page, but because I wrote a second paragraph about the RKO Madison, thought I should restate it here as well.
“An El Called Myrtle” is a 32-minute color DVD originally shot on film by Mike Boland back in 1969, the last year of the old wooden Q-cars. Boland shot in sequence (and effectively used multiple POVs) from Brooklyn’s Bridge-Jay Street terminus to ground-level, end-of-the-line Metropolitan Avenue station in Ridgewood/Middle Village. As the old el cars approached and entered the Wyckoff Ave. station, the viewer can clearly make out the roof and water towers of the Madison.
Can’t speak for everyone, but IMHO, I’m pleased that there were photographers around who, for whatever personal reasons they had at the time, were able to archive a piece of NYC theater & transit history for us along the way.
Excuse me, that should have been Georges Clouzot.
As opposed to Inspector Clousseau.
Chilling, indeed, BklynJim, after having enjoyed Whitaker as the host of the 2002-03 UPN 9 Twilight Zone.
A neat two-movie package, indeed. 1961’s “Homicidal” was Castle’s quick cash-in on “Psycho”, itself, I think, inspired by earlier b & w Castle cheapies, as well as the arty 1955 “Les Diaboliques” by Clouzeau.
Yup, Norton. Regular laff riot !