“Squirm” was a 1976 film and “Tentacles” was a 1977 film. I know the theater was still showing films in August 1976 so perhaps “Tentacles” is the last one the RKO Madison showed. Perhaps someone on this site will be zealous enough to go into the N Y Times archives and find the last and latest movie listing for the RKO Madison. Someone did this to find out what the Oriental in Bensonhurst, Bklyn was showing in August 1981.
DABOC, I’ll start with the girls : my cousin, Frances Spindler, Roseanne Butera, Barbara Schiavone, Dawn Nahoney (my graduation ceremony “partner”), Frances Capezi, April Weiss(good friend in 4th grade, she lived over or near Ridgewood Toyland)Patricia Benson, Ingrid Ostermann, Susan Podkrash (sp ?) Anita Koffler, Judy Viseca (Vye-seek-uh), Cathleen Walters.
The boys : Gasper Ilasi, Robert Lackner (of Lackner’s Bar on the east corner of Wyckoff and Gates) Jeffrey Almodovar, Joseph Gasperetti, Thomas McNulty, Michael Russo, Russel DeVito, James Kennedy, Nicholas Ferri, Robert Webber, Leonard Emanuel, John McHugh, Thomas O'Malley, Charles Taffner (I think he lived in Glendale) Joseph Petardi, Sal Giannone (1492 Greene Avenue) Frank Burgio, Paul Capone, Sal Marcicca, Louis Luberto, my cousin Joseph Radomski, my cousin John Radomski, a year behind me, Stanley Piccirillo, Stephen Ferrugia, John Shaw, Dennis Shearer, Mike Scarangella (he lived on my block at 1676 Cornelia Street) Adam Fajek (he lived at 1678), James Gallo, William Schiller, Christopher Dyer, Victor Baresi. I was in the “1” classes : 1-1, 2-1, etc.
My teachers were, starting with first grade, Sister Mary Joyce, Sister Mary Robertine, Mrs. Wagner (bitch), Miss Campanella (saint), Sister Mary Helen. I remember James Bond / Bond Bread boys vs. Man From UNCLE fans in the fourth grade, and Sister Mary Helen comparing it to Vietnam and racial conflict in the USA.
Starting in fifth grade the girls and boys were separated. For fifth grade I had Mr. A.J. Tavoline (stout) and for math Brother Cassian, O.S.F. Sixth grade, Mr. William J. Ryan, Jr. (s.o.b.) Mr. Gainsa (history, nice guy, lived in downtown Bklyn, saw him come in on Myrtle Avenue el one morning, walked to school with him from where I got off the B-18 bus at Wyckoff and Gates) Br.Thomas O'Neill (math : “repetitio mater studiorum”, that’s Latin for “repetition is the mother of study”). Seventh grade : Br. Donatus (saint, homeroom) Mr. Ryan (English)Br. Jordan (math)Mr. Rooney (science, stout red-head). Eighth grade : Br. Eugene Thomas (homeroom, almost too nice) Br. Jordan (math) Mr. Rooney (science).
I’ll try and remember more classmates' names, especially girls. I wish I remembered more girls' names, because I feel I’m not far in connecting with you. I can’t remember the last name of the Deborah I had a crush on in second grade.
I don’t keep directly in touch anymore with anyone from St. Brigid, only high school. I last saw Gasper Ilasi at his bachelor party April 1980. I have heard about him since then second hand through a mutual friend from high school.
I too remember the German landladies washing and sweeping the stoops in the morning. I remember St. Brigid’s and the neighborhhod it was in, Wyckoff Heights, as heavily Italian, including near 412 Harman Street, where my mother and her family grew up. She and her brothers and sisters attended St. Brigid also, from 1927 to 1947. I remember Bello Pharmacy on Wyckoff Avenue near my mother’s childhood home.
I can’t find the Corona Plaza Theater at 103-14 Roosevelt Avenue in Corona, Queens, on this site, so I will post links to images showing this theater here. These images are of the 103rd Street – Corona Plaza station on the # 7 IRT Flushing elevated line. Next, I will look for images of Junction Blvd. station on this line showing the Corona Theater at 37-80 Junction Blvd.(this page) :
Theater appears at upper right. Look for the telltale water tower mounted on a slanted roof surmounting a brown brick wall.
