Thank you, lostmemory. Apparently, the name “Evergreen” as part of Ridgewood-Bushwick history goes beyond just the name of an avenue.
I wonder what part the Evergreen Steam Stone Works had in the building of Ridgewood. It was conveniently located near the Connecting Railroad / LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, as was the A & P warehouse further southwest on Decatur Street, that was burned by the mob in early April 1968. You may remember that fire. I did.
It’s the 10 percent non-compliance I find interesting.
The last time I was in the Triangle Hofbrau of Richmond Hill, Friday November 11, 1994, I saw a beautiful aerial perspective map of Richmond Hill which showed all the original named streets. 102nd St. was Freedom Avenue, 104th St. was Oxford, 111th was Greenwood. The last two names survived awhile as station names on the A train (Liberty Avenue elevated line). The S-shaped drive through Forest Park, from Myrtle Avenue, just east of the Forest Park Drive bridge, to Park Lane South and 102nd Street, is still known as Freedom Drive. It’s a Q-55 bus stop on Myrtle Avenue.
The Flushing # 7 elevated line also “remembered” named streets :
Bway, please let me know what you find. The only image that I know of that definitely shows the Empire Theater is that old trolley image # 31100 that I posted a link to in my June 4 2004 comment above.
Last December you privately sent me three photos you had scanned from your copy of the book, “The Brooklyn Els”. They were taken by Urquhart in 1915 or 1916. One of them showed the Lexington El turnout. I am not sure it showed the Empire Theater, as well.
Bway, you’re welcome. The building was at the corner of Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, AT WHAT USED TO BE THE LEXINGTON EL TURNOUT !!! So it is between Gates and Kosciuszko stations. Not sure if the building still exists.
Bway, the Empire has a page on this site. Maybe it’s time for us to team up for some Broadway-Jamaica walkin' !(as opposed to riding) : “A Walk Through Brooklyn Part II, With Bway and Peter.K”
lostmemory, on the southwest side of Seneca Avenue, between Hancock and Weirfield Streets, going from Hancock to Weirfield, was the Chase Manhattan Bank (now Banco Popular), Pachtmann’s Toy Store, Bohack Supermarket (these two are now a C-Town supermarket) a few
three-family houses, and the Elco Bar and Grill, on the western corner of Seneca and Weirfield.
What is the Empire Theater, at Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, used for nowadays ? Please describe what the lobby looks like now, and the exterior and interior, if you can.
Regarding the Williamsburg-Bushwick border, if it’s any help, I just looked in my Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and the Brooklyn postal zone 6 (Metropolitan) sits between postal zone 11 (Williamsburg) and postal zone 21 (Bushwick).
You probably know that “Brooklyn” was originally limited to what we would nowadays call “downtown Brooklyn”, and only later came to include the “eight towns” (or however many there were. They were named, and shown on a map, at the beginning of the excellent PBS documentary, “A Walk Through Brooklyn Part I, with Dick Hartman and Barry Lewis”). Brooklyn was a city in its own right before it was incorporated as one of the five boros of NYC in 1898. That is why the Brooklyn-Queens border is referred to this day as “city line” by some older New Yorkers.
Warren, I’ve been inside the Ridgewood many times, but not the Fox Jamaica. I’ve never tried to estimate the Ridgewood’s seating capacity. Based on my experience of the RKO Madison and Ridgewood, 2000 seems about right for the Ridgewood.
How about finding out the seating capacity of each of the Ridgewood’s current five cinemas, and adding them, to approximate the original seating capacity ?
Thank you, Warren. According to MapQuest, 431 Central Avenue is indeed in the heart of Bushwick, about 5/8 of the way southeast from Woodbine Street to Madison Street, completely within the context, lostmemory, of the April 2001 “Our Neighborhood” article you gave me the link to last week. Warren is like Kojak ? Who loves ya baby ! OK lostmemory, please keep working !
Why not start pages for the Luxor and Starr Theaters on this site, and let the information be filled in later, if possible ?
