Monroe Theatre
4 Howard Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
4 Howard Avenue,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
2 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 93 of 93 comments
Thank you, Rose. At that admission price, too bad the Monroe is gone. I will tell my father. He will be very interested to know.
I asked my good friend who used to go to the Monroe, it was torn down in the 70’s. There is only a lot there. They used to show 3 movies for a dollar. It’s gone.
Rose
ErwinM, you are right Hamburg Avenue is now Wilson Avenue. I apologize!
I, too, have heard that Hamburg Avenue was changed to Wilson Avenue during WW I to be more patriotic. Hamburg Savings Bank, however, was very proud of its name, and retained it.
Apollo, Keep the name, it fits your personality here. I will make a calendar too, but not now. I want to try it later but you gotta make sure I get a copy becauase I love Brooklyn and old buildings.I have a few postcards, I’m an Ebay person also, but I spend most of my time riding around and checking out buildings. Deans may have been down the rode at one time but it was surely on Broadway and Monroe St too. I used to go there to buy eyeliner and hair products cause I was POOR and that’s the only p;lace I could afford to get my hook up.There was a mean secirty guard whop used to work there. We fought with him because he was always behaving like you just stole something. Is that theater you spoke about on Howard a church now? I think it’s Pleasant Grove. I just attended a wake there a few months ago. Do you guys give tours? I hope so cause I would love to get on a bus or even an intimate one in a car and drive around to look at theaters and other buildings of interest. On DeKalb near Sumner (Marcus Garvey) I saw a tiny building and over the doorway I saw the masks that denote a theater. I freaked and looked around, no one gave a darn and of course they covered them. It must have been a playhouse, I think it may be a Chinese restaurant. Please keep up with the info, it is so exciting. By the way i went to Bushwick HS, I was looking at buildings back then…I mean waaaay back then.
Love ya,
Rose
Apollo….I have always heard that the name of Hamburg Avenue was changed to Wilson Avenue during WW I. Perhaps someone else could verify this one way or the other.
Rose, thank you for the tip on the Casino. I always wondered about that building. I was told the theater I mentioned going to Howard and Fulton was called the Carvel. I also inquired about Deans and a friend said it was further down Broadway closer to DeKalb. My memories of the Monroe are different. I remember cartoons, Cowboy and B movies, but no Porn. I distinctly remember seeing “The Village Of The Damned” their, it disturbed me. I was not in New York for most of the seventies, so that is why I probably missed the porn period at the Monroe. I walked by the RKO today. The building I thought was the Monroe is addressed 8 Howard Avenue, maybe I am wrong. I am going to try and nail it down this week.
I am in the process of making a calender with some of my photographs of the neighborhood, it is consuming lots of my time. I have been collecting Brooklyn postcards, but have seen none with images of the theaters from this area. Lots of churches, schools and Apartment buildings, but no local theaters. There is a beautiful post card on Ebay for sell, with an photographic image of the corner of Hamburg Avenue(Hamburg was changed to Central Avenue during World War One, for obvious reasons) and Jefferson Avenue. One corner shows a restaurant on the first floor of an apartment building and the other corner has a movie theater and it looks like a movie theater (two stories tall) and not like the old Opera houses of RKO and Loews vintage. This Postcard is supposedly printed in 1916. It is nice!
I have a confession to make, my sign on name was suppose to be Afcham, but some how it was changed to Apollo which is fine with me. I am wondering was there someone else named Apollo? I don’t want to comment identity theft. If there is no one else currently named Apollo, I will keep the name it is fine with me.
Oh wow… I wondered where Battermans was. I remember shopping on Graham with my aunt and grandma. That’s where our Easter dresses came from and the Moore Street market for household things. Richie Havens family was very close to my mom, his cousin and mh mom were best friends. His father “Uncle Dickie” had a wicked sense of humor. I taught at 57 and 35 for years. I have also worked at 309 but best of all I have lived in the same house in Bed-Stuy all of my life.
Today you guys made me drive up and down Howard. There is no number 4, it’s gone. I thought the Monroe was on the corner and that is where a lot is right now. Exactly across the street from the Bushwick. I couldn’t remember just why I hated the Monroe Theater, it’s probably because of the porno. I never went in there.
