Yes, Eleanor, I’ve seen that picture of that type of apartment on the site.
‘Tonino, my reaction precisely. Who’s buying and / or renting at those prices ? Who’s moving in ? How long can prices continue that high ? I don’t know what typical rents are in the more “affordable” areas.
Re : returning to Bushwick : perhaps now it’s less a matter of getting lost and / or surviving than it is of being able to afford moving back in, at the prices and rents now being charged there, like $ 1,700 a month for a one bedroom apartment at Wilson Avenue and Cooper Street.
Yes, Eleanor, I am one of the younger “Bushwick Buddies” at age 51. Perhaps “Bway” is the youngest “Bushwick Buddy” of all. One would need to go onto Bushwick Buddies itself to find out, though. Perhaps the age differences don’t matter, given that we all have Bushwick and Ridgewood in common.
I tend to confuse the Ridgewood and Madison Theaters when viewing them from the Forest Avenue el station, perhaps because they both have outer walls on Madison Street, which one is almost looking straight down when viewing the theaters from the Forest Avenue station platform.
Once I board the Manhattan-bound train, though, and continue to look southwest through its windows at the theaters, of course I get good separate views of both of them, including that great view of the Madison’s western wall when the train rounds the curve from Palmetto Street to Myrtle Avenue.
Too far away, though, to also see the RKO Bushwick along Madison Street. One needs to ride the Bway el between Gates and Halsey and look southwest to see that.
Woodbine Street between St. Nicholas and Myrtle Avenues, dead-on to the front of the RKO Madison Theater, also became a pedestrian sidewalk as a result of that 1983 renovation, part of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project.
I think it’s very instructive to look through those older photos. Some are old enough to show Wilson Avenue as Hamburg Avenue. Later ones from the 1950’s show the bulky, round “Sherman Tank” style cars of those days, a certain style of street sign, and the fact that Bushwick wasn’t looking bad back then.
One could also make a comparison within those BrooklynPix photos, of, say, Halsey and Bway in 1906 and 1908.
But yes, especially your home at Central and Eldert, with you standing next to it !
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 ….
Lost Memory, I LOVE your photo ! Full moon over Ridgewood Theater, Cypress Avenue, looking northwest, Golden Chopsticks, TACO sign, San Remo Pizzeria in near right foreground. It must have been early morning for the full moon to be high in the western sky like that.
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.
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.
Hopefully not the fate of Shauna Grant, born Colleen Applegate : abortions, venereal disease, suicide by gunshot, as outlined in “Death Of A Porn Queen”, Frontline, PBS, 1987.
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.
Glad you like my humor, mikemovies. Lee Meriwether appeared as Losira in the Star Trek episode, “That Which Survives”, a sad-faced siren whose touch meant instant death, and who had a knack for turning sideways, becoming a black vertical line, and disappearing.
Funny lines in “Son Of Frankenstein” : as funny as the Dwight Frye character in “Bride Of Frankenstein” referring to a woman heart donor’s death as “a police case” at the urging of Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).
Julie Newmar also starred as a robot with Robert Cummings in the 1964 TV sitcom “My Living Doll”, and as a horned Miss Devlin in the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville”.
Last but not least, she appeared at the end of the 1995 comedy, “To Wong Foo : Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar” starring Patrick Swayze (not bad-looking as a woman) Wesley Snipes (ridiculous in drag) and last, but most emphatically not least, John Leguizamo (where did they find a guy with such great looking legs and ass ?) as drag “princess” Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Yes, Eleanor, I’ve seen that picture of that type of apartment on the site.
‘Tonino, my reaction precisely. Who’s buying and / or renting at those prices ? Who’s moving in ? How long can prices continue that high ? I don’t know what typical rents are in the more “affordable” areas.
A 2nd or 3rd job to live in the City ?
Re : returning to Bushwick : perhaps now it’s less a matter of getting lost and / or surviving than it is of being able to afford moving back in, at the prices and rents now being charged there, like $ 1,700 a month for a one bedroom apartment at Wilson Avenue and Cooper Street.
Thanks, mikemovies. I had forgotten about that particular William Castle gimmick !
Indeed it does, Lost Memory. Please join Bushwick Buddies and tell us all about it !
