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 for the compliment ! I have a Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and Brooklyn and Jamaica USGS quad sheets handy. They help alot. I still go to MapQuest for building numbers, though.
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.
Myrtle and Knickerbocker Avenues intersect between Bleecker Street and Greene Avenue. The Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Greene triangle thus formed is about a third of the linear dimensions, and hence about a ninth of the area, of the larger Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Bleecker triangle. Triangles are formed, because Myrtle Avenue is at about a 45 degree angle to both the streets and avenues of the Bushwick-Ridgewood rectangular street grid.
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.
As I have posted elsewhere, Cinema Tour lists a Grove Theater, closed, at 474 Wilson Avenue in Bushwick. The nearest cross street, according to Map Quest, is not Grove Street, but Jefferson Avenue.
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.
Bway, I will continue to use the Brooklyn-Queens border as tbe Bushwick-Ridgewood border, until someone proves to me I should do otherwise.
I tend to think of Broadway as the boundary between Bushwick to the northeast, and Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East New York, and Broadway Junction to the southwest, although the 21 Bushwick postal zone extends southwest past Broadway, and the RKO Bushwick theater itself
is on the southwest side of Broadway.
Warren, I seem to recall you posting information about the chronology of the Colonial Theater on a page for another theater, but I can’t seem to find it. I would appreciate you posting this info on the Colonial Theater page if you can find it. Thanks.
Warren, the only thing I’ve read about Bushwick theaters drawing their patronage from Ridgewood, was in an “Our Neighborhood” installment of the Times Newsweekly, about a year ago, which mentioned people in 1951 going to see “Quo Vadis” at Loew’s Gates in Bushwick, instead of at the Belvedere on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale.
My father recalls the Colonial’s outdoor summer cinema drawing its “patronage” from people watching the films free from the exterior fire escapes of their homes, near the intersection of Rockaway Avenue and Chauncey Street.
Warren, thanks for checking the Brooklyn Eagle, and posting a comment on what you’ve read.
Neighborhood boundaries are vague. A friend of an e-friend of mine lived at Evergreen and Greene Avenues, clearly in Bushwick, until 1969, yet he always referred to where he lived as Ridgewood. The Colonial Theater is on the boundary between the Stuyvesant (33) and East New York (7) postal zones of Brooklyn. I tend to think of it as between the neighborhoods of Bushwick and East New York, or Broadway Junction, not on the Ridgewood-Bushwick border, which, to me, is part of the Brooklyn-Queens border.
I’m not sure where the Colonial drew its patronage from.
Yes, lostmemory, I saw “Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962. Bway, I am sure I would recognize that “RKO Madison smell” instantly. Early April 1979 I remember peering through a peephole at night into the charred interior of the Madison, and a man next to me about my father’s age saying how he remembered what a
beautiful show house the Madison had been.
No, I didn;t see “Usher” at the RKO Madison, although that would have been a blast, as you’ve described. Please re-read carefully above, to learn what horror films I did see at the Madison.
I also saw “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave” there in January 1969, and “Tales From The Crypt” in March 1972. I did NOT see “The Exorcist” there in its summer 1976 re-release.
I was always passing, or passing near, the RKO Madison, on the way to
parochial school, high school, or college, or between my home and the Myrtle Avenue subway station, so, whatever films I did not see at the RKO Madison, I saw playing there. Examples : My Baby Is Black, Godzilla Vs. The Thing, First Men In The Moon, The Slender Thread, The Bobo, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ?(my parents saw it at the RKO Madison)Change Of Mind, Without A Stitch, C.C. And Company with Joe Namath, Who Slew Auntie Roo ?, The Legend Of Nigger Charlie, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, etc. and many more.
longislandmovies, what WAS the last day this theater showed films ? What DID you end up removing from it ? What do you mean, “What a bad multiplex job here” ? The RKO Keith was never, to my knowledge, multiplexed, before it stopped showing films. Please explain. Thank you.
ErwinM, thank you for “deciphering” the marquee in that photo and thereby dating it. It’s this type of detail and knowledge that makes urban archaeology so rewarding.
I agree with you about the original “Invaders From Mars” being far better than the 1986 remake, although I liked Louise Fletcher as the Martianized frog-eating schoolteacher in the remake.