As for Bargain Town, my uncle bought his kids toys from Bargain Town. I loved going in there is was full of stuff, one of the early discount department stores. You could buy anything in there from rugs and linoleum to dresses and furniture. I loved to stand on Reid Ave and look down all the way to Broadway and watch the stripes. I finally figured out why the store was so uneven, it was a theater and sometimes I wondered if 2 or more buildings weren’t joined together. The good stuff was on the upper floors. In later years it got sloppy and choppy, the service and merchnadise were kind of shoddy..That’s when it became Buy Rite Now it’s gray, someone told me it was a dorm for college kids, others say it’s a co-op but it’s still good ol' Bargain Town to me. I really enjoy this and thanks so much for sharing! Oh yes, The Casino was on DeKalb between Broadway and Bushwick. I think it may have been used as a HIP center when I was a teen.
Rose
There were lots of good eateries on Broadway. Across the street from the Loews there was a famous bakery that my late mother would get me ice cream cakes for my birthday. I remember the Chinese restaurant, there were not so many then as there are now. I am not sure where it was, but the one in that area now maybe in the same building (It use to be a bank) and I vaguely remember the Hamburger place. My brother said the Hamburger place is now a Spanish restaurant. Richie Havens grew up on Hancock street, I have a friend who knew his parents. My brother said Richie Havens occasionally came by Madison park and spoke to the guys in the park. My friend also knew Lawrence Fishburn. Lawrence grew up on Brevoort Place (Lawrence’s mom was a teacher at J.H.S. 35, known to be firm and caring).
Bargain town is now Apartments. I use to go there as a youngster and across the street there was a shoe store where I would get my Converse sneakers.
I will ask around about Deans. My mother told me stories about Battermans department store. Battermans was on the corner of Flushing and Broadway, where Woodhull Hospital is now.
Rose, those are great stories. Please tell us about your trip today if you get over there!
It’s amazing what a robust area Broadway was in the past. I am so thankful it is finally improving again after so many years of neglect…it’s literally rising from the ashes.
I wonder if you know anything about “Bargain Town” between Kosciuszko and Myrtle stations. That building was painted in candy stripes, but was abandoned and boarded in the 80’s. I used to look in the gaping holes of the former windows while driving past on J trains. The building now is quote attractive with arched windows on the top floor, and I believe is loft apartments now. There are even half doric columns on the corners of the building. I bring this up because Peter and I had at first mistaken this building for the “New Casino” theater before discovering where it is (also a school now).
Apollo that was good. I must pass the old Monroe all the time, now I have to go up there and pinpoint 4 Howard. This is just a hobby/habit of mine, Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy , Bushwick History. Besides I can’t help holding on to the past. Can you find out what Dean’s used to be?
Broadway was a booming business area up into the 60’s when drugs ravished the area. There was a huge department store on Broadway near Linden.Do you remember the restaurant right next to the Loews Gates. They grilled hamburgers on an open flame. As we waited on line folks would look over into the grill and drool over the burgers.
A Chinese Restaurant was on the right side and was one of the last to afford you a place to sit and eat. We went to Broadway before we went downtown. Young Folks, Tells, Rainbow, Lerners and my favorite Albert’s Hoisery, a tiny little store next to the Empire that sold women’s stockings in little flat boxes. I had to buy my aunt’s stockings, yep the ones that hooked to the garter belt from there.Although the theaters offered entertainment, the shopping was good. My mom would wave at a guy who worked in Circus Burger which was on the corner of Gates and Broadway right across the street from the The Roosevelt Bank. She said it was her friend and he wanted to be a singer. He hung out in the city with his guitar. It was Richie Havens. One last aside, the columns that rested on the pedestals were sold by a former bank manager. They are somewhere downsouth. The plaque (sp?) that was inside the vestibule that listed the banks founders…gone also the oil portraits of the Roosevelts. That is my bank, famly used since 1942. Now that you all have messed up my head with memories, I’m going up there today. I love this. Oh yeah, the last time my mom and I went to the movies together it was the Loews Gates. It felt so good to be out with her.
