RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
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Showing 851 - 875 of 1,251 comments
I was the last manager of the madison as rko…roll up to june 6th of this year….i think i was put there to close the place, though not telling me at the time…there was a manager there, can’t remember his name old enough for me to call him mister [that old]..
rko didn’t want to put any money into it..ie: ac and heat…the only up side was a great staff trying to keep things together for many like myself was the theatre of our childhood life…yes, near the end rko did play alot of underbelly movies…reason why..you book them for a flat fee…anything over that was yours…most patrons at that time were under 25…lack of heat and air not a problem for them, just a place to be….just a side bar..like most theatres in
the day…coal..was the heat…get this…at night you would load the furnace with coal…then wet in down with water…during the night the hot coals would dry out the new wet coals so, by the time it took to dry you would have a nice warm theatre by noon…and the down side a cold theatre by evening…AND THIS JUST IN…in the winter kids would sneak in sliding down the coal shoot..
my mom, as a child, saw martha ray live on stage with my mother,
i, as a child, my grandmother would take me to the madison…
as an adult i was manager of the madison..many fond family MADISON
MEMORIES…
keep your feet off the seats!
wally
I was the last manager of the madison as rko…roll up to june 6th of this year….i think i was put there to close the place, though not telling me at the time…there was a manager there, can’t remember his name old enough for me to call him mister [that old]..
rko didn’t want to put any money into it..ie: ac and heat…the only up side was a great staff trying to keep things together for many like myself was the theatre of our childhood life…yes, near the end rko did play alot of underbelly movies…reason why..you book them for a flat fee…anything over that was yours…most patrons at that time were under 25…lack of heat and air not a problem for them, just a place to be….just a side bar..like most theatres in
the day…coal..was the heat…get this…at night you would load the furnace with coal…then wet in down with water…during the night the hot coals would dry out the new wet coals so, by the time it took to dry you would have a nice warm theatre by noon…and the down side a cold theatre by evening…AND THIS JUST IN…in the winter kids would sneak in sliding down the coal shoot..
my mom, as a child, saw martha ray live on stage with my mother,
i, as a child, my grandmother would take me to the madison…
as an adult i was manager of the madison..many fond family MADISON
MEMORIES…
keep your feet off the seats!
wally
A 1955 double bill, if ever there was a pair of “women’s pictures” it’s these two.
View link
No idea, Bway, it was before my time. The first horror movie I recall having seen at the RKO Madison was “The Premature Burial”, directed by Roger Corman, from the story by Edgar Allan Poe, starring Ray Milland and Hazel Court, summer 1962, when I was six.
Does anyone know what they did during that “special arrangement”?
I remember catching that double bill with my friends at age 12 at, I think, the Queens or Community in Queens. Quite a double shocker—Carry On for the bawdy humor and Black Sunday for that opening sequence. Very educational day!
What an odd pairing! One, an early entry in the long-running series of low British comedies that lasted well into the ‘70’s and the other, a seminal Italian horror classic from maestro Mario Bava!
It’s possible. If it had been January 1948 instead of January 1978, Sasquatch probably would have appeared live on the stage of the RKO Madison Theater, along with a film about “Sasquatch” being shown.
I did not see the boxing match, and so cannot comment on the state of the orchestra level on Tuesday, June 17, 1980 : whether or not it was undivided.
Melvin the toxic avenger. Based in New Jersey for some odd reason. haha
When the theatre went from a single to a triplex the first thing to open was the balcony theatre. Like discussed before the theatre never closed so the boxing match must have been shown after the blacony theatre had been constructed and the wall dividing the orchestra had not yet been put up, or the boxing was shown on one side.
Lost Memory, Ridgewood Bill a bucket of sludge ? How about a real-life “Toxic Avenger” ?
RobertR, the only “twinning” of the Ridgewood I was aware of was in mid-June 1980, when it was showing the film “Friday The 13th” in its balcony, and a boxing match on closed-circuit TV on the orchestra level.
The Ridgewood was never a twin it went from a single to a triplex
mikemovies, I think that other crank case was either “Ridgewood Bill”, who thought he was God, or Fast Eddy, a troll who liked to brag about having had sex with the corpse of Mae West in the balcony of the RKO Madison Theater, after it had closed.
Reading through these old messages I found another cranky fella with no name. Was this other crankcase expelled? I am referring to this message.
More jibberish nonsense. The three of you carry on as buffoons. I see no factual statements being made only conjecture and speculation. Use your time more wisely to find factual theatre data that will benefit everyone. Childish gossip runs amok here.
posted by on Feb 15, 2005 at 7:33pm
“Anyway, I think that ad is from January 1978. A few of us think that the RKO Madison closed around that time, maybe February would be a closer date.”
No. I remember that, on the last Saturday in February 1978, the RKO Madison Theater had been closed for about a month, was already a derelict ruin, with that sign on the front, that I have mentioned before, saying :
THIS IS HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD STARTS TO DECAY !
IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, CALL : (phone # for neighborhod action group)
“Why didn’t you come to your Don first? Your enemies would become my enemies. They would suffer this very day.” – Vito Andolini, 1945
Oh no you don’t. Don’t blame this on me. Warren will hunt me down and beat me with his fists or personally arrange it so I am banned from the Lincoln Center branch of the NY Public Library.
Bway, we’re just following Ed’s suggestion about pillaging and plundering elsewhere. As you stated, the RKO Madison was certainly closer than the new Atlas Park Stadium 8 in Glendale. (We’ll get that one when there’s no more room here. LOL!)
Oh my god, they left the Ridgewood Theater and came across the street to the RKO Madison. Haha.
OK, that’s it!
Forget about Ridgewood II, the Second Coming. Forget about purging by remote control. Forget about what damage the real Joe Pesci can do. Instead, let’s pillage and sack all the Warner Theaters that Patsy has just provided for our entertainment and pleasure. Besides, they’ll never figure out which Warner Theater we’re on! LOL!
“I want the world, Chico… and everythin' tha’s in it."
– Tony "Last of the Bad Guys” Montana
“It’s a mystery! It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!”
Just to continue the Joe Pesci thread.
Jon Voight (“National Treasures”): “One clue just leads to another clue.”
Lost Memory (“Cinema Treasures”): “One mystery just leads to another mystery.”
Doris Day: “Que Sera, Sera.”
BrooklynJim: “ROFLMFAO!” :)
That’s really odd! I don’t think the Ridgewood was cut up in 1978 yet, but not sure. Perhaps that was a misprint for the Madison? it’s odd that the Ridgewood Theater would be in both the Brooklyn and QUeens listings, and a different movie for each!
I only have the one paper from 1978, Lost. It’s a copy of the Daily News from 1/25/78 and there is no listing for the Madison in any movie clock or film ad:
Movie Clock – Daily News 1/25/78
The image is a little blurry, but you can make out that the Brooklyn listings include the Oasis and Ridgewood. However, under Queens you also find a Ridgewood listing. And both of these listings show a different attraction. I have an ad for the movie “Sasquatch” that confirms it was playing at the Ridgewood. There is no ad for “Smokey and the Bandit”, which would have been on a late run by that time. Could the “Ridgewood” theater playing the Burt Reynolds flick have been the Madison mislabled? Was it part of the RKO discount houses that played last run pics around this time? Or was the Ridgewood already a twin at the time with some smart aleck editor at the paper allowing one auditorium for Brooklyn and the other for Queens?