RKO Keith's Theatre
135-35 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11354
135-35 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11354
51 people
favorited this theater
Showing 901 - 925 of 1,324 comments
Okay then, say it’s $24 million. Then we’d need the cost of restoration…I’ll just pick a round number out of a hat…say, $10 million. That’s $34 million. Now, if there were only 10 of us, we’d each need $3,400,000. But if there were 100 of us, we’d each need only $340,000. And if there are a thousand of us CT fans, we’d each need a mere $34,000. That’s right, we could buy and renovate the RKO Keith’s for the cost of a fully-loaded new car.
Okay, maybe we need to come up with a broader base of support. Somewhere between a million people donating $34 each, and 10,000 people donating $3,400 each ought to do it.
Thank you for posting some great photos, Mike, & having the courage! They’re very touching images that will forever be preserved. How dare anyone strip the theater of such rare & ornate craftsmanship! I am looking forward to hearing about your visit tomorrow. Thank you again!!!
If it’s true that Boymelgreen is selling, it would be great if each CT member who’s interested, can make a pledge towards its purchase. CT will make news as purchasing its first theater. That way, we can guarantee a preservation-minded victory! “A dream come true!” Any thoughts? (If Boymelgreen purchased the site for $12 million, he would probably want to sell it for double though).
Wow, it worked!
OK gonnatry this photobucket thing! Sorry if some of these pics are dark. My lighting was limited. If everyone likes, I’ll get more! Many more! Here she is!…
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My guess as to the subject of the murals were maybe early flushing? Trees and gardens and such, I know for certain before the Keith’s there was the Flushing hotel, and before that was another flushing hotel that burned. Before that there were plant nursary’s where many of the local old trees got their start. Maybe it represents that?
I’ve got $42 bucks also, we’re almost there! Er..kind of anyway. How the heck do you post on photo bubket? Is it self explanitory? Not so computer savy here! I can also email them no prob with that
WOW MIKE that is amazing!! Congratulations, you can use Photobucket to post the photos. What were the subjects of the murals?
I’ve got $50 in quarters and $40 in pennies :-P
They’re putting it up for sale again “because of all the b.s.”? Considering they’re RESPONSIBLE for most of the b.s., I wonder what she meant by that? Is all the bad publicity finally getting to them? There certainly doesn’t seem to have been any official interference with their plans. So let’s see — if it’s for sale, how much would we each have to contribute to buy the place? I’ve got about $42.00….
Oh I forgot to add, the woman i was talking to in there had said that they were given an order to stop all work last week and the reason its still been open is all the equipment is being removed. She said that because of all the b.s.Boylemin or however you say and spell it is putting it up for sale again. So it could be back to square one.
Mike- I’ll be available tomorrow at around 2 and can be down at Main St. I’d love to go in! email me!
Ok,now I get to rattle everyone up. All this talk of the open store front on the left of the building had me thinking. Since I’m off this week, (wife just had the second baby!) and I had some free time , I decided to take a ride over. WITH my digital camera and a small camera. I went today and parked the car. Ladies and Gents, I just walked in the place. There were two cars parked in the rear of the auditorium, (the back wall of the store front goes right into the back of the auditorium. That round room that was mentioned on the right was indeed the ladies lounge. I did take pictures and I will post them once i figure out how to do so. In the meantime , anyone who wants them emailed, just get back to me. LOTS of plaster work is still there while LOTS more has been ripped out, I also took a few shots of a few cool painted murals that havent been ripped out yet. About 1/6 th of the ceiling is ripped to the beams. The stage floor is gone, meaning a hole straight through to the basement. I was planning on running into workers so i was going to use a little (police persuasion)but i didnt. I heard some voices coming from the lobby and it seems they built a plywood temporary structure for offices. Right in the middle of the room so as not do disturb the lobby.I actually knocked on the door and a woman answered. Nicest woman, but I fibbed and told her that I was passing and saw some teens in the open door and “i didnt want them touching their cars”,LOL! She and I chatted for 15 minutes but I’m sure I’d be able to do it again with maybe Ed or Warren? I’m not showing up with a tour ,but maybe one person would want to go. She and I were chatting about the theater and we were standing inside those doors that led from the foyer into the auditorium. They are the original doorways because on the auditorium side, the decorative molding is still there. Anybody wanna take an early ride there tomorrow. You have to see this place and I need more photos.
Ed thanks for that great color close-up shot of the fountain! It gives a good idea of the color scheme of the room’s decor. I was wondering what color the faux facade’s walls were, looks like a lovely earthy sand color. I bet that was once a working fountain, in the old pic I posted there is a floor basin surrounding the fountain which is gone in the image you posted, removed along with that tile pattern during ronovation, no doubt. The ornate door frames were probably destroyed as well. All for the bottom line, money money money!
Here is a color photo from 1980 showing a fantasically gorgeous bit of Grand Foyer detail by Lamb. Could this have been a working fountain at one point? I always thought that’s what they were (there was a twin on the other side of the Foyer), but of course they were long dry by the time I frequented the Keith’s. The image was scanned from from a used copy of David Naylor’s “American Picture Palaces, the Architecture of Fantasy,” which a friend just gave me as an early Christmas present.