A favorite mainstream film of mine, perhaps in the vein of “Three Coins In The Fountain”, was “Light In The Piazza”, about a mentally challenged young woman who finds true love on vacation with her parents in Italy. I’ve only seen it on TV.
You’re welcome, lostmemory. Having mentioned Roger Corman, I must say I saw his “X : The Man With The X-Ray Eyes”, starring Ray Milland, at the RKO Madison in early 1964. Very scary, especially the end : “Pluck it out !” although we don’t see gouged-out eyes, but the glistening black orbs we saw a bit earlier, colorized red !
I have read that the original script had the Milland character saying, “I can still see !” even after taking his own eyes out.
I also liked insult comedian Don Rickles as the carnival huckster, who employs Dr. Xavier, the Milland character, first as a psychic, then as a healer.
Other horror films I saw at the RKO Madison included “Black Sabbath” with Boris Karloff in summer 1964 (the first segment was so scary, my dad took me home before it was half over !) and “Die Monster Die !”, also with Karloff, the day before I started sixth grade, in September 1966. In that one, when the Karloff character said, of the meteorite that’s wrought havoc on him, his family, and his home, “I thought it was a gift from heaven !”, the entire audience burst out laughing !
I don’t know about “The Raven”, which also starred Hazel Court nearly popping out of the top of her dress, but I did see “The Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962 with my family. My cousin Fran and I looked at each other in amazement when we heard the song “Molly Malone” in the film, having just learned it in first grade. “The Premature Burial” featured Hazel Court also.
The above two films, alomg with “House Of Usher”, “Pit And Pendulum”, “Ligeia” and “Masque Of The Red Death”, are, in addition to being “Vincent Price” movies, loose adaptations of famous Edgar Allen Poe horror short stories, directed by Roger Corman, written for the screen by Richard Matheson, and visually beautiful to look at. 1969’s “The Oblong Box” may have been one of these also, although that played at the Ridgewood, not the RKO Madison.
“War Of The Worlds”, “Forbidden Planet”, “The Time Machine” and “The Day The Earth Stood Still” are all favorite sci-fi classics of mine.
I know about the wires holding up the Martian fighting machine models in “War Of The Worlds”, but it’s such a fine film, and I love George Pal so much, I just don’t care.
I remember “Them !” and “Godzilla” very well. I have them both on VHS. Much of ‘50’s sci-fi and horror had a Cold War subtext of nuclear radiation, The Bomb, and the Red Menace. Biblical allegory abounds in “The Day The Earth Stood Still” (“carpenter” comes to Earth to save mankind from itself, is killed, rises from the dead, ascends into heaven, and tells mankind he will await its collective answer.)This film is typically compared to “The Thing” and “Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers” in the context, and discussion of, contact with extra-terrestrials in '50’s sci-fi.
What I like about these films, and why I value them so highly, is that they took themselves seriously, and usually had a serious and worthwhile message, and/or moral, to impart to the viewing audience.
Bway, I know what you mean about the RKO Keith in Richmond Hill. It’s in its own “Twilight Zone”, painfully teetering, seemingly, on the cusp between gutting and demolition, and full restoration. The American Museum of Sound Recording used to be there, but is not there now. Jahn’s, next door, is in much the same condition of seemingly being about to close.
Perhaps the ongoing gentrification of Richmond Hill will bring about changes for the better for both landmarks.
Tor Johnson was also with Lugosi, and a ginat octopus, in another Ed Wood masterpiece, “Bride Of The Monster”. The classic line about the Tor Johnson character in “Plan Nine” is :
“Inspector Clay is dead ! He’s been murdered ! And one thing’s for certain ! Someone’s responsible !”
I remember “The Black Sleep”, now that you mention it. I remember seeing a still from it in “Monster World” magazine in the spring of 1965. John Carradine was a wild-eyed fanatic shouting something about the Crusades, the Holy Land, and kill ! Johnson was an eyes-rolled-up zombie.
Today’s films are often just as bad, but in a different way.
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.
Thanks for the compliment ! I have a Hagstrom NYC 5 boro pocket atlas, and Brooklyn and Jamaica USGS quad sheets handy. They help alot. I still go to MapQuest for building numbers, though.
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.