Thanks for this info, geneaologyonly, as salt, to keep the “cultured” memory of the Parthenon alive, so as not to sink totally into the camp of 50’s B thrillers !
I don’t know. The one theater I know of between Broadway and Bushwick Avenue on DeKalb Avenue is the DeKalb Theatre, 1153-55 DeKalb Avenue, later re-named the New Casino Theater, new because the original Casino Theater was at Flatbush Avenue and State Street in downtown Bklyn. There is a page for the DeKalb / Casino on this site.
Yes, so that the address of the Ridgewood library, between Fairview and Forest Avenues, is 20-12 Madison Street : Hyphenated, like Queens, but Brooklyn system value. East of Forest, the jump to 6X-XX is because of 60th Street, Lane, and Place, and 61st Street, between
Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road.
That’s true, Bway. The only numbered streets in Ridgewood I know of, west of Forest Avenue, and north of Myrtle Avenue, are 68th Road, between Woodward and Forest Avenues, and Catalpa Avenue and Cornelia Street (it dead-ends a short block east of Forest) and 69th and 70th Avenues, between Onderdonk and Forest Avenues, and Myrtle and Catalpa Avenues. I think there’s a two-family brick house on 68th Road between Woodward and Forest with its original 3-digit house number, in its stained-glass front door transom, still there.
South of Myrtle Avenue, there are numbered streets in Ridgewood starting from northeast of Cypress and St. Felix Avenues, by the LIRR / Connecting Line embankment.
Some Ridgewood house numbers jump, like Cornelia Street northeast of Wyckoff, to match Brooklyn house numbers of longer adjacent streets, like Putnam Avenue. Others were changed from the older Brooklyn values to the current, hyphenated, Queens system values, whose “zero point”, or origin, is the northwestern most point of Queens.
If the Decatur’s address was 1674 Broadway, then I think it was on the southwest side of the street, as other theaters with even number addresses are on this side as well : Loew’s Gates at 1340 Broadway, RKO Bushwick at 1396 Broadway, and the Colonial at 1746 Broadway.
Thanks again, Apollo, for posting your movie memories above. “Forbidden Planet” is one of my favorite movies also. It must have been awesome seeing it at Loew’s Gates at age four ! Next time I watch it on home video, I will imagine it playing at Loew’s Gates forty seven years ago !
What does Loew’s Gates look like on the inside now, as the Pilgrim Baptist Church ? Does any trace of the theater’s former splendor remain within ?
Thanks also for the info on Broadway formerly named Division Street,separating Bedford from Bushwick. I’ve always thought of Broadway as the dividing line between Bushwick and Bed-Stuy.
When Williamsburg first separated from Bushwick, what was the boundary ?
Apollo, thanks for posting all your great memories. Jackie Gleason was partly inspired by amateur nights at the Halsey Theater, 928 Halsey Street, between Saratoga Avenue and Broadway. I think he performed there on amateur nights also. I think the address on his mother’s death certificate was 357 Chauncey Street.
Bway, the Cinema Tour listing you sent me last April gives the address of the Monroe Theater as 4 Howard Avenue. It should be a simple matter to check what block that address is on.
Sorry, Bway, I don’t remember any details of the interior. I barely remember the marquee, that it said “Glenwood”, and that it was dull red and off-white.
And your next stop was Vietnam ?
Thank you, lostmemory. Apparently, the name “Evergreen” as part of Ridgewood-Bushwick history goes beyond just the name of an avenue.
I wonder what part the Evergreen Steam Stone Works had in the building of Ridgewood. It was conveniently located near the Connecting Railroad / LIRR Bay Ridge Branch, as was the A & P warehouse further southwest on Decatur Street, that was burned by the mob in early April 1968. You may remember that fire. I did.
More likely it had a German or Jewish flair, given what the neighborhood was like when films were last shown there.
Yet another reason for us to mount a field trip to Bushwick !