These whimsical creations sat catty-corner where the back wall of the Foyer met the sidewalls of the twin staircases on either end. To orient yourself, take another look at the vintage foyer image davebazooka posted above and you’ll find this ornamentation just about dead center in the photo. You can see in the new image how a portion of the multi-colored tile pattern was removed when a new doorway into the auditorium was created (you catch a glimpse of the doorway on the extreme right). Note also that a lighted sign above the doorway was installed to list the feature playing on that screen. The image in the book is just a touch wider and I surmise the title on display is the horrible cheapie action flick “Kill or Be Killed” which I saw, regrettably, back in 1980, but not at the Keith’s. Anyone remember the equally miserable sequel, “Kill and Kill Again?”
Anyway… I don’t exactly remember this first hand, but I’d guess the three original and more ornate doorways from the Foyer into the auditorium (two of which can be seen in the vintage photo) were removed and reconfigured (as shown in the 1980 shot) when the theater was triplexed. Only two doors remained (one apiece for each downstairs theater); the center entry was sealed in order to serve as the backwall of the big new candy counter that was installed in the Foyer. The size of the candy counter probably had to do with why the other two doorways had to be be pushed back into the corners. I wonder if the alleged plans to restore the Grand Foyer will include replacing the original doors and framing as well as the missing tile work that was lost?
Wow, that was some marquee! Beautiful. Thanks for reposting those photos, as you said, they needed to be reposted, as it’s a long thread….
I agree that theaters like the Keith’s are beyond young people’s imagination today, but at least we still have a few theaters left can still be seen and even enjoyed as a movie theater: Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City and The Lafayette in Suffern, NY. The Loew’s Valencia in Jamaica Queens, Loew’s 175th St, and The Hollywood theater (the old Mark Hellinger) both in Manhattan are churches that are beautifully maintained and easily viewed without having to attend a service. Radio City Music Hall, Loew’s Paradise in The Bronx and The St. George theater on Staten Island are beautifully restored theaters that are now live performance venues. It has just been announced that The Beacon theater in Manhattan will undergo a minimum $10MM renovation next year. I’m looking forward to the day when we can add the Loew’s Kings (and maybe The Paramount) in Brooklyn to this list!
A large working fountain until they yanked it out for a candy counter, that is. When did that happen, exactly? When it became a triplex?
Like many things in life, I didn’t appreciate the glories of the RKO Keith until it was gone. Turning it into a triplex was an act of vandalism, but nothing compared to what followed. It’s too bad that today’s young moviegoers know movie houses only as the sterile, box-like rooms of today’s multiplexes. Something like the RKO Keith is beyond the imagination today.
These are reposts, I know they have been here before on this massively long message board:
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I scanned them from the Second Quarter 1994 issue of “Marquee,” The Journal Of The Theatre Historical Society of America. This issue of the journal features photographs from the collection of Michael R. Miller (1947-1993). The theme is “RKO Theatres of Metropolitan New York.”
Notes accompanying the two pictures above indicate that this was the last vaude house Queens 1932; Original marquee replaced 1949; Triplexed March 1976; Closed August 1986. And: “Spanish style atmospheric. The main lobby was also atmospheric, one of the most pleasant surprises to greet customers, with large working fountain in the center.”
I stopped by the RKO Keith’s Saturday afternoon and saw a decent amount… that is, the ‘decent amount’ one could glean from peering in through the chain-lock holes at the theater’s entrance. The ground marble-trimmed squares with interior circle designs which greeted guests as they arrived are still intact, as are the marble(?) rectangles above the entrance doors. There’s a wooden, windowless door at the far right, while the area at the left entrance interior is being used as a contruction staging area, consisting of some kind of chair or step-ladder made of lumber and the type of table a person would find in a school cafeteria or at a bake sale. The wall behind it was, I think, mostly white, but in pretty rough shape, with no visible blueprints or notices posted; to the left, just outside the doorway, there were some graffiti-covered remnants of one of the previous attempts to board up the theater.
Warren, thanks for that postcard view! An excellent image of the right half of the baroque faux facade of the villa. Except for a few design details it matches the drawing of the north elevation:
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At the top center of the postcard there is a decorative element on the wall over the ornate oval-shaped window, and in the north elevation drawing it is represented only by a scribbled pencil mark. I can almost see and hear the conversation as the draftsman and the designer decided to add it at the last minute, and drew a quick circle to represent it, back in January 1928!
This is starting to sound like a gothic horror movie: The Phantom of the RKO Keith!
Agreed. Take it from one who spent too much time in decrepit and half-demolished buildings when I was younger. I consider myself lucky that I was never crushed by a falling ceiling chunk or pillar. Here is another thought: what if you got accidentally locked inside a room in the bowels of the building? That wouldn’t be so sweet. Seeing the inside of this place is not worth your life.
For anyone who wants to tour the interior and take photos, it does not pay to enter the premises illegally. The site could possess environmental hazards & what-not. I suggest you inquire with the property owner, Boymelgreen, as well as the local councilmember, and arrange an appointment. Boymelgreen’s contact info is in a previous posting.
Nice postcard!
I passed by the other day and I didn’t see any black tarp or wall behind the leftmost storefront. I’m remaining optomistic.
Darn right. If anyone has any [remotely legal…hehe] ideas, drop me a line.