RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
favorited this theater
Showing 901 - 925 of 1,251 comments
I would guess that those are wires. They are to close together to be trolley tracks. I count 4 wires.
I can’t tell if they are trolley tracks or wires under the el. I think they are wires, but not sure.
I am not sure how old that photo is. I would guess it’s the early or mid 60’s though.
Well, I actually just looked through that site a little bit, and found this photo which asnswers the question we had above a few months ago about the old, and now rapidly fading painted sign on the side of the old Madison.
It did say “RKO” in it, it said “R.K.O Madison Theatre”.
View link
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
Also, duh! Sure woulda helped if I’d taken the time to read the write-up below the pic! Double Duh! (Must be the heat. Hafta blame something besides stoopidity!) Think I’ll re-retire and write some sound bytes for SNL, the Sierra Club, etc:
“Fight Mental Health”
“More Trees, Less Bush”
Sorry to disappoint, but that is a recent photo taken in December of 2002 (December 8, 2002) That was a nostalgia special run when they were getting rid of that type of equipment. Those were the old red trains that used to run on the #7 Flushing line.
Unfortunately, that is not a glimpse of the RKO Madison’s old marquee….as it was long gone already by 2002, that’s just another Christmas light.
The gent who runs the website below has added some new pix (his subway/el archives now number 19 pages). Here’s one of Myrtle & Wyckoff at night. Half of the RKO Madison’s marquee is at far right, dead center:
View link
Hi, I am posting for my mom, Joan Kramer. She is looking for an usher who worked at this theater in 1948-49 named William Fersching. (Not sure if last name is spelled that way). If anyone knows his whereabouts, please email me at , my name is Eileen. Thanks so much!
just throwing this out….
there was an out door theatre..my father said it was on a roof..
mae west near the madison rests at cypress hills..
there was a real nice doorman there around 77…can’t remember
his name but, i remember he had one arm and would rip tickets faster
then most with two…
wally1975
i went to christ the king high school which is across from the old robert hall…they also had a police academy in that robert hall site.is the academy still there?
I started watching “Bell, Book and Candle” once on “The Late Show”. I vaguely remember Jimmy Stewart dancing through the street and using his magic to turn streetlights on and off.
How about Kim Novak in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” ?
Thanks, Warren.
There was also something called a “walk-a-lator”, a moving inclined ramp, or escalator without steps, that moved people from the lower level to the roof.
“Saying ‘74 in relation to flared pants is totally redundant, yes?”
Not necessarily. It’s better to over-define that to underdefine.
I wore both flared and straight-leg pants back then.
Farmer’s Oval. A blast from the past, that name – and field.
Bought a few garish sports jackets and flared pants at Times Square Stores back in ‘74. (Saying '74 in relation to flared pants is totally redundant, yes?)
Thanks for the mini history of Robert Hall Village / Metro Mall, Bway. I remember it having both names. I was first there around Thanksgiving 1974. I especiallu enjoyed the panoramic view of Upper Ridgewood to the south, from the parking lot on the roof.
The mall that is on that site at the Metro Ave station was built in the early 70’s for Robert Hall Village, and Bohack supermarket next door. Downstairs was Macys bargain basement where they sold floor sample furniture, etc. Robert Hall closed, and became TSS. Bohack became Waldbaums. Then, TSS closed, and became Caldor, followed by KMart. Meanwhile, they redid the downstairs, and opened up “Metro Mall” which included Pergament, and Waldbaums moved downstairs.Sears Brand Central was the other big store down there. Toys R Us moved into the Waldbaums space upstairs.
I think currently Pergament and Waldbaums both closed, were combined, and now it’s a BJ’s.
Farmer’s Oval is still there, and alive and well. I also had many a good times in that park.
The mall that is on that site at the Metro Ave station was built in the early 70’s for Robert Hall Village, and Bohack supermarket next door. Downstairs was Macys bargain basement where they sold floor sample furniture, etc. Robert Hall closed, and became TSS. Bohack became Waldbaums. Then, TSS closed, and became Caldor, followed by KMart. Meanwhile, they redid the downstairs, and opened up “Metro Mall” which included Pergament, and Waldbaums moved downstairs.Sears Brand Central was the other big store down there. Toys R Us moved into the Waldbaums space upstairs.
I think currently Pergament and Waldbaums both closed, were combined, and now it’s a BJ’s.
Farmer’s Oval is still there, and alive and well. I also had many a good times in that park.