Correction : 69th St. : Fisk Avenue
It’s the 10 percent non-compliance I find interesting.
The last time I was in the Triangle Hofbrau of Richmond Hill, Friday November 11, 1994, I saw a beautiful aerial perspective map of Richmond Hill which showed all the original named streets. 102nd St. was Freedom Avenue, 104th St. was Oxford, 111th was Greenwood. The last two names survived awhile as station names on the A train (Liberty Avenue elevated line). The S-shaped drive through Forest Park, from Myrtle Avenue, just east of the Forest Park Drive bridge, to Park Lane South and 102nd Street, is still known as Freedom Drive. It’s a Q-55 bus stop on Myrtle Avenue.
The Flushing # 7 elevated line also “remembered” named streets :
33rd : Rawson, 40th : Lowery, 46th : Bliss, 52nd : Lincoln, 69th : Bliss
And at Queens Blvd. in Forest Hills, 71st Avenue is Continental, 75th Avenue used to be Puritan Avenue.
Bway, please let me know what you find. The only image that I know of that definitely shows the Empire Theater is that old trolley image # 31100 that I posted a link to in my June 4 2004 comment above.
Last December you privately sent me three photos you had scanned from your copy of the book, “The Brooklyn Els”. They were taken by Urquhart in 1915 or 1916. One of them showed the Lexington El turnout. I am not sure it showed the Empire Theater, as well.
Bway, I would start with this image of yours :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?26240
Not sure if the big silver peaked roof in the upper center of the image is that of the Empire, or of Loew’s Gates.
I agree with you, lostmemory. Have you, Bway, Warren or anyone else started pages on this site yet for the Evergreen and Van Cortlandt Airdromes ?
Bway, you’re welcome. The building was at the corner of Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, AT WHAT USED TO BE THE LEXINGTON EL TURNOUT !!! So it is between Gates and Kosciuszko stations. Not sure if the building still exists.
Bway, the Empire has a page on this site. Maybe it’s time for us to team up for some Broadway-Jamaica walkin' !(as opposed to riding) : “A Walk Through Brooklyn Part II, With Bway and Peter.K”
lostmemory, on the southwest side of Seneca Avenue, between Hancock and Weirfield Streets, going from Hancock to Weirfield, was the Chase Manhattan Bank (now Banco Popular), Pachtmann’s Toy Store, Bohack Supermarket (these two are now a C-Town supermarket) a few
three-family houses, and the Elco Bar and Grill, on the western corner of Seneca and Weirfield.
Thank you, Apollo.
What is the Empire Theater, at Ralph and Lexington Avenues and Broadway, used for nowadays ? Please describe what the lobby looks like now, and the exterior and interior, if you can.
Regarding the Williamsburg-Bushwick border, if it’s any help, I just looked in my Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and the Brooklyn postal zone 6 (Metropolitan) sits between postal zone 11 (Williamsburg) and postal zone 21 (Bushwick).
You probably know that “Brooklyn” was originally limited to what we would nowadays call “downtown Brooklyn”, and only later came to include the “eight towns” (or however many there were. They were named, and shown on a map, at the beginning of the excellent PBS documentary, “A Walk Through Brooklyn Part I, with Dick Hartman and Barry Lewis”). Brooklyn was a city in its own right before it was incorporated as one of the five boros of NYC in 1898. That is why the Brooklyn-Queens border is referred to this day as “city line” by some older New Yorkers.
Thanks for your attention.
Warren, I’ve been inside the Ridgewood many times, but not the Fox Jamaica. I’ve never tried to estimate the Ridgewood’s seating capacity. Based on my experience of the RKO Madison and Ridgewood, 2000 seems about right for the Ridgewood.
How about finding out the seating capacity of each of the Ridgewood’s current five cinemas, and adding them, to approximate the original seating capacity ?
