Grandview Theater
659 Grandview Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
659 Grandview Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
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The Grandview theatre was owned by the same people that owned the other two open-aire theatres in Ridgewood. I have no other information at this time.
S.G. Cogan
Queens Genealogy Workshop
Or, better yet, from “Glendale-Ridgewood 11385”, which is how St. John’s and Mary Immaculate Hospitals addressed their mail to my former Ridgewood home.
A gal who used to work in my office, used to live at Knickerbocker Avenue and Covert Street. She would take taxis home from our lower Manhattan workplsce when she left late after working overtime. When she told the cab drivers her destination was “Bushwick”, they wouldn’t go there, but when she said “Ridgewood”, she had no problem getting a cab home.
Lost memory, the while the Avenues like Seneca and Grandview did keep their old numbers, it’s because they extended out of the “Queens section of Ridgewood that was served from the Brooklyn Post office”. It would have been too confusing to have part of the system on let’s say Seneca to be in the old system, then jump to the new numbering section in the section that was served by the Brooklyn post office, although still in Queens. The streets that were converted to the new Queens system (Forest, Fresh Pond, Myrtle, etc) were because those particular streets not only entered the “part of Ridgewood in Queens but served by the Brooklyn Post office”, but also left that part of Ridgewood to other parts of Queens where it had to be in the Queens numbering system. Notice that the main streets that entered from Brooklyn, but never left “that section of RIdgewood” for other parts of Queens (Seneca, Grandview, etc) kept their old numbers.
The Brooklyn-Queens border is not where the jump in mumbers starts or ends for all the other non-main streets, it’s at the former post office line. For example, Putnam and all the streets parallel to it jump from 19XX to 60XX when they cross Forest Ave, far from the Brooklyn border.
I know it’s confusing, but it all extends back to the old postal lines from when part of Ridgewood (and only a part) was in the Brooklyn Post office, even though in Queens. It is also why there is confusion of theaters such as the Madison and Ridgewood being listed in Brooklyn, even though both were Queens.
BTW, thank you SG COgan for the confirmation of the Ridgewood Folly at the Grandview Theatre site.
This was indeed the site of the Ridgewood Folly Theatre. Built in 1909. The adjoing building many refer to was a saloon or bar if you will.
S.G. Cogan
Queens Genealogy Workshop
In addition to why some address numbers were not modernized, you will also noticed that part of Ridgewood, although in Queens, still has all it’s original Queens Street names too, as oppsed to getting numbered names like the rest of Queens (the reason we are talking about Grandview Ave,and not some numbered street).
The reason is because that part of Ridgewood, although in Queens, was serviced out of the Brooklyn 11227 post office right up until around 1980 or so. So that part of Ridgewood that was served through Brooklyn, escaped the name and number changes in the early part of the century, even though in Queens. The streets that traversed out of that part of “Queens” Ridgewood that was in this “Brooklyn” Post office district, such as Forest Ave, Myrtle, Fresh Pond Rd, etc were changed to the Queens numbering sytem to fit in with the rest of Queens that those roads traveled through.
Oh sorry Warren, your opening statement said they used 659 back then.
Here’s the link for the photo of the Ridgewood Folly for those wondering:
View link
The funeral home (Ridgewood Chapels) now occupying the theater building uses 663 Grandview as their mailing address and address for the funeral home. While the 659 above is listed for the Grandview Theater, that lot is actually what they use for the parking lot. Warren, what number do the Daily books give for the Grandview?
Yes, I agree too, the Ridgewood Folly building is not the same building as the Grandview, and the Ridgewood Folly building must have been demolished at some point before the Grandview Theater was built there. Actually, since the Grandview Theater property take up three lots, 659, 661, 663 Grandview Ave, the Folly could have been on the lot were the parking lot is now. The funeral home that was the building that was the Grandview Theater occupies 663 Grandview.
We have been trying to locate the location of the Ridgewood Folly for months, so I hope this is true, because this has to be the third or fourth time someone mentioned the “actual” location of the RIdgewood Folly, only to discover a time later that that information was wrong. I have no reason not to believe this is the proper loction of the Ridgewood Folly.
The Ridgewood Folly was the first theater to play motion pictures in Ridgewood, so it is a historic theater. If in fact the Grandview replaced the Folly, the site has double significance because as lost memory mentioned, the Grandview was the site of the longest running open air theater too.
So now comes the important thing. If this can be verrified to be correct information, and I am leaning towards believing this, does the Ridgewood Folly section of this site have to be deleted since the Ridgewood Folly may have been on the same site as the Grandview Theater? If they occupied the same site at different times and buildings, but were totally different entities and theaters, can they have two seperate listings, or are they considered one?
The grandview theatre replace the ridgewood folly theatre around 1921.
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.
Yup. I used to live on the “west” side of Forest Ave (or south-i loose my sense of direction there). Anyway, my street still had a name, but the address number was in the Brooklyn numbering sequence. On the other side of Forest, the street remained named, but strangely jumps from 1X-XX to 6X-XX into the Queens numbering system.
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.
Peter is correct. This particular area had always been in Queens, however, was served from the Ridgewood Brooklyn post office. I lived not far from this location, and as a child remember the “11227” zip code changed to 11385, actually around the time when they demolished the old Glenwood Theater on Myrtle Ave to build the new Ridgewood-Glendale post office on it’s site.
The section of Ridgewood on the southwest side of Forest Ave has always sort of been confused between Brooklyn and Queens. This is also the reason that all the streets in that particular part of Ridgewood still have their original named streets, as opposed to being brought into the Queens numbering system and being given a “numbered” street. (The reason that we are talking about the Grandview being on “Grandview Ave” as opposed to some “Numbered” street since it’s in Queens.
As for the theater itself I never realized it was a theater at one time, even though the building has a marquee. I have to take a closer look at it next time I pass by. I used to pass by that funeral parlor constantly when I lived in the area, as I believe it is on the corner of Gates Ave and Grandview.
Warren, I don’t think the border between Brooklyn and Queens changed between 1931 and the present. I think what probably happened was that the 1931 Film Daily Year Book listed the Grandview as being in Brooklyn, because it was in postal zone 27 of the Brooklyn post office, even though the Grandview, and the old Brooklyn postal zone 27 itself, was located in the borough of Queens.
This persisted until January 1980, when the former Brooklyn postal zone 27, and the part of Brooklyn postal zone 37 that was in Queens, were re-designated zip code area 11385, part of the Flushing, Queens, NYC NY post office.
The Cinema Tour listing I have of theaters in Brooklyn includes theaters in Ridgewood and Glendale, like the Acme, Glenwood, Grandview, Madison, Majestic and Ridgewood, that are really in Queens. This “Brooklyn” error persists to this day, in newspaper listings of the Ridgewood Theater, which have it under the Brooklyn, not the Queens, heading, in their movie ads and theater listings.
I believe that the 659 Grandview address is the correct one because the entrance to the theater was, more than likely, where the parking lot for the Ridgewood Chapels is today. The auditorium ran parallel to Grandview Avenue and took up the 3 addresses of 659, 661 and 663.
As you will note from the picture on the funeral home’s website, the parking lot to the left is quite spacious. That part of the theater must have been demolished to make space for the lot. Whether or not the funeral home building is a portion of the original theater is a good question. I attended a wake there recently and would never have thought that it was once a theater as there was not any clue anywhere. I only found out when one of the “old timers” there mentioned that she had gone to the movies at the Grandview in her younger days.