Appreciated the link, Lost Memory. As a NYC railfan, (as well as being a movie and theater buff,) I’ve always enjoyed the photography of Joe Testagrose and the transit gems from his extensive files. But as for “R.K.O.,” complete with a period after each letter, it is there in the mid-‘50s on the very top line in big white letters. (The theater owners may have painted over it down the line, however, hence the variance in recollections.)
OK, Lost Memory. My local library is open until 8:00 tonight (PDT), so I’m able to reply with your requested info now. (As you may or may not know, my PC committed suicide via electrocution a few years ago, and I’ve never had the heart to adopt another. Thus, BrooklnJim writes to you courtesy of Ahnold’s California taxpayers.)
The Madison building was brown brick. As the old gate cars swing left 90 degrees out of the Wyckoff Ave. station, one can glimpse clearly on the tape for a second or two a white sign with big letters on a black background:
R. K. O.
MADISON
Theatre
Unfortunately, the marquee is blocked by the el’s signal tower. Then it’s off to the Fresh Pond yards and Metropolitan Ave.’s old wooden station prior to Christ the King H.S. being built there, probably 1957. The “vivid color” I posted about earlier comes more from a red and white Household Finance Co. sign in the foreground on the corner. Sorry ‘bout that. Photog Frank Pfuhler Jr. (a great German name that certainly must be revered in the hallowed halls of Ridgewood hofbraus!) shot these nostalgic motion pictures between '55 & '57 and did a most impressive job.
If you wish, go to:
http://www.sundayriverproductions.com
Click on “Electrics” and check out the photo of an old Myrtle Ave. gate car next to the “New York’s Elevateds” entry. At the very worst, request a color catalog from owner Alva Morrison before he croaks. The catalog is a keeper. Hope this info helps!
P.S.: There’s a young black female conductor on the modern M train who desperately needs to know that “WYCKOFF” is pronounced “Why-Cough,” not “Whack-Off!” Another graduate of the Berlitz School of Ebonics…
Lost Memory, I’ll run the tape this evening, freeze frame that ad and post tomorrow as to how it read…
pkoch
you are right about 1977…that’s when it did close…
my grandmother use to see live shows there..she saw martha ray live on stage..when my mom was in her teens…my grandmother took me
for sat mats. after working with ua for many years i worked at the rkocoliseum 181st. i think i was the last manager at the madison..
after it closed i went to rko fordham…on the marquee at the coliseum it said Radio Kieth Orpheum ie:rko
rko was around so long around town people never called it by the theatres name..“HEY LET’S GO TO THE RKO”> I SAW STAR WARS..WHERE DID YOU SEE IT.???I SAW IT AT THE RKO…
MORE LATER
WALL1975
Lost, this is totally on memory (a lost memory perhaps, haha), but if I am not mistaken it said “Madison Theater”. I am almost positive that it said “Theater”, and I don’t think it had RKO on it.
Now for this “Madison Theater” at Broadway and Madison in Bushwick. Is this that theater we were talking about way back when somewhere on the this site! Lo and behold, a theater I never knew was added! I will go look for it now! I remember we all talked about this a long time ago.
Silly me. I posted on what I thought was the RKO Madison site today, only to learn from Lost Memory that there was also a Madison theater in Brooklyn near the RKO Bushwick. Live & learn…
Bway (in ‘04) and PKoch (recently) remarked in their posts about the very faded painted ad on the Madison’s wall, barely visible from street level or frm the Wyckoff Ave. station of the M line. I mentioned in the other “Madison” post that I have a VHS tape from Sunday River Productions in MA which shows that whole scene clearly as the old gate cars swung left onto Palmetto St. toward Seneca Ave. station. The painted ad is vivid and extremely eye-catching. (It’s called “NY Els of the 1950s.” Retails new at $39.95, but a good used copy can be obtained on eBay usually for less than $10 – well worth it for the memories.)
“Psycho” was my introduction to the RKO Madison during the summer of ‘60. A neighbor who unfortunately couldn’t decipher weekend movie start times in the local newspaper got us there and parted the black curtains to get to our seats just in time for the ear-shattering sounds and gut-wrenching sights of Hitchcock’s infamous shower scene. To this day, while viewing the DVD or tape, I always remember that scene as the beginning. Impressionable minds, they say…Ha!
Yes, that is quite a difference, Warren ! You’ve caught me in one of my rhetorical devices : mentioning in the same sentence, two things between which there really is no comparison, to provoke some thought.
However, my current interest in the RKO Madison is that search of archived newspaper movie ads starting with October 1977 to determine exactly when it showed its last film.