Thank you, Warren. According to MapQuest, 431 Central Avenue is indeed in the heart of Bushwick, about 5/8 of the way southeast from Woodbine Street to Madison Street, completely within the context, lostmemory, of the April 2001 “Our Neighborhood” article you gave me the link to last week. Warren is like Kojak ? Who loves ya baby ! OK lostmemory, please keep working !
Why not start pages for the Luxor and Starr Theaters on this site, and let the information be filled in later, if possible ?
Thanks for this info, geneaologyonly, as salt, to keep the “cultured” memory of the Parthenon alive, so as not to sink totally into the camp of 50’s B thrillers !
Bway and lostmemory, thanks for looking for the Luxor in Brooklyn !
I don’t know. The one theater I know of between Broadway and Bushwick Avenue on DeKalb Avenue is the DeKalb Theatre, 1153-55 DeKalb Avenue, later re-named the New Casino Theater, new because the original Casino Theater was at Flatbush Avenue and State Street in downtown Bklyn. There is a page for the DeKalb / Casino on this site.
Yes, so that the address of the Ridgewood library, between Fairview and Forest Avenues, is 20-12 Madison Street : Hyphenated, like Queens, but Brooklyn system value. East of Forest, the jump to 6X-XX is because of 60th Street, Lane, and Place, and 61st Street, between
Forest Avenue and Fresh Pond Road.
That’s true, Bway. The only numbered streets in Ridgewood I know of, west of Forest Avenue, and north of Myrtle Avenue, are 68th Road, between Woodward and Forest Avenues, and Catalpa Avenue and Cornelia Street (it dead-ends a short block east of Forest) and 69th and 70th Avenues, between Onderdonk and Forest Avenues, and Myrtle and Catalpa Avenues. I think there’s a two-family brick house on 68th Road between Woodward and Forest with its original 3-digit house number, in its stained-glass front door transom, still there.
South of Myrtle Avenue, there are numbered streets in Ridgewood starting from northeast of Cypress and St. Felix Avenues, by the LIRR / Connecting Line embankment.
Some Ridgewood house numbers jump, like Cornelia Street northeast of Wyckoff, to match Brooklyn house numbers of longer adjacent streets, like Putnam Avenue. Others were changed from the older Brooklyn values to the current, hyphenated, Queens system values, whose “zero point”, or origin, is the northwestern most point of Queens.
If the Decatur’s address was 1674 Broadway, then I think it was on the southwest side of the street, as other theaters with even number addresses are on this side as well : Loew’s Gates at 1340 Broadway, RKO Bushwick at 1396 Broadway, and the Colonial at 1746 Broadway.
Thanks again, Apollo, for posting your movie memories above. “Forbidden Planet” is one of my favorite movies also. It must have been awesome seeing it at Loew’s Gates at age four ! Next time I watch it on home video, I will imagine it playing at Loew’s Gates forty seven years ago !
What does Loew’s Gates look like on the inside now, as the Pilgrim Baptist Church ? Does any trace of the theater’s former splendor remain within ?
Thanks also for the info on Broadway formerly named Division Street,separating Bedford from Bushwick. I’ve always thought of Broadway as the dividing line between Bushwick and Bed-Stuy.
When Williamsburg first separated from Bushwick, what was the boundary ?
Apollo, thanks for posting all your great memories. Jackie Gleason was partly inspired by amateur nights at the Halsey Theater, 928 Halsey Street, between Saratoga Avenue and Broadway. I think he performed there on amateur nights also. I think the address on his mother’s death certificate was 357 Chauncey Street.
Bway, the Cinema Tour listing you sent me last April gives the address of the Monroe Theater as 4 Howard Avenue. It should be a simple matter to check what block that address is on.
Don’t know about the Amphion Theater in Bushwick. How about the Luxor Theater, in either Bushwick or Ridgewood ?
Sorry, Bway, I don’t remember any details of the interior. I barely remember the marquee, that it said “Glenwood”, and that it was dull red and off-white.
I bowled at the Glenwood with my parents in either fall 1965 or spring 1966.