Too bad the last stop on the 7 line is underground (Main Street). I’d love to be able to post a link to an image of RKO Keith’s in Flushing. Perhaps the Flushing Keith is visible from the platform of the Willetts Point – Shea Stadium station ! Perhaps it appears in an image of the nearby Flushing LIRR station !
Thank you Warren. I will post links to nycsubway.org images of those stations that show those theaters once I have identified them.
My one time to the ex-Loew’s Corona Plaza at 103rd and Roosevelt was to see the 1998 “Godzilla” film with Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, and “Mayor Ebert” (Roger Ebert look-alike) the last Thursday in May 1998. It was like seeing the 1961 Sidney Pink film, “Reptilicus”, at the RKO Madison Theater in Ridgewood when I was 5 ½. I noticed a similarity in the ceiling over the orchestra seating section : a repetition of what I think of as “the bottom half of the planet Saturn” throughout the ceiling.
I found the Spanish captioning of “Godzilla” at the Corona Plaza to be interesting : “He’s a scumbag !” was rendered “ Es despicable !"
When French was spoken by Reno (the French Sly Stallone ?) English and Spanish were both shown below. Trilingual moment.
OK, DABOC, the jig is up. I lived at 1668 Cornelia Street from 1955 to 1991 and finally sold it in 1999. I attended St. Brigid School from September 12 1960 (kindergarten) to graduation in June 1969. I don’t know of a picture of the back of the Ridgewood Theater or of your block of Madison Street. Try the Ridgewood section of queenspix.com. Charles Labita was a St. Brigid classmate of mine, 3rd to 8th grade. He lived on the 1600 block of Madison Street between the Triangle Furniture Store on Myrtle Avenue and Cypress Avenue. I brought his books home for him from school because he was out sick, for the Christmas 1965 vacation. I rode the Myrtle Avenue bus home from school that last day before 1965 Christmas vacation, and it had been re-routed, because the Ridgewood Garden Chinese Restauarant just east of the RKO Madison Theater was on fire. The bus went northeast on my home block of Cornelia Street and let me off in front of the Ridgewood Times building at the south corner of Cypress Avenue and Cornelia Street.
It’s interesting you mention playing “ace, king, queen” on the Madison Street wall of the Ridgewood, because spring 1965 I noticed an ace, king, queen, jack, 10, painted on the wall of Key Food on the east corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and Woodbine Street.
with the Old Timer in the “Our Neighborhood The Way It Was” column of the Times Newsweekly, formerly The Ridgewood Times.
I don’t remember, and never saw, rock ‘n roll shows at the Madison Theater. I remember Adam West and Burt Ward in costume as Batman and Robin pulling up to the Ridgewood Theater in the Batmobile summer 1966 to promote their Batman feature film. There was a big crowd. I think all I saw was leotard-clad legs flashing by me into the theater. I subsequently saw this Batman film at the Ridgewood with my dad. It was on a double bill with a WW II film titled “Flight Of The Phoenix” set in North Africa which starred I think Ernest Borgnine among others.
My son, age 9, now has, and watches, this 1966 Batman movie at home on DVD. What goes around, comes around.
I remember The Buckinghams stopping at Action Records on Myrtle Avenue just east of Cornelia Street summer 1967 to sign autographs and promote their first single “Hey Baby”.
As noted by “Bway”, there has been a fresh influx of Polish into Ridgewood in the last few years. There are new Polish stores on Forest Avenue between Myrtle Avenue and the el station at Putnam Avenue. There is a sign in Ridgewood Savings Bank lobby, “Mowimy po polsku” : Polish spoken here. In the late 1980’s the beauty parlor on the south side of Fairview Avenue between Putnam and Forest Avenues had a sign : “We speak Polish. Ask for Miss Mary”.
