RKO Keith's Theatre
135-35 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11354
135-35 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11354
51 people
favorited this theater
Showing 951 - 975 of 1,324 comments
If my memory serves me correctly, Jeffrey1955, yes, I do remember New York city’s method of razing buildings (at least 50 years ago) was to use an unceremonious wrecking ball on the poor structures â€" wreaking havoc on anything below as we watched. This is always on my mind when it comes to structures like the Keith building, its future questionable in the hands of its present owner. Like all of you, I’d hate to see this happen.
Why is the Keith worth saving? Read Francesca’s response. I don’t think anything can take the place of personal experiences, especially in the neighborhoods we grew up in. What’s worse than having your past wiped away? I think of 9/11.
Many thanks to Davebazooka for providing the Chang Lee photo â€" and I hope there’s no copyright issues with your having posted it. Seeing it was rather scary because the mystery and charm is gone being open to all that light.
Some things are worth repeating, and there is so much in this forum that is excellent…
First: Is it possible to create a time and place for a group to tour the interior of the RKO Keith? I’m only 90 miles away and I’d gladly sign up. Besides, it would be interesting to meet all of you in person. Bring cameras.
Second: I wonder if its possible to create a book about this theatre, the RKO Keith Flushing, using the wonderful drawings from Columbia U., and the many photos taken years ago and yesterday. All the visual material on this message board lends itself so well. Perhaps this group could create a non-profit organization, then grant money could fund the printing. Proceeds could go to where ever the money is needed…an attorney? I know, I’m a dreamer – nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Hi KenRaniere, I am glad you enjoyed those drawings from the Avery Library. Thank goodness they still exist and are accessible! Thanks for answering my question about the RKO Foyer’s ceiling, I love that it was dusk and not entirely midnight or entirely daytime…that way, the best of both could be evoked. In the Chang Lee photo, there still seems to be some ultramarine but most of the paint behind the baroque structures looks like it has faded to greenish gray. Probably water damage. This must have been a spectacular room, especially when the stars were on!
I hope everyone saw my second post of Chang Lee’s Foyer picture on Aug 30, 2006 at 11:32am…it is a much larger version of the one I originally posted, I finally figured out how to stuff it into the photobucket.
I also savored Ken Raniere’s description of his first impression of the RKO Keith. I grew up in Brooklyn where we had two movie palaces nearby, plus several smaller gems. Not one of them remains today.
I do remember that special thrill entering each time—great expectations and awe. And that special movie smell which I thought was FILM! A curtain would part and there was the screen and the music!
I just saw a TV interview with Robert Redford on “In The Actor’s Studio”, when he described that feeling and the experience of
seeing not only TWO feature films, but also shorts and cartoons and previews and newsreels. Now he says, the theatres are broken up into small segments, people pay a lot to see one film (plus many commercials) and then are rushed out so the others can come in. He felt it was a pity that the younger generation didnt have that experience of that whole day or night at the movies. When there were still fantastic movie palaces that began that immersion in fantasy for hours.
Francesca
Ken, thanks for that truly eloquent, beautiful and evocative description of the Keith’s lobby experience. And though I assume you meant to say “wrecking” and not “wreaking,” I prefer to look at it as a Freudian slip, because that ball would certainly be wreaking chaos on all of our psyches.
My first comments on RKO Keith’s Theatre were submitted after searching for information on Loew’s Victory Theatre (built 1910) on Third Ave. in the Melrose area of south Bronx. Unfortunately, the Victory was demolished in the late 1950s.
This entry is in response to the Davebazooka Aug 30 ‘06 question regarding the color of the inside lobby ceiling which I recall after seeing my first movie at the Keith in 1958, thirty years after it opened â€"
After paying admittance, I remember entering the foyer, a “courtyard” where a white marble fountain, entrances to restrooms, and white marble staircases to the mezzanine and balcony were all incorporated within a Moorish architectural style as if out of a 1920s Rudolf Valentino movie set; the area was dimly lit with a soft light; but best of all was looking straight up to an intense ultramarine blue sky with stars â€" and looking down toward the tops of the finials and architectural edge of the structures, the sky became a lighter blue, silhouetting these “buildings.” The effect was so arresting and natural, I truly felt as if I were outside in a courtyard at dusk. That experience never left my mind and added to the experience â€" make-believe or not.
Later, I was to understand that the “sky” was actually a ceiling curved at the edges and painted an intense blue getting lighter as it descended; the “stars” were actually tiny white lights. Interesting how that experience left more of an impression than the movies I went to see. As kids, we always looked forward going to the RKO Keith â€" because no matter what time of the day, it was always dusk â€" this “place” so richly decorated compared to our modest apartments.