Myrtle and Knickerbocker Avenues intersect between Bleecker Street and Greene Avenue. The Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Greene triangle thus formed is about a third of the linear dimensions, and hence about a ninth of the area, of the larger Knickerbocker-Myrtle-Bleecker triangle. Triangles are formed, because Myrtle Avenue is at about a 45 degree angle to both the streets and avenues of the Bushwick-Ridgewood rectangular street grid.
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.
As I have posted elsewhere, Cinema Tour lists a Grove Theater, closed, at 474 Wilson Avenue in Bushwick. The nearest cross street, according to Map Quest, is not Grove Street, but Jefferson Avenue.
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, Bway, I’ll read about the Evergeen on the Ridgewood page of this site.
Glad you liked my fire escape story about the Colonial. Yes, it is so “old Brooklyn”, like a Neil Simon play.
Bway, I will continue to use the Brooklyn-Queens border as tbe Bushwick-Ridgewood border, until someone proves to me I should do otherwise.
I tend to think of Broadway as the boundary between Bushwick to the northeast, and Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East New York, and Broadway Junction to the southwest, although the 21 Bushwick postal zone extends southwest past Broadway, and the RKO Bushwick theater itself
is on the southwest side of Broadway.
Warren, I seem to recall you posting information about the chronology of the Colonial Theater on a page for another theater, but I can’t seem to find it. I would appreciate you posting this info on the Colonial Theater page if you can find it. Thanks.
Warren, the only thing I’ve read about Bushwick theaters drawing their patronage from Ridgewood, was in an “Our Neighborhood” installment of the Times Newsweekly, about a year ago, which mentioned people in 1951 going to see “Quo Vadis” at Loew’s Gates in Bushwick, instead of at the Belvedere on Myrtle Avenue in Glendale.
My father recalls the Colonial’s outdoor summer cinema drawing its “patronage” from people watching the films free from the exterior fire escapes of their homes, near the intersection of Rockaway Avenue and Chauncey Street.
Warren, thanks for checking the Brooklyn Eagle, and posting a comment on what you’ve read.
Neighborhood boundaries are vague. A friend of an e-friend of mine lived at Evergreen and Greene Avenues, clearly in Bushwick, until 1969, yet he always referred to where he lived as Ridgewood. The Colonial Theater is on the boundary between the Stuyvesant (33) and East New York (7) postal zones of Brooklyn. I tend to think of it as between the neighborhoods of Bushwick and East New York, or Broadway Junction, not on the Ridgewood-Bushwick border, which, to me, is part of the Brooklyn-Queens border.
I’m not sure where the Colonial drew its patronage from.
lostmemory, I don’t recall an organ being played at the RKO Madison, but it’s good that you do. Thanks for mentioning it.
Yes, lostmemory, I saw “Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962. Bway, I am sure I would recognize that “RKO Madison smell” instantly. Early April 1979 I remember peering through a peephole at night into the charred interior of the Madison, and a man next to me about my father’s age saying how he remembered what a
beautiful show house the Madison had been.
The following image is of a building on the opposite side of Broadway from the Decatur Theater, only two blocks away at most :
http://www.frankjump.com/045.html
No, I didn;t see “Usher” at the RKO Madison, although that would have been a blast, as you’ve described. Please re-read carefully above, to learn what horror films I did see at the Madison.
I also saw “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave” there in January 1969, and “Tales From The Crypt” in March 1972. I did NOT see “The Exorcist” there in its summer 1976 re-release.
I was always passing, or passing near, the RKO Madison, on the way to
parochial school, high school, or college, or between my home and the Myrtle Avenue subway station, so, whatever films I did not see at the RKO Madison, I saw playing there. Examples : My Baby Is Black, Godzilla Vs. The Thing, First Men In The Moon, The Slender Thread, The Bobo, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf ?(my parents saw it at the RKO Madison)Change Of Mind, Without A Stitch, C.C. And Company with Joe Namath, Who Slew Auntie Roo ?, The Legend Of Nigger Charlie, Sweet Sweetback’s Badasss Song, etc. and many more.
longislandmovies, what WAS the last day this theater showed films ? What DID you end up removing from it ? What do you mean, “What a bad multiplex job here” ? The RKO Keith was never, to my knowledge, multiplexed, before it stopped showing films. Please explain. Thank you.