And now for something completely different, to quote Monty Python. I cannot find Loew’s Coney Island Theatre on this site, though I suspect it is here, so I will post links to images that show Loew’s Coney Island Theater here. The theater can be seen at either the upper center or upper right of the following images of the Stillwell Avenue el station :
Yes, Warren, you are probably right, as it was near 51st Street and New Utrecht Avenue (5102), five street blocks “diagonally” to the southeast of the 46th Street Theater.
An outside wall of the Oriental, with “ORIENTAL” on it in large capital letters, appears in the upper left of this image of the West End elevated line :
Could it be the building with the triple brick arch cornice to the left of the front of the el train in this image ? Experts please comment. Thank you.
In all three images the 46th Street Theater is clearly visible above the train, near the vanishing point. In at least one image the name is visible in large white letters on the building.
Thank you, Warren. I will try that, and, if it works, will re-post my links.
Yesterday I quickly browsed through what I believed to be the appropriate el station images, and found no certain images of either the Boro Park or Benson theaters. There is a building in one image that was brought to my attention that could either be a theater or a bank. If I come across it, I will post a link to it and let the Cinema Treasures gang of experts have at it.
I have “re-armed” myself with my “master list” of Bklyn and Queens theaters from Cinematour, and it says that the Boro Park Theater was demolished. The opening blurb on this page says it was torn down after it closed in the ‘70’s, and mentions “the el station”, which would be 50th Street on the West End elevated line.
This elevated line “starred” in the 1971 film “The French Connection”.
I cannot find Loew’s 46th Street Theater on this site, even though I suspect it is here. So I will post links to three images that show Loew’s 46th Street Theater, located at 46th Street and New Utrecht Avenue, in this comment on the Boro Park Theater :
In all three images the 46th Street Theater is clearly visible above the train, near the vanishing point. In at least one image the name is visible in large white letters on the building.
The Rivoli was located on the south side of Myrtle Avenue between Greene Avenue and Harman Street, just west of Knickerbocker Avenue, and about half a mile west of the RKO Madison Theater (q.v. on this site)on Myrtle Avenue. The building is still there, and is adjacent to the eastbound platform of the Knickerbocker Avenue station of the Myrtle Avenue elevated M line. I do not know its present use.
Thanks, Warren. I wonder if the Holy House of Prayer For All People is related to the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People that the Valencia has become.
Bway, you’re welcome, and it’s good reading you again. I was glad to finally post those links, and test them, and find that they work !
Next stop, Borough Park and Bensonhurst !
You also may have noticed that my posting the links has provoked comments by Warren providing more info on these theaters.
Warren, I don’t know if the building still exists. Thanks for this background info on the Yiddish Theater. The only two names I knew prior to your comment were Leo Fuchs and Molly Picon. My father, born 1919, remembers the Brooklyn Eagle. He remembers the intersection of Pitkin and Rockaway Avenues as a busy clothing retail area. His mother took him there in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s to shop for Easter suits, and he remembers clothiers grabbing his mother’s sleeve to get her attention as they stepped off the Rockaway Avenue trolley. They bought from stores, not pushcarts.
Th film “Tentacles” mentioned in the opening comment by Robert R was released in 1977 so that is a clue. By late February 1978 the theater was closed, and a designated neighborhood eyesore.
“Squirm” was a 1976 film and “Tentacles” was a 1977 film. I know the theater was still showing films in August 1976 so perhaps “Tentacles” is the last one the RKO Madison showed. Perhaps someone on this site will be zealous enough to go into the N Y Times archives and find the last and latest movie listing for the RKO Madison. Someone did this to find out what the Oriental in Bensonhurst, Bklyn was showing in August 1981.
Thanks, Warren. It would be interesting to compare this film with the 2001 film, “Ali”, with Will Smith in the title role.
Any idea what the last film shown at the RKo Madison Theater in Ridgewood was ? The 1977 film “Tentacles” has been indirectly suggested.
