lostmemory, I think the southeastern end of Woodward Avenue, at Catalpa Avenue, is about 860. 552 Woodward is about at Menahan Street. Bway and I had wondered privately between ourselves if Ralph St. was the old name for Menahan, because if you continued Ralph Avenue northeast past Broadway, parallel to Grove and Bleecker Sts. it would BE Menahan St. Thanks for confirming this.
There is an old postcard-type photo of Ridgewood at Ralph St. on the “Lost Brooklyn Trips” website. I’ll send you the link if you don’t already have it.
There have been recent comments by “Apollo” on this site about the Empire, at Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, still being there, now in use as a church.
So the Ridgewood-bound B-38 bus, after leaving DeKalb Avenue and crossing Broadway, must go northeast on Kosciuszko, then left on Bushwick for a short block, then right back onto DeKalb (two-way northeast of Bushwick Avenue) to continue northeast to Ridgewood.
I am so glad that the Ridgewood Theater is still far from “forgotten” ! Thanks, RobertR, for the info on its multiplexing, true to the show business axiom, “the show MUST go on” !
Thank you, Bryan Krefft, for posting the link to this image, and thereby following in Bway’s footsteps, in providing images of these once-great, and once-busy, theaters, as they are now.
Thank you, bonnie. You certainly may answer a question directed at someone else. If you know the DATE in 1977 that the RKO Madison closed, please post here, or on the RKO Madison page. It’s a piece of info missing from my memory that’s really been bugging me, since I’ve been on this site (5 ½ months now). Thanks alot.
The Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City, and other old-fashioned “movie palaces” are making a comeback.
Television will either refine itself, or put itself out of business, if it continues to be mostly a trivial wasteland of sex, violence, cheap thrills, greed and materialism.
Groundstar, I vaguely remember those stairs off to the left as soon as one entered the outer lobby. There must have been a ticket taker at the foot of those stairs, as well as the door between the outer and inner lobbies. I also remember turning 45 degrees to the right as one went from the outer to the inner lobby. The outer lobby was parallel and at right angles to Myrtle Avenue, but the inner lobby and auditorium (orchestra and balcony) was square with Wyckoff Avenue and Madison Street. The stage and screen, then, must have been parallel to Madison Street, between Myrtle and Wyckoff Avenues.
I remember the balcony of the inner lobby, the Oriental carpet on the floor, and the mirror behind the candy counter. I also remember needing to turn 45 degrees in going from a balcony seat to the rest rooms, which had windows out onto Myrtle Avenue.
When I saw “My Fair Lady” there with my mom in the summer of 1965, I remember noticing a clock, with luminous face and hands, to the left of the screen, between the proscenium arch and one of the box seats.
I do not know why it was called the Madison, as its facade, entrance and marquee was at Myrtle Avenue and Woodbine, not Madison, Street.
I have a very clear memory of two sets of stairs to the balcony in the Ridgewood Theater. As in the Madison, one from the outer lobby and one from the inner lobby. That’s because I’ve been in the Ridgewood much more recently than in the Madison (September 12, 1992 as opposed to June or July 1976).
“House On Haunted Hill” had “bone-chilling Emergo” and “The Tingler” had “spine-tingling Percepto”. I missed the original releases (I was too young) but saw them on TV, and saw them, complete with gimmicks, at the Fall 1988 Gimmick-O-Rama at Film Forum in lower Manhattan, which see on this site.
I think “The Mysterians” was released in 1957. Why not check it out at :
I have a VHS copy from a friend about your age who was thrilled with it as a kid but now bored with it as an adult. He also gave me a VHS of a Commando Cody serial.
Back to William Castle “gimmick flicks” : In “Mr. Sardonicus” it was the “punishment poll” : Hold those cards up ! Thumbs up for mercy ! Thumbs down … no mercy !!! (only one ending was ever filmed).
My favorite bits in “The Tingler” were when Vincent Price injects himself with “LSD25”, and when he says to his vampy, trampy wife, with a cat in the room with her :
“You two have met ? In the same alley, perhaps ?”
Did you have fun screaming during “The Tingler” ? When they did it at Film Forum they had a staff member run around the auditorium with a rubber tingler !
The Madison also had “First Men In The Moon” and “Godzilla vs. The Thing” in fall and winter of 1964, but I didn’t see them there.
The one William Castle movie I saw at the Madison was “I Saw What You Did”, with Joan Crawford, in summer 1965.
I remember a bar called the Eagle’s Nest at the corner of Woodward and Stanhope, across the street from the south corner of the cemetery. A sign over the bar read :
COME IN HERE AND TAKE A SEAT. IT’S BETTER HERE THAN ACROSS THE STREET !
