AMC Fresh Meadows 7

If you were a child in Queens in the early 70’s, The Meadows
was an incredible first major motion-pic experience.
My folks tagged me along to catch Woody Allen’s “Sleeper”,
on a Saturday matinee. Barren house…we sat in row 6.
I loved it…couldn’t bear to leave. The lunch at the
Whelan Drug counter across the street was also a fading
classic. Now it’s a Radio Shack. Good grief..!

I have some current exterior shots (night and day) posted below. There isn’t much of interest inside the theater to capture on film – at least from a historical perspective. As has been written above, the building was gutted right to the outer brick walls for the multiplexing back in the late 80’s. Only the outer lobby (basically a plain glass enclosed space) remains more or less as it was prior to the gutting. You purchase your tickets at either of two exterior booths located at the front entrance under the marquee. You then proceed into the outer lobby and a ticket taker is stationed at far left of the 2nd set of doors leading into the theater. Once beyond those doors you are in the space where the inner lobby was – which featured a large candy counter at the rear wall and a big L-shaped stair case on the right that ascended to the mezzanine.

Today, you’ll find some coin-operated snack machines, a video game or two and, on the right, at least one small auditorium (I believe this is theater #1). On the left side of this street level lobby, there is a long escalator leading to an upper lobby and 2 or 3 auditoriums on that level (there is a candy counter up there as well – though it never seems to be open). Dead center is a short set of stairs that brings you down to the lower lobby and the remaining 3 auditoriums (#’s 2, 3 and 4, I believe).

The big candy counter is located in the lower lobby on the left and entrances to two mid-sized theaters are on the right. At the rear on this level is the big auditorium (#4) which occupies the space where the front of the original orchestra was located. I try to make sure the movie I want to see (and the particular showing I want to attend) is in this auditorium whenever I go to the Meadows. It has a nice sized screen and high ceiling giving the room a comfortable sense of space. At all costs, I avoid that small street level room, which is cramped with a postage stamp screen, low ceiling and a center aisle arrangement of seats, as I recall.

A problem with the theaters on the upper level is that the ONLY bathrooms in the place are located under the staircase on the lower level, meaning you have to come all the way down the long flight to street level and then down the other flight to the lower lobby and then a few steps down farther still and all the way back again for a mid-movie break. You miss a lot of action in that time!

Anyway… the exterior is largely unaltered from prior to renovations. Even the old balcony fire escapes are still there and in use – they are contained within the cream-colored protrusion at the left end of the building shown in the 2nd photo below. The signage was a bit different in the old days… the “Fresh Meadows” logos above the marquee and on the rear of the building were not there. There used to be big letters (where they green?) on the side of the building facing the Long Island Expressway that read “MEADOWS”:

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I never knew it was built on a golf course.

The Fresh Meadows stores ran the gamut from Woolworth to Horn & Hardart to Bloomingdales. The bowling alley was the first I remember that had semi-automatic pin setters.

I remember when the Fresh Meadows complex was built on a golf course by NY Life in about 1947. The theater was built later. Fresh Meadows is no longer owned by NY Life.

I thought the Premiere Showcase concept ruined the way we saw movies. Growing up, when a movie was first released, it was shown in a first run theater in Manhattan. It was a big deal to go to “the City” to catch a movie. One would see a picture before it came to your local theater. I guess depending on its success in the first run circuit, would determine when it could start to show locally.

The Premiere Showcase concept was for a picture to open locally and not differentiate between a first run theater and a local one.

In 1962 the Century’s Meadows was the Queens outlet for the first Premiere Showcase.

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The manager with the dog was industry veteran Edward Bernhardt. Ed was a German raised in Palestine (Israel). I worked with him in the nineties at the Meadows when he carried photos of his deceased pooch Charlie in his wallet and showed them regularly.

Ed started as a projectionist in Israel before immigrating to New York where he had a long career with MGM, RKO Century and innevitably, Cineplex Odeon. Months before passing away he famously stated: “I have lived long enough to have seen the fall of Communism, the Berlin Wall, and Pee Wee Herman. That is enough for one lifetime.”

For many of us, Ed IS the Meadows.

I went here tonight to see Meet The Faukers and sadly this place is now in the dump status. On a Saturday night they had two people running a concession stand that has 6 stations. I was horrified when I entered the suditorium. The red curtains were gone only a valance on top, and you see all the masking now going all the way to the walls. The masking was so ugly, I don’t know why they removed the curtains even if they did not close them. The projection was bad the picture was too far to the right leaving empty screen on the left side. The lights were also kept on trailer level through the whole feature. The theatres and restroom were clean, but the place is tired and not being kept up. For $9.00 I expected more. One last comment in the huge outer lobby there are two huge banners for the Aviator which is still playing there. They are so crooked that it was a joke. Now since those were advance teaser banners they had to be hanging there since at least October. It’s appalling to think in all that time no employee thought to correct it, where are the district managers that used to always come in and look theatres over? Sadly this business is so over.

I remember spending the afternoons at the Meadows. 90cents would get you a James Bond double feature. And how about those old soda vending machines sold by the cup. What fond memories. One of many growing up in Fresh Meadows.

I was 10 years old when it first opened and I remember that it was a “big deal” to go to this large modern theatre near where I lived.

It’s interesting to hear that the Meadows opened with a “Hollywood Preview” because it’s the only place I ever saw such things, in the early 70’s. Not the “previews” common today, in which a film is sneaked a week in advance of opening to build word-of-mouth, but a showing of a work-in-progress, after which the audience filled out detailed comment cards.
The Previews were a free addition after a regular Saturday night show. They were announced in an ad, but were never identified — which made for a lot of excitement and anticipation. We never saw a classic — the best was “The Anderson Tapes”, with Sean Connery. Other films we saw previewed was a horribly depressing Australian film called “Outback” — too bad it was several years ahead of the Aussie movoe craze — and “Pieces of Dreams”, with Robert Forster, a blah romantic drama about a priest in love. We felt a bit of parental pride when the films finally came out, several months later, knowing that our input might have affected the final cut.

Haven’t been to the Fresh Meadows in ages.The last time I was
there I saw Beverly Hills Cop 1 and Peggy Sue Got Married.I believe it was late 1984.It had only two theaters at that time.The Fresh Meadows always had a very fresh clean elegant feeling.I would imagine it doesnt even resemble the 1984 theater that I remember.