DABOC, I’ll start with the girls : my cousin, Frances Spindler, Roseanne Butera, Barbara Schiavone, Dawn Nahoney (my graduation ceremony “partner”), Frances Capezi, April Weiss(good friend in 4th grade, she lived over or near Ridgewood Toyland)Patricia Benson, Ingrid Ostermann, Susan Podkrash (sp ?) Anita Koffler, Judy Viseca (Vye-seek-uh), Cathleen Walters.
The boys : Gasper Ilasi, Robert Lackner (of Lackner’s Bar on the east corner of Wyckoff and Gates) Jeffrey Almodovar, Joseph Gasperetti, Thomas McNulty, Michael Russo, Russel DeVito, James Kennedy, Nicholas Ferri, Robert Webber, Leonard Emanuel, John McHugh, Thomas O'Malley, Charles Taffner (I think he lived in Glendale) Joseph Petardi, Sal Giannone (1492 Greene Avenue) Frank Burgio, Paul Capone, Sal Marcicca, Louis Luberto, my cousin Joseph Radomski, my cousin John Radomski, a year behind me, Stanley Piccirillo, Stephen Ferrugia, John Shaw, Dennis Shearer, Mike Scarangella (he lived on my block at 1676 Cornelia Street) Adam Fajek (he lived at 1678), James Gallo, William Schiller, Christopher Dyer, Victor Baresi. I was in the “1” classes : 1-1, 2-1, etc.
My teachers were, starting with first grade, Sister Mary Joyce, Sister Mary Robertine, Mrs. Wagner (bitch), Miss Campanella (saint), Sister Mary Helen. I remember James Bond / Bond Bread boys vs. Man From UNCLE fans in the fourth grade, and Sister Mary Helen comparing it to Vietnam and racial conflict in the USA.
Starting in fifth grade the girls and boys were separated. For fifth grade I had Mr. A.J. Tavoline (stout) and for math Brother Cassian, O.S.F. Sixth grade, Mr. William J. Ryan, Jr. (s.o.b.) Mr. Gainsa (history, nice guy, lived in downtown Bklyn, saw him come in on Myrtle Avenue el one morning, walked to school with him from where I got off the B-18 bus at Wyckoff and Gates) Br.Thomas O'Neill (math : “repetitio mater studiorum”, that’s Latin for “repetition is the mother of study”). Seventh grade : Br. Donatus (saint, homeroom) Mr. Ryan (English)Br. Jordan (math)Mr. Rooney (science, stout red-head). Eighth grade : Br. Eugene Thomas (homeroom, almost too nice) Br. Jordan (math) Mr. Rooney (science).
I’ll try and remember more classmates' names, especially girls. I wish I remembered more girls' names, because I feel I’m not far in connecting with you. I can’t remember the last name of the Deborah I had a crush on in second grade.
I don’t keep directly in touch anymore with anyone from St. Brigid, only high school. I last saw Gasper Ilasi at his bachelor party April 1980. I have heard about him since then second hand through a mutual friend from high school.
I too remember the German landladies washing and sweeping the stoops in the morning. I remember St. Brigid’s and the neighborhhod it was in, Wyckoff Heights, as heavily Italian, including near 412 Harman Street, where my mother and her family grew up. She and her brothers and sisters attended St. Brigid also, from 1927 to 1947. I remember Bello Pharmacy on Wyckoff Avenue near my mother’s childhood home.
The Corona Theater at 37-80 Junction Blvd. can be seen in the following images :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4380
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6092
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4333
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4321
I can’t find the Corona Plaza Theater at 103-14 Roosevelt Avenue in Corona, Queens, on this site, so I will post links to images showing this theater here. These images are of the 103rd Street – Corona Plaza station on the # 7 IRT Flushing elevated line. Next, I will look for images of Junction Blvd. station on this line showing the Corona Theater at 37-80 Junction Blvd.(this page) :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?12772
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?8028
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?8026
Theater appears at upper right. Look for the telltale water tower mounted on a slanted roof surmounting a brown brick wall.
Too bad the last stop on the 7 line is underground (Main Street). I’d love to be able to post a link to an image of RKO Keith’s in Flushing. Perhaps the Flushing Keith is visible from the platform of the Willetts Point – Shea Stadium station ! Perhaps it appears in an image of the nearby Flushing LIRR station !