The drawings from the Avery Library at Columbia University are a real find â€" for even if the Keith were demolished tomorrow, a record exists in the form of “working drawings” which in theselves might allow for restoration or reconstruction in full or reduced scale â€" giving others a glimpse how movie houses amplified the experience of seeing movies.
Thanks to Davebazooka, the original concept drawings of RKO Keith illustrate the creative thought that went into creating Flushing’s architectural gem and why so many wish to save it from the wreaking ball.
If anyone gets inside please please please take pictures!
I can’t imagine how though since from what I see the front is tightly locked. Perhaps a really skinny person can squeeze through? But jokes aside, I would love to go if we’re posing as buyers. I can pretend to be someone’s secretary. I have a suit to go with it.
Thank you Ed, I will look for that book…would love to see how that gallery looked, if even just a portion of it. I wonder if it is in as good a condition as the southern part of the foyer shown in Chang Lee’s pic…ARRGH we gotta find a way in!!!
The glass curtain would be almost as much of an insult to the theater’s landmark status as the destruction caused by Huang and his thugs. By the way, dave… I was perusing the shelves at Barnes and Noble the other day and found a book entitiled “The Landmarks of New York” by Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel (published 2005). On page 508 of this rather weighty tome, there is a listing for the RKO Keith’s which is accompanied by a photo of – you guessed it – the ticket lobby taken from an angle that reveals a good deal of the gallery above. It’s a small photo, but once I saw it, a light wisp of memory came floating back through my mind. I can’t believe I didn’t remember this feature at all… and it still remains only a faintly familiar detail.
Thanks for the article, Ed. That gilded plaster gallery over the ticket lobby must still be there, if that lobby is landmarked along with the foyer. Up until I saw those elevation drawings clearly showing the gallery, I wondered why the lobby was included in the landmarked areas, as without the gallery it would have been little more than a long, low-ceilinged room with decorative poster containers on the walls. I know two Queens natives who attended movies at the theatre but neither recalls the ticket lobby having a gallery above it. Of course they do recall the foyer, though, as being magnificent. So the glass curtain deal must be truly a crock, because not only would the foyer’s baroque arches over the entrance have to be removed in order for that space to be visible from the street thru a glass wall, but the landmarked lobby’s gilded plaster gallery would also have to be removed. What a tangled web!
I guess that ad is also proof that they used to call the theater at one time “RKO Keith’s Flushing”, as it says in the old painted sign on the side of the building. Similar to the way the old RKO Keith’s Richmond Hill was called that way.
Warren, your liks to the pictures dont work??? Whats Up????
This 1990 NY Times article provides a look back to a time when there was still some promise in the air, although much frustration and exasperation had already been experienced by preservationists and movie theater enthusiasts. The article is free, so the link should work indefinitely, however, you may have to register to the website (it is free) in order to view it.
The article’s excellent description of the theater’s interior includes this passage which confirms the design of that ticket lobby, davebazooka:
<< The interior, capped by an expanse of imitation blue sky, is a procession of spaces in the Spanish Baroque style, beginning with a two-story-high ticket lobby with a gilded plaster gallery. >>
The writer goes on to describe the auditorium as being partly demolished and discusses a personal inspection of the RKO’s exterior that revealed windows at the building’s rear that were “wide open with no evident attempt to secure them.”
Another illuminating passage:
<<In 1984, the Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the interior, calling it ‘'one of the few surviving examples … of the movie palace.’'
But the Board of Estimate eliminated the triplex auditorium from the designation and only the ticket lobby and Grand Foyer were protected.
In February 1987, a new owner, the Farrington & Northern Development Corporation, began converting the theater to a shopping atrium, but the landmarks agency issued a stop-work order because several spiral columns in the Grand Foyer had been smashed. >>
Conflicting stores as to how the damage was caused (by work crews or vandals) resulted in the landmarks panel issuing not a single violation nor assessing any fines.
Incredible.
Thanks Al. I think 135-35 is still the most accurate for the actual theater mailing address, but the address you suggest is in the range for the building (probably the right—most storefront in the structure) and definitely an improvement over what is now listed. As indicated before, the current address given dumps one in the muck and mire of Flushing creek under the morass of elevated overpasses and hi-way ramps where Northern Blvd interchanges with the Whitestone Expwy and Grand Central Parkway.
Map it!
135-45 Northern Boulevard maps well as the RKO Plaza LLC.