More power to you, mikemovies, for your William Castle and F F Coppola DVD purchases. Enjoy them along with your popcorn !
Yes, Eleanor, I am one of the younger “Bushwick Buddies” at age 51. Perhaps “Bway” is the youngest “Bushwick Buddy” of all. One would need to go onto Bushwick Buddies itself to find out, though. Perhaps the age differences don’t matter, given that we all have Bushwick and Ridgewood in common.
Good thinking, Bway.
I tend to confuse the Ridgewood and Madison Theaters when viewing them from the Forest Avenue el station, perhaps because they both have outer walls on Madison Street, which one is almost looking straight down when viewing the theaters from the Forest Avenue station platform.
Once I board the Manhattan-bound train, though, and continue to look southwest through its windows at the theaters, of course I get good separate views of both of them, including that great view of the Madison’s western wall when the train rounds the curve from Palmetto Street to Myrtle Avenue.
Too far away, though, to also see the RKO Bushwick along Madison Street. One needs to ride the Bway el between Gates and Halsey and look southwest to see that.
Bway, that’s good to know about the TACO place.
I think it did, ‘Tonino. Ridgewood never became a ghost town of shooting galleries, burned-out buildings, and empty lots squatted on by homeless.
You’re welcome, Lost Memory. It makes sense.
Woodbine Street between St. Nicholas and Myrtle Avenues, dead-on to the front of the RKO Madison Theater, also became a pedestrian sidewalk as a result of that 1983 renovation, part of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project.
I think it’s very instructive to look through those older photos. Some are old enough to show Wilson Avenue as Hamburg Avenue. Later ones from the 1950’s show the bulky, round “Sherman Tank” style cars of those days, a certain style of street sign, and the fact that Bushwick wasn’t looking bad back then.
One could also make a comparison within those BrooklynPix photos, of, say, Halsey and Bway in 1906 and 1908.
But yes, especially your home at Central and Eldert, with you standing next to it !
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 ….
No problem, bushwickbuddy.
Lost Memory : photo taken a week ago : yes, that would make sense.
The short section of Putnam Avenue was replaced by the sidewalk in 1983, causing a change in the route of the Q58 bus.
Lost Memory, I LOVE your photo ! Full moon over Ridgewood Theater, Cypress Avenue, looking northwest, Golden Chopsticks, TACO sign, San Remo Pizzeria in near right foreground. It must have been early morning for the full moon to be high in the western sky like that.
Thanks, bushwickbuddy, for mentioning this detail. I never knew that 5 and 10 had a barber shop in its basement.
I was never so affected, BklynJim, but thanks for mentioning it.
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.
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.
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.
“I wonder what Kathy graduated from (or to)?:”
Hopefully not the fate of Shauna Grant, born Colleen Applegate : abortions, venereal disease, suicide by gunshot, as outlined in “Death Of A Porn Queen”, Frontline, PBS, 1987.
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.
Good for all of you, BklynJim ! How good looking was Ms. Newmar at that advanced age ? What convention was that ?
Glad you like my humor, mikemovies. Lee Meriwether appeared as Losira in the Star Trek episode, “That Which Survives”, a sad-faced siren whose touch meant instant death, and who had a knack for turning sideways, becoming a black vertical line, and disappearing.
Funny lines in “Son Of Frankenstein” : as funny as the Dwight Frye character in “Bride Of Frankenstein” referring to a woman heart donor’s death as “a police case” at the urging of Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger).
Julie Newmar also starred as a robot with Robert Cummings in the 1964 TV sitcom “My Living Doll”, and as a horned Miss Devlin in the 1963 Twilight Zone episode “Of Late I Think Of Cliffordville”.
Last but not least, she appeared at the end of the 1995 comedy, “To Wong Foo : Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar” starring Patrick Swayze (not bad-looking as a woman) Wesley Snipes (ridiculous in drag) and last, but most emphatically not least, John Leguizamo (where did they find a guy with such great looking legs and ass ?) as drag “princess” Chi Chi Rodriguez.
“Son of Frankenstein” : “Nobody fix Igor’s neck !”
Knock on wood.
Ed Wood ?