The Bliss can be glimpsed at mid-left edge of the following image. Look for the watertower (as opposed to WatchTower) :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?510
Thank you, ErwinM, for your diligent work ! It’s indeed a pleasure working with you on this site !
Thank you Warren. I will post links to nycsubway.org images of those stations that show those theaters once I have identified them.
My one time to the ex-Loew’s Corona Plaza at 103rd and Roosevelt was to see the 1998 “Godzilla” film with Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, and “Mayor Ebert” (Roger Ebert look-alike) the last Thursday in May 1998. It was like seeing the 1961 Sidney Pink film, “Reptilicus”, at the RKO Madison Theater in Ridgewood when I was 5 ½. I noticed a similarity in the ceiling over the orchestra seating section : a repetition of what I think of as “the bottom half of the planet Saturn” throughout the ceiling.
I found the Spanish captioning of “Godzilla” at the Corona Plaza to be interesting : “He’s a scumbag !” was rendered “ Es despicable !"
When French was spoken by Reno (the French Sly Stallone ?) English and Spanish were both shown below. Trilingual moment.
The theater can be seen at either the upper center or upper right of the following images of the Stillwell Avenue el station :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6503
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6851
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4987
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4774
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4818
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4880
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?5183
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?28296
Thank you Warren.
OK, DABOC, the jig is up. I lived at 1668 Cornelia Street from 1955 to 1991 and finally sold it in 1999. I attended St. Brigid School from September 12 1960 (kindergarten) to graduation in June 1969. I don’t know of a picture of the back of the Ridgewood Theater or of your block of Madison Street. Try the Ridgewood section of queenspix.com. Charles Labita was a St. Brigid classmate of mine, 3rd to 8th grade. He lived on the 1600 block of Madison Street between the Triangle Furniture Store on Myrtle Avenue and Cypress Avenue. I brought his books home for him from school because he was out sick, for the Christmas 1965 vacation. I rode the Myrtle Avenue bus home from school that last day before 1965 Christmas vacation, and it had been re-routed, because the Ridgewood Garden Chinese Restauarant just east of the RKO Madison Theater was on fire. The bus went northeast on my home block of Cornelia Street and let me off in front of the Ridgewood Times building at the south corner of Cypress Avenue and Cornelia Street.
It’s interesting you mention playing “ace, king, queen” on the Madison Street wall of the Ridgewood, because spring 1965 I noticed an ace, king, queen, jack, 10, painted on the wall of Key Food on the east corner of St. Nicholas Avenue and Woodbine Street.
People also share memories of Ridgewood at :
http://timesnewsweekly.com
with the Old Timer in the “Our Neighborhood The Way It Was” column of the Times Newsweekly, formerly The Ridgewood Times.
I don’t remember, and never saw, rock ‘n roll shows at the Madison Theater. I remember Adam West and Burt Ward in costume as Batman and Robin pulling up to the Ridgewood Theater in the Batmobile summer 1966 to promote their Batman feature film. There was a big crowd. I think all I saw was leotard-clad legs flashing by me into the theater. I subsequently saw this Batman film at the Ridgewood with my dad. It was on a double bill with a WW II film titled “Flight Of The Phoenix” set in North Africa which starred I think Ernest Borgnine among others.
My son, age 9, now has, and watches, this 1966 Batman movie at home on DVD. What goes around, comes around.
I remember The Buckinghams stopping at Action Records on Myrtle Avenue just east of Cornelia Street summer 1967 to sign autographs and promote their first single “Hey Baby”.
As noted by “Bway”, there has been a fresh influx of Polish into Ridgewood in the last few years. There are new Polish stores on Forest Avenue between Myrtle Avenue and the el station at Putnam Avenue. There is a sign in Ridgewood Savings Bank lobby, “Mowimy po polsku” : Polish spoken here. In the late 1980’s the beauty parlor on the south side of Fairview Avenue between Putnam and Forest Avenues had a sign : “We speak Polish. Ask for Miss Mary”.