I think the other 99% of non-New Yorkers who may visit this site eventually deserve the most accurate information we can find EVEN MORE when this buiding perishes. Satellite maps online do not do cross streets.
Warren… I’ve held my tongue in a civil manner for months and months over some of the more obnoxious and condescending comments you’ve made on this site, but you continue to push me to a boiling point. I would have hoped that with the recent cease fire ordered by Patrick and Ross over the Ridgewood and Willard hostilities in which you played an integral part, you might exercise some restraint and keep your snide remarks to yourself.
What exactly is it with you? You rudely mock others for straying off topic in these pages, and now you rudely interrupt a discussion whose sole goal it is to ensure that the information provided at the top of this page is as accurate as possible – as befits a theater of the Keith’s stature. I’d have thought you, above all others on this site, would appreciate the effort. And on top of that, you pooh-pooh our thoughts and hopes of a restoration for the Keith’s. And don’t pretend that you’re merely trying to point out that efforts should be concentrated in situations where we might have a shot at restoration – on the Kings and Paradise pages, you’ve expressed nothing but negativity about the prospects for renovation or successful revival of those palaces.
To paraphrase one of your own favorite phrases, you boggle MY mind!
haha perhaps you should follow your own advice. You bicker over addresses in other theatres yet you tell people that they don’t need an exact address for the RKO Keith’s Theatre. Too funny.
FYI… there was also a filing from 12/31/05 with the Building Department to erect temporary walls and such to “protect the Landmark lobby” during construction.
Do we have a firm address, Lost? The address range for the building (including the storefronts) is 135-29 through 135-45. That would run left to right (or west to east) as you look at the facade from Northern Blvd. According to the address currently hung on the construction shedding, it looks like the main entrance under the marquee is 135-35 Main Street. Perhaps someone has an ad from the early days that lists the theater’s address. It may be posted above, but there’s so much volume on this site to sift through!
I looked up the C of O information (taking a page from Lost’s book) and found only one available for viewing within the Building Department’s website, which lists the full address range. That C of O is dated March 30, 1981 for alterations that were completed in 1976 (presumably, this is the conversion from single screen to triplex). I guess it took RKO a few years to get the City every little thing it wanted to issue a final Certificate. By the way, the seating broke down to a total of 1040 for a “Motion Picture Twin Theatres” on the 1st level and 1296 for the Balcony theater.
Suggest you amend your above summary introduction to include, “Currently, a development plan seems to have been adopted that would restore portions of the damaged landmarked areas — primarily the lobby — enclose them in glass, and construct a high-rise mixed use condo tower above the site.”
Of course, we also have some historical data with respect to opening date and famous personalities who have graced the Keith’s stage during its vaudeville days, but I’ll leave that to others who have more familiarity with those facts to summarize them for Bryan to include in an update to the introduction.
It occured to me that the introductory passages at the top of this page are in serious need of an update. Here’s what we know:
The chain was obviously RKO. The building’s lobby and grand foyer were designated a NYC landmark in 1984 after Queens Borough President Donald Manes (who would later commit suicide while embroiled in a high profile corruption scandal) persuaded the LPC that the auditorium should not be considered for protection. The theater was closed at the end of the summer of 1986 and owner Tommy Huang began to destroy parts of the interior, including landmarked portions. The facade was not removed (as indicated in the intro above) but the windows have been bricked up and some of the detail either stripped or severely weather damaged. Currently, a development plan seems to have been adopted that would restore portions of the damaged landmarked areas and construct a high-rise mixed use condo tower above the site.
Regarding comment by AldeNYC on Sept 12, a renovated auditorium might not function as a theatre. There are retail conversions out there that have been decently executed. If the auditorium is in respectable shape I wouldn’t mind if they used it for another public function. I would simply like the planners involved to give serious consideration to the building’s history, what can be saved and what cannot. Unfortunately it sounds like they are pretty dead set on this giant paper weight.
Ed…the only legible title on the marquee is “Modern Problems” playing in Theater #3, which was released on December 25th, 1981.
I couldn’t help but >cringe< when I looked at the picture of the planned building [again]. It’s starting to feel like A Brave New World if this sort of architecture becomes rampant.
Looks to me like 1970’s or very early ‘80’s, from the marquee and make of that car parked in front. I have a vague memory of the roof-top sign even during the Keith’s triplex days. I couldn’t find the article on the News’ website. Perhaps if someone has a copy of the paper in front of them, they can make out the titles on the marquee for an approximate date of the photo.