The sign over the back room entrance read : CREEDMOOR ANNEX and summer 1970 they had a poster of a pregnant Lucy yelling, “Goddamn you, Charlie Brown !”
I remember those bathrooms. The boy’s / men’s room looked out over Myrtle Avenue. The window at its end was the westernmost one in the second floor of the facade.
I remember being in the balcony summer 1968 with my cousin watching “The Odd Couple” and this vague feeling we weren’t supposed to be there, because we were kids.
I vaguely remember matrons and a children’s section.
The first films I remember seeing at the Madison were monster / sci fi flicks : “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, “Three Stooges In Orbit”, “Mothra”, “Reptilicus” and “Journey To The Seventh Planet”, about 1961 and 1962.
Thanks, groundstar. Did you serve in Vietnam in the army ? I saw “The Green Berets” at the RKO Madison with my dad on August 2, 1968. I had wanted to attend a Doors concert at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadow Park but in retrospect it’s better that I missed it.
It was more a riot than a concert.
I know what you mean about NYC food west of the Hudson. When my aunt and uncle moved from Bethpage, L.I. to Burlington, N.C. in 1976, my parents regularly mailed them packages of NYC food : veal cutlets, kosher dill pickles.
A college classmate of mine went into a bagel business with his brother down South, rather than engineering, because of how rare good bagels were there.
German potato salad “to kill for” at 850 Knickerbocker ! I can’t urge you strongly enough to e-mail Eleanor and get into “Brooklyn friends” !
I have an e-pal, about a dozen years older than you, who grew up in Cypress Hills, Bklyn, but who, like yourself, ended up relocated to Pennsylvania due to military service.
There is now no Jerome Avenue in Queens. What numbered avenue did it become ? Please comment. Thanks.
That’s OK. Division St. becoming Broadway is something Apollo mentioned. He can be questioned about it. Or, I can use that link Bway sent me.
Thanks, lostmemory. Bway sent me a link last week about geneaologies and changed street names, past and present. I have yet to explore it.
Regarding the Paytons Lee Avenue listed for 170 Division Street, circa 1914-15, was this the Division Street which was later renamed Broadway ?
Fortunately, we soon had both beer and the RKO Madison for about 44 years !
I’ve seen the Idle Hour in the Cinema Tour listing I have for Queens.
Unfortunately, no address is given.
lostmemory, I think the southeastern end of Woodward Avenue, at Catalpa Avenue, is about 860. 552 Woodward is about at Menahan Street. Bway and I had wondered privately between ourselves if Ralph St. was the old name for Menahan, because if you continued Ralph Avenue northeast past Broadway, parallel to Grove and Bleecker Sts. it would BE Menahan St. Thanks for confirming this.
There is an old postcard-type photo of Ridgewood at Ralph St. on the “Lost Brooklyn Trips” website. I’ll send you the link if you don’t already have it.
There have been recent comments by “Apollo” on this site about the Empire, at Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, still being there, now in use as a church.
Bway, that’s what I thought you meant !
So the Ridgewood-bound B-38 bus, after leaving DeKalb Avenue and crossing Broadway, must go northeast on Kosciuszko, then left on Bushwick for a short block, then right back onto DeKalb (two-way northeast of Bushwick Avenue) to continue northeast to Ridgewood.
You and me both !
I am so glad that the Ridgewood Theater is still far from “forgotten” ! Thanks, RobertR, for the info on its multiplexing, true to the show business axiom, “the show MUST go on” !
Yes, please do. I’m looking forward to it already.
Yes, how things DO change with time, sometimes even for the better !
Thanks for posting that.
Thanks for the heads-up on the site your recent photos are on. I’m glad I printed them when I did. My dad very much enjoyed them.
When can we expect an image of the Halsey Theater as it is now ?
Again, Bryan Krefft, thank you.
Thank you, Bryan Krefft, for posting the link to this image, and thereby following in Bway’s footsteps, in providing images of these once-great, and once-busy, theaters, as they are now.
Thank you, bonnie. You certainly may answer a question directed at someone else. If you know the DATE in 1977 that the RKO Madison closed, please post here, or on the RKO Madison page. It’s a piece of info missing from my memory that’s really been bugging me, since I’ve been on this site (5 ½ months now). Thanks alot.
Oscar, do you remember when the Parthenon and Grandview stopped showing movies ? If you do, please post the info here. Thanks.
The Loew’s Jersey in Jersey City, and other old-fashioned “movie palaces” are making a comeback.
Television will either refine itself, or put itself out of business, if it continues to be mostly a trivial wasteland of sex, violence, cheap thrills, greed and materialism.