ErwinM, thank you for “deciphering” the marquee in that photo and thereby dating it. It’s this type of detail and knowledge that makes urban archaeology so rewarding.
I agree with you about the original “Invaders From Mars” being far better than the 1986 remake, although I liked Louise Fletcher as the Martianized frog-eating schoolteacher in the remake.
A favorite mainstream film of mine, perhaps in the vein of “Three Coins In The Fountain”, was “Light In The Piazza”, about a mentally challenged young woman who finds true love on vacation with her parents in Italy. I’ve only seen it on TV.
You’re welcome, lostmemory. Having mentioned Roger Corman, I must say I saw his “X : The Man With The X-Ray Eyes”, starring Ray Milland, at the RKO Madison in early 1964. Very scary, especially the end : “Pluck it out !” although we don’t see gouged-out eyes, but the glistening black orbs we saw a bit earlier, colorized red !
I have read that the original script had the Milland character saying, “I can still see !” even after taking his own eyes out.
I also liked insult comedian Don Rickles as the carnival huckster, who employs Dr. Xavier, the Milland character, first as a psychic, then as a healer.
Other horror films I saw at the RKO Madison included “Black Sabbath” with Boris Karloff in summer 1964 (the first segment was so scary, my dad took me home before it was half over !) and “Die Monster Die !”, also with Karloff, the day before I started sixth grade, in September 1966. In that one, when the Karloff character said, of the meteorite that’s wrought havoc on him, his family, and his home, “I thought it was a gift from heaven !”, the entire audience burst out laughing !
I don’t know about “The Raven”, which also starred Hazel Court nearly popping out of the top of her dress, but I did see “The Premature Burial” at the RKO Madison in the summer of 1962 with my family. My cousin Fran and I looked at each other in amazement when we heard the song “Molly Malone” in the film, having just learned it in first grade. “The Premature Burial” featured Hazel Court also.
The above two films, alomg with “House Of Usher”, “Pit And Pendulum”, “Ligeia” and “Masque Of The Red Death”, are, in addition to being “Vincent Price” movies, loose adaptations of famous Edgar Allen Poe horror short stories, directed by Roger Corman, written for the screen by Richard Matheson, and visually beautiful to look at. 1969’s “The Oblong Box” may have been one of these also, although that played at the Ridgewood, not the RKO Madison.
“War Of The Worlds”, “Forbidden Planet”, “The Time Machine” and “The Day The Earth Stood Still” are all favorite sci-fi classics of mine.
I know about the wires holding up the Martian fighting machine models in “War Of The Worlds”, but it’s such a fine film, and I love George Pal so much, I just don’t care.
I remember “Them !” and “Godzilla” very well. I have them both on VHS. Much of ‘50’s sci-fi and horror had a Cold War subtext of nuclear radiation, The Bomb, and the Red Menace. Biblical allegory abounds in “The Day The Earth Stood Still” (“carpenter” comes to Earth to save mankind from itself, is killed, rises from the dead, ascends into heaven, and tells mankind he will await its collective answer.)This film is typically compared to “The Thing” and “Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers” in the context, and discussion of, contact with extra-terrestrials in '50’s sci-fi.
What I like about these films, and why I value them so highly, is that they took themselves seriously, and usually had a serious and worthwhile message, and/or moral, to impart to the viewing audience.
Bway, I know what you mean about the RKO Keith in Richmond Hill. It’s in its own “Twilight Zone”, painfully teetering, seemingly, on the cusp between gutting and demolition, and full restoration. The American Museum of Sound Recording used to be there, but is not there now. Jahn’s, next door, is in much the same condition of seemingly being about to close.
Perhaps the ongoing gentrification of Richmond Hill will bring about changes for the better for both landmarks.
Tor Johnson was also with Lugosi, and a ginat octopus, in another Ed Wood masterpiece, “Bride Of The Monster”. The classic line about the Tor Johnson character in “Plan Nine” is :
“Inspector Clay is dead ! He’s been murdered ! And one thing’s for certain ! Someone’s responsible !”
I remember “The Black Sleep”, now that you mention it. I remember seeing a still from it in “Monster World” magazine in the spring of 1965. John Carradine was a wild-eyed fanatic shouting something about the Crusades, the Holy Land, and kill ! Johnson was an eyes-rolled-up zombie.
Today’s films are often just as bad, but in a different way.