RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
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Thank you, bushwickbuddy, for checking in with us. Seeing “Psycho” alone in the balcony at Loew’s Gates must have been awesome. Please contribute, if you will, to the pages on this site for the Loew’s Gates, RKO Bushwick, RKO Madison, Ridgewood, and Decatur theaters. Please feel free to start pages here for the Alhambra and Grove Theaters. When did the Alhambra become an A & P or Bohack ?
As you may have imagined, Bushwick has changed alot since 1962. You can gain some idea by reading the pages for these theaters on this site, and clicking on the links to the images.
What is your experience of the Empire, Monroe, Colonial, and DeKalb/Casino Theaters ? How about the Luxor, on Central Avenue, between Woodbine and Madison Sts. ? The Rivoli, on Myrtle, between Knickerbocker and Wilson ?
Thanks in advance !
Peter K.
I saw “Psycho” at the Lowe’s Gates on Broadway on a Sunday afternoon – I missed my connection with my friends and ended up sitting alone in the balcony and almost fell over when they pulled the shower curtain. I also sent many Saturdays and Sundays at the Bushwick, Madison, Ridgewood, Alhambra, Grove, Decatur theaters. The Alhambra on Knickerbocker and Halsey converted to an A&P or Bohack and my mother shopped there every week. I lived on the corner of Eldert and Central which was about equi-distant to all of the theaters. This is an interesting site. Unfortunately, I left Bushwick in 1962 and have never returned.
Make that 2500 Fulton Street. Apparently, Broadway and Fulton Street don’t intersect anymore. Perhaps they did in 1901. Kevin Walsh has a page on his Forgotten NY site, “NYC Stubways”, with a scan of an early 20th century map of that East New York – Bway Junction area.
Perhaps it’s academic, as Fulton Street and Alabama Avenue still do intersect.
Those two intersections are essentially the same location (Jewell Square) at about 2538 Fulton Street. Jamaica and East New York Avenues intersect there as well.
OK, where would we begin ? For openers, it’s not on this site.
Some who post on this site have an interest in live theaters.
Yes, it would have been as a kid, in 1900, because Mae West was born August 17, 1893, according to the Internet Movie Data Base. “In Bushwick, around the year 1900” could be almost anywhere, and could have changed into almost anything, by now.
My Cinema Tour listing does not show a Gotham Theater in Bushwick.
Perhaps Warren can help, with his film and theater yearbooks.
Here’s a link below to a photo of the theater that I posted in the Rivoli Section:
/theaters/7087/
The address is 1374 Myrtle Ave. The theater was at the Knickerbocker Ave el station, but not Knickerbocker Ave. It was near the south exit of the Knickerbokcer Ave el station as seen in the photo below. I guess that exit was for Himrod or Harmon St. Click here for photo:
http://images.nycsubway.org//i32000/img_32005.jpg
The station seen is Knickerbocker Ave, and the Rivoli Theater is to the right.
No, I have seen the building. It is at the abandoned exit side of the Knickerbocker station, which is Wilson. There is a photo of part of the building in the photo in the link I provided in the Rivoli section of this site:
/theaters/7087/
The Rivoli was a church when I drove past a few weeks ago. The builing is hard to tell that it was a theater left remaining. The building has been painted pink.
I tried sugesting this earlier, but could the Knickerbocker Theater be the Rivoli Theater? Click link to find out more about it on this site. The Rivoli Theater building is now a church, and is ight at the Knickerbocker-Myrtle El station.
Yes, I remember us talking about the Mozart/Irving. I can’t bear to go through the Ridgewood Theater section to find it though. Warren is correct, you will find all about the Mozart if you go to the Irving theater section. I don’t know if it was also called the “Knickerbocker” at some point too.
I wish there was a section on this site where we could discuss these “mysteries” and general discussion without ruining a theater section. (Not that I didn’t find the Ridgewood section is “ruined”, I enjoyed everything in it, but at this point, it is impossible for newcomers to really even discuss the Ridgewood Theater there anymore). Oh well. It was worth it, we have gotten so much information about all these other Bishwick and Ridgewood theaters now.