And now for something completely different, to quote Monty Python. I cannot find Loew’s Coney Island Theatre on this site, though I suspect it is here, so I will post links to images that show Loew’s Coney Island Theater here. The theater can be seen at either the upper center or upper right of the following images of the Stillwell Avenue el station :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6503
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6851
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4987
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4774
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4818
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4880
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?5183
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?28296
If and when I find a page for Loew’s Coney Island Theater on this site I will copy these links to a comment on that page.
Yes, Warren, you are probably right, as it was near 51st Street and New Utrecht Avenue (5102), five street blocks “diagonally” to the southeast of the 46th Street Theater.
An outside wall of the Oriental, with “ORIENTAL” on it in large capital letters, appears in the upper left of this image of the West End elevated line :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?5432
Could this el station image also show the Boro Park Theater ?
www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?26346
Could it be the building with the triple brick arch cornice to the left of the front of the el train in this image ? Experts please comment. Thank you.
Here are links to three images that show Loew’s 46th Street Theater, located at 46th Street and New Utrecht Avenue :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4809
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?2532
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?1926
In all three images the 46th Street Theater is clearly visible above the train, near the vanishing point. In at least one image the name is visible in large white letters on the building.
Thank you, Warren. I will try that, and, if it works, will re-post my links.
Yesterday I quickly browsed through what I believed to be the appropriate el station images, and found no certain images of either the Boro Park or Benson theaters. There is a building in one image that was brought to my attention that could either be a theater or a bank. If I come across it, I will post a link to it and let the Cinema Treasures gang of experts have at it.
I have “re-armed” myself with my “master list” of Bklyn and Queens theaters from Cinematour, and it says that the Boro Park Theater was demolished. The opening blurb on this page says it was torn down after it closed in the ‘70’s, and mentions “the el station”, which would be 50th Street on the West End elevated line.
This elevated line “starred” in the 1971 film “The French Connection”.
I cannot find Loew’s 46th Street Theater on this site, even though I suspect it is here. So I will post links to three images that show Loew’s 46th Street Theater, located at 46th Street and New Utrecht Avenue, in this comment on the Boro Park Theater :
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?4809
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?2532
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?1926
In all three images the 46th Street Theater is clearly visible above the train, near the vanishing point. In at least one image the name is visible in large white letters on the building.
May appear at or near left of the following image (building completely in shadow):
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?6608
The Rivoli was located on the south side of Myrtle Avenue between Greene Avenue and Harman Street, just west of Knickerbocker Avenue, and about half a mile west of the RKO Madison Theater (q.v. on this site)on Myrtle Avenue. The building is still there, and is adjacent to the eastbound platform of the Knickerbocker Avenue station of the Myrtle Avenue elevated M line. I do not know its present use.
Thanks, Warren. I wonder if the Holy House of Prayer For All People is related to the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People that the Valencia has become.
Bway, you’re welcome, and it’s good reading you again. I was glad to finally post those links, and test them, and find that they work !
Next stop, Borough Park and Bensonhurst !
You also may have noticed that my posting the links has provoked comments by Warren providing more info on these theaters.
Warren, I don’t know if the building still exists. Thanks for this background info on the Yiddish Theater. The only two names I knew prior to your comment were Leo Fuchs and Molly Picon. My father, born 1919, remembers the Brooklyn Eagle. He remembers the intersection of Pitkin and Rockaway Avenues as a busy clothing retail area. His mother took him there in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s to shop for Easter suits, and he remembers clothiers grabbing his mother’s sleeve to get her attention as they stepped off the Rockaway Avenue trolley. They bought from stores, not pushcarts.
Thank you, Warren, for this information. I am pleased that the links to images I have posted are “provoking” the posting of this new information.
Thank you Warren. I may post that and other comments, like the date of the image of the active Hillside theater in Jamaica, Queens, on nycsubway.org.
Th film “Tentacles” mentioned in the opening comment by Robert R was released in 1977 so that is a clue. By late February 1978 the theater was closed, and a designated neighborhood eyesore.