Rose
The site where the McDonalds is now was just recently demolished, the last few years or so. The end of the block directly across from the RKO where the block comes to a point, had a beautiful Florist shop. The building the Monroe was in is still there, it is occupied. The Monroe was in the middle of the block. On the corner of Monroe street where there is now a sort of junk yard, there was a cafeteria or maybe a diner. It had a long counter with stationery stools. I remember leaving the RKO and going their to buy comic books. Prof. Brooks of the NYC Landmarks preservation said the Schubert was around the corner on Madison street. There is a empty lot on Madison, next to a building on the north side of the street, near Howard). I am sure that area changed a great deal over the years and it is a shadow of it’s previous self. If you look at the block where the banks are on Gates, you can see it was the local center of banking and commerce. The bank closes to Gates Avenue has huge gashes in the marble on the facade. There where huge ornamental Bronze or Brass Lamps in front of the bank on pedestals (the pedestals are still there). The crew that removed them did a poor job and a lot of damage to the marble on the facade. I’m surprise the Sculpture over the entrance is still there. It must be too hard to remove, or I am sure it would have been sold.
I also remember going to a Movie Theater on Howard and Fulton it is a church now. My friend’s mother sold the tickets, so we got in for free. My memories are faded as to what we would see, but I think it was second runs of B-movies like the Mysterians or Rodan and shorts and cartoons.
Years ago on the site where McDonald’s is now, there was a large department type store named Deans. I remember it was large and full of cheap stuff but it was slanted going towards the back. It must have been a theater. The entrance was on Broadway. I also think the Monroe may have been demolished. I kind of remember it being on the corner of Howard and Monroe. It was a flea bag movie and I never went in there. That store named Deans was probably the Shubert and it was demolished years ago.
Rose
I was told that years ago around the corner on Madison street there was a Schubert Theatre. All of my life there has been an empty lot where this Schubert Theatre is suppose to have been. That would mean there was another venue near the RKO Bushwick, Loew’s Gates and Monroe.
Is 4 Howard on the corner of Broadway? I believe the Bushwick Theater was on the southeast corner of Broadway and Howard St, so the Monroe (4 Howard) had to be on the opposite corner, the southwest corner of Broadway and Howard. I was there a few weeks back and don’t remember seeing a theater-like building on the other side of Howard St. In fact I had lunch across Howard St at McDonalds…..on the southwest corner, which may tell us the fate of the Monroe building…..if in fact 4 Howard St was across the street from the RKO Bushwick.
However, that neat looking low brick building in the link above, to the right of the Bushwick appears to be the site where the Mc Donald’s is now, so I don’t exactly know where “4 Howard St” was/is.
The McDonalds is listed as 1380 Broadway, but I still assume 4 Howard has to be at the corner of Broadway, unless it’s at the corner of Monroe and Howard, which is across the street from the McDonalds (Ironically right where I parked my car). Monroe comes in there at an angle too, forming a landscaped triangle adjacent to the RKO Bushwick. I vaguely remember a rundown solid fence around a vacant lot on the corner of Monroe and Howard, when I parked there, but really didn’t pay attention. Below is a photo taken from the Gates Ave station that I took in July of 2003, that shows the McDonalds site to the right of the RKO Bushwick, if that cross Street is Howard St, 4 Howard has to be right around there. Could this vacant lot with the cars be the site of the former Monroe? Again, # 4 has to either be where that McDonalds is, the vacant lot mentioned, or that white building with the tree along the wall right next to the lot (assuming the lot is 2 Howard St).
Here’s the link:
View link
You’re probably right, Warren. I spoke with my father about the Monroe Theater yesterday and he said several of them could fit inside the RKo Bushwick. So perhaps in that photo I provided the link to, the Monroe is one of the smaller buildings that appear just to the right of the RKO Bushwick, with a water tower on top, yet behind the cornice lines of the buildings right up against the Jamaica-bound el platform in the near background.
When did the theater finally close?
I am not sure, but that might be the Monroe Theater, at 4 Howard Avenue, near the RKO Bushwick, in the upper right quadrant of image 2637, above the platform canopy, the near end of the silver train, and the person on the platform. I mean the long building with the peaked roof, two rows of windows, and a water tower at each end.
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?2637
The RKO Bushwick is above the far (front) end of the departing silver train in this image.