Groundstar, I vaguely remember those stairs off to the left as soon as one entered the outer lobby. There must have been a ticket taker at the foot of those stairs, as well as the door between the outer and inner lobbies. I also remember turning 45 degrees to the right as one went from the outer to the inner lobby. The outer lobby was parallel and at right angles to Myrtle Avenue, but the inner lobby and auditorium (orchestra and balcony) was square with Wyckoff Avenue and Madison Street. The stage and screen, then, must have been parallel to Madison Street, between Myrtle and Wyckoff Avenues.
I remember the balcony of the inner lobby, the Oriental carpet on the floor, and the mirror behind the candy counter. I also remember needing to turn 45 degrees in going from a balcony seat to the rest rooms, which had windows out onto Myrtle Avenue.
When I saw “My Fair Lady” there with my mom in the summer of 1965, I remember noticing a clock, with luminous face and hands, to the left of the screen, between the proscenium arch and one of the box seats.
I do not know why it was called the Madison, as its facade, entrance and marquee was at Myrtle Avenue and Woodbine, not Madison, Street.
I have a very clear memory of two sets of stairs to the balcony in the Ridgewood Theater. As in the Madison, one from the outer lobby and one from the inner lobby. That’s because I’ve been in the Ridgewood much more recently than in the Madison (September 12, 1992 as opposed to June or July 1976).
Groundstar, I checked the IMDb. It says “The Mysterians” was released in the USA in 1959.
I remember those hamburgers well, and greatly enjoyed them, piled high with fried onions, on a Kaiser roll, with a big dill pickle spear on the side !
“House On Haunted Hill” had “bone-chilling Emergo” and “The Tingler” had “spine-tingling Percepto”. I missed the original releases (I was too young) but saw them on TV, and saw them, complete with gimmicks, at the Fall 1988 Gimmick-O-Rama at Film Forum in lower Manhattan, which see on this site.
I think “The Mysterians” was released in 1957. Why not check it out at :
www.imdb.com
I have a VHS copy from a friend about your age who was thrilled with it as a kid but now bored with it as an adult. He also gave me a VHS of a Commando Cody serial.
Back to William Castle “gimmick flicks” : In “Mr. Sardonicus” it was the “punishment poll” : Hold those cards up ! Thumbs up for mercy ! Thumbs down … no mercy !!! (only one ending was ever filmed).
My favorite bits in “The Tingler” were when Vincent Price injects himself with “LSD25”, and when he says to his vampy, trampy wife, with a cat in the room with her :
“You two have met ? In the same alley, perhaps ?”
Did you have fun screaming during “The Tingler” ? When they did it at Film Forum they had a staff member run around the auditorium with a rubber tingler !
The Madison also had “First Men In The Moon” and “Godzilla vs. The Thing” in fall and winter of 1964, but I didn’t see them there.
The one William Castle movie I saw at the Madison was “I Saw What You Did”, with Joan Crawford, in summer 1965.
lostmemory and groundstar :
I remember a bar called the Eagle’s Nest at the corner of Woodward and Stanhope, across the street from the south corner of the cemetery. A sign over the bar read :
COME IN HERE AND TAKE A SEAT. IT’S BETTER HERE THAN ACROSS THE STREET !
The sign over the back room entrance read : CREEDMOOR ANNEX and summer 1970 they had a poster of a pregnant Lucy yelling, “Goddamn you, Charlie Brown !”
I remember those bathrooms. The boy’s / men’s room looked out over Myrtle Avenue. The window at its end was the westernmost one in the second floor of the facade.
I remember being in the balcony summer 1968 with my cousin watching “The Odd Couple” and this vague feeling we weren’t supposed to be there, because we were kids.
I vaguely remember matrons and a children’s section.
The first films I remember seeing at the Madison were monster / sci fi flicks : “King Kong vs. Godzilla”, “Three Stooges In Orbit”, “Mothra”, “Reptilicus” and “Journey To The Seventh Planet”, about 1961 and 1962.
Thanks, groundstar. Did you serve in Vietnam in the army ? I saw “The Green Berets” at the RKO Madison with my dad on August 2, 1968. I had wanted to attend a Doors concert at the Singer Bowl in Flushing Meadow Park but in retrospect it’s better that I missed it.
It was more a riot than a concert.
I know what you mean about NYC food west of the Hudson. When my aunt and uncle moved from Bethpage, L.I. to Burlington, N.C. in 1976, my parents regularly mailed them packages of NYC food : veal cutlets, kosher dill pickles.
A college classmate of mine went into a bagel business with his brother down South, rather than engineering, because of how rare good bagels were there.
German potato salad “to kill for” at 850 Knickerbocker ! I can’t urge you strongly enough to e-mail Eleanor and get into “Brooklyn friends” !
I have an e-pal, about a dozen years older than you, who grew up in Cypress Hills, Bklyn, but who, like yourself, ended up relocated to Pennsylvania due to military service.