AMC Fresh Meadows 7

The “James Bond” theater! It was always first run for all the James Bond films….It was twice as far away as our local Jamaica Avenue theaters, but if you wanted to see a first run flick, this is where you had to go!

There is a glimpse of the Meadows from 1958 in the center image at the top of page 10 in the Fresh Meadows section of the queenspix.com website. The image ID is FRES137.

Ed, regarding your post of January 13, when I ran the Meadows the maskings had to moved manually. We used to set them up every Thursday night for the coming show. It is a shame that no one even bothers now.

I use to work at Meadows. I started back in the mid 90’s as an usher and eventually moved up to Assistant Manager (at the time Brian was a caller, and yes I do remember him and his catch phrases).

When I started working at Meadows, Joe McManus was the head manager. He was eventually replaced by Anthony Sauter.

Eventually I was transfered over to Cinema City 5, a/k/a Cinema 5, a/k/a C5, and worked as an assistant manager under Daniel Tully. After about a year, he left and was replaced by Indra Gierdharie. Around 1999, Indra got promoted to a position in the 42nd street theatre, and I was then moved up to Head Manager (“Managing Director”) of C5. I held that position for about 2 years until I left to focus on Law School. I was replaced by Darwin as Managing Director of C5 I believe.

Projectionists I remember from Meadows were Sal, Fred and Bill.

The Projectionist at C5 were Alan Berkowitz, Simon, and (Sydnie I think that’s it).

I took my son to the Fresh Meadows this evening to see “Night at the Museum” and thought I’d report on the rather shabby upkeep and presentation under AMC. We saw the film in one of the lower level mid-sized theaters (auditorium #2 to be precise) and as soon as we sat in our seats (around 5th row center in the shallow twin-aisle room) we discovered a sticky mess of a drying soda spill that had cascaded down the slope of the floor from at least a row or two behind us (and continued ahead of us for at least as many rows). This, despite the fact that the room had already been cleared out and presumably “cleaned” after the previous screening. I walked back out to the lobby and found an employee coming down the stairs from street level. I must say that after I informed him of the spill, he came quickly with a mop to attend to the mess.

I’d say about 40 or 50 folks were in attendance for the 4:30pm showing in a space that holds 275. While there were a few children in attendance, the majority of the audience appeared to be senior citizens, presumably from the surrounding development for which the theater is named. Curiously, we sat for about 15 minutes staring at a blank screen with only the sound of muffled conversation in accompaniement. No piped in music, and stranger still, no slide-projected advertisements. With the house lights on full power, the “show” began with one of those paper-bag-puppet Fandango spots during which the projector shut down for a few moments before springing back to life – as if someone tripped over the power supply by accident and scrambled to plug it back in. The screen remained masked at 1.85:1 throughout the commercial spots and coming attractions – including for the two trailers that were shown at scope ratio (2.35:1) reduced to fit within the side masking, but leaving an unmasked strip of blank screen along the top edge. Very poor marks for that! But I suppose, since the feature was not in scope, that elminates the need to open the side masking for just those two trailers before closing it again for the main attraction.

The lights finally went down for the movie itself, although it was clear to me that the projection overshot the screen masking by a good couple of feet along the bottom edge and at least a foot on either side (this was apparent during the trailers as well). When we exited the auditorium, the garbage cans at either end of the exit doors were overflowing, leaving folks to deposit their refuse along a small ledge that ran about half way up the wall.

Is this par for the course at AMC? I don’t really recall Loews Cineplex running the show this poorly here. It reminded me more of how UA ran many of its theaters into the ground during the ‘80’s and '90’s.

you are right .. the bowling alley was in the professional building facing the parking lot…

The Horn & Hardart eventually became the Future Diner – where Bill Clinton made a great deal of local press when he stopped in for lunch and some remarks in 1993 shortly after his inauguration. Prior to becoming the Future, the site had been a sort of cafeteria – the sort where you slide your tray along the counter and pick out your food and then pay at the cashier before you sit and eat. As busy as the Meadows Cineplex has been and remains to be, I’m surprised that so many tenants have come and gone in this location. I think the Future Diner had one of the longest tenures here when it finally closed in 2005.

Was the bowling alley around the corner in the professional building that faces the shopping centers parking lot? I know there was a spa or fitness center here for some time and I want to say that there was also a small place (not quite a catering hall or restaurant) where they had parties (like birthdays, sweet sixteens, etc)? It’s all pretty much doctor’s offices and similar professional space now.

Hi Brian, good to see you on this site! I certainly remember you, your rhymes and how you managed the NYC beaurocrats with their own medicine in order to keep us open.

Thanks. I kinda figured out about the twinning. It was the same way that William Goldman/Budco, General Cinema, and Sameric Theatres twined all thier theatres in the Philadelphia area.

MikeRa… The twinning of the Meadows was a simple matter of erecting a wall more or less down the middle of the old auditorium and then chopping a few of the first rows off so that the new screens could be aligned properly for projection. I’m not sure on the details about the projection booth (whether it was split or if two new booths were created), but the result was two rather narrow theaters, each with their own balcony.

The conversion in ‘89 to a 7-plex was a complete gut job. The theater was gutted down to bare brick walls and a new multiplex was constructed within the shell. Only the former glass-walled ticket lobby remains pretty much as it was in the old days. There’s one theater at street level to your right as you walk past the ticket-taker, then 3 theater’s (including the big #4) on the lower level and 3 more on an upper level. The same type of conversion happened to the Fantasy Theater in Rockville Centre. I’ve seen folks on this forum refer to this sort of conversion as “The Midway Treatment” (after UA’s Midway Stadium 9 in Forest Hills), but I think it may have happened here and at the Fantasy before the Midway. Plus, the Midway’s 9 rooms all feature stadium seating – the Fresh Meadows and Fantasy Theaters do not.

Hey Joe… What is the seating capactity in #6? And just for comparison, how about #4? Is 6 the biggest of the upstairs theaters?

hello everybody , im a supervisor at the Fresh meadows theatre and have been working there on and off since 1999. I have been enjoying your stories about the theatre. I agree with all of you of how the theatre has gone down in the past years, this is due to lack of funding by each company that has owned it and from certain mangers that will remain nameless. Just to tell you ive been trying to get the use of the curtains back for a while , but the theatre gets paid for the use of the projection slides. The theatre has gone from selling out shows all the time , to now less than 200 patrons a day. I can’t tell you how many staffs ive been through here. Some mangement have tried to fix up the theatre and now we are finally getting new seating. Sadly , the dts has not been working in theatres 4 and 7 , I ,myself always put on the dts in theatre 6 , and try to put the more action oriented movies in that theatre. I ll try to keep you posted on all the happenings here. Take care from joe

Oh my god Brian…..I remember you……..what took you so long to join………..