That’s because it unfortunately closed in the late 70’s. Unfortunately, by the 80’s it was gutted.
this is funny that this theater gets this much talk i worked for rko for many years in the 80s and never ever a mention of this theater
I wonder how many other theaters closed when the “talkies” began.
My father, born late October 1919, remembers the onset of the “talkies” with the film, “Speakeasy”. At about the same time, 1929 or 1930, some of the Loews' movie palaces in NYC and Jersey City were hampered by the Depression. Two decades later, it seems many smaller movie theaters were put out of business by television, and the decline of the larger movie houses, like the Madison and Ridgewood, had begun, with the post-WW II “white flight” to the suburbs.
Thanks, lostmemory.
Odd coincidence : there were two Casino Theaters in Brooklyn that I know of, and one in Queens.
1396 Broadway is the Brooklyn address of the RKO Bushwick Theater.
I don’t know. I don’t have a complete Cinema Tour listing of Manhattan. Perhaps Bway can help.
Mistakes are certainly possible. Also, the author Washington Irving referred to New York City as “old father Knickerbocker” in his works.
My parents and I saw one double feature at the Sunrise drive-in in Valley Stream, in the summer of 1970 : “The Out Of Towners” and “Rosemary’s Baby”. The next time I saw a film there, “Star Trek IV”, on the last Saturday of January 1987, it had become the 18-plex Sunrise Cinemas. The lobby was so busy, it looked like a stock exchange, and not a theater lobby.
I saw “The Godfather” at the RKO Madison late August 1972. The outer lobby cement surfaces were painted dark blue for the occasion. There were also rails in place for ticket holder and ticket buyer lines, although I never saw big crowds at the Madison for this film.
At the time, my father commented that the dark blue exterior paint made the Madison look like a theater in Harlem.
Did the Godfather even open at the Madison? :)
Lostmemory, Eddie is obviously a troll with nothing better to do than talk about his balcony fantasies.
Your post is on topic and most people coming here would be happy to see those dates in the appropriate theater sections, rather than someone’s personal sex fantasies in the balconies of any of those theaters.
Eddie, Bway and lostmemory care about the organs in theaters, so you are wrong. Also, this is neither a porn site nor a men’s room wall, so post here accordingly.
Thanks lostmemory! Yeah, I found those two articles last night, and read about it. I was just a little disappointed about the lack of photos.
It’s true, the Richmond Hill Keiths is often mistaken for the Flushing Keith’s. I believe the Flushing one is technically called, the RKO Keith and the other one is the RKO Keith Richmond Hill, but I know a lot of people confuse them.
I was hoping to see a photo of the interior auditorium of the Keith (Flushing) somewhere, with no luck. (Read all about in the RKO Keith (Flushing) section….
I remember reading about the Madison’s organ in the Times Newsweekly “Our Neighborhood” section, many years ago. I believe the article discussed the fate of it (where it wound up). But I don’t remember where it went, nor do I remember if it was the Madison’s organ. Well one of the Ridgewood-Bushwick theater’s organ wound up going to some good place.
It’s so hard to research this stuff too. Last night i spent an hour researching the RKO Keith’s Flushing, just to find some info out about it, and even get some interior photos either current condition or past. It’s so hard to find this stuff on the net. All I came up with was a poor image (small) of two guys standing on one of the Keith’s marble stairways with the ornate railing missing. I would love to see interior photos of the Madison from when it was in operation. I was lucky enough to find one photo of the RKO Bushwick from the 1920’s, and you can see it’s final interior condition (or 10 years prior) in the movie “The Believers”.
It amazes me it’s so hard to see interior photos of most theaters.
I was too young to remember if the time I was in there if there was an organ playing, however, I do know the RKO Madison did have an organ. I don’t know at what point they stopped using it.