I don’t think it’s the Orpheum, because in the photo on the Orpheum, it doesn’t seem to have the large Doric columns that the photo with the el has. /theaters/1924/
I found this photo on nycsubway.org, but can’t read the name of the theater. It says it’s Flatbush Ave….however, I am not sure what theater it is, so I figured I’d start my search here….
Here’s a photo of some theater on Flatbush Ave, when they were about to tear the old Fulton Elevated down….
Is this the Flatbush Pavilion?
Here’s a photo of the old Loews Metropolitan, when they were tearing down the old Fulton St Elevated down, once it was replaced with the Fulton Subway.
The theater had seen light for the first time….
The parachute jump amazingly was completely dismantled, restored, and reassembled a couple years ago. It has recieved landmark status, so now that it is restored, it should remain a fixture at Coney Island.
Thanks! I just noticed that, they look great!. Unfortunately, those photos are a part of a slideshow, and you can’t pause it to look at the photo carefully.
That’s really odd! I don’t think the Ridgewood was cut up in 1978 yet, but not sure. Perhaps that was a misprint for the Madison? it’s odd that the Ridgewood Theater would be in both the Brooklyn and QUeens listings, and a different movie for each!
I also agree with Ed. There are many happy memories in even the strip mall 1960’s strip mall theaters too, and under many of those theaters you will read comments from people who have fond memories inside those walls, just like someone who has great memories of the Loews Valencia. Is that 1960’s shopping mall theater a “cinema treasure” in terms of the bricks and plaster? Probably not, but the value of those theaters go beyond just the paster, bricks, and gold lef paint, and to those that hold fond memories inside seeing movies, they are a “cinema treasure”.
QUOTE by Ed: “That place would probably have to be a pay-site and would likely be a very dry and scholarly forum for only the most serious and studious of movie theater enthusiasts”
Yes, and it would completely lose the human-ness of this site. Cinematour has a forum, with a more elite “into” it crowd, and it lacks the inviting nature of this site. I would never even consider posting there, or even really reading through that site.
QUOTE by PKoch:
*The important thing is, I think, is that they both show movies. In fifty years, they may be as much “cinema treasures” to the people who are then posting on this site, who saw movies there as kids, as the Ridgewood and RKO Madison Theaters are to us now. *
Exactly. And you don’t even have to wait 50 years. There are many 1970’s non-descript architectually theaters that people talk very fondly of on this site already. I even have fond memories of movies in 1980’s multiplexes. You can’t help it happening.
I think that a real large solution that would end, or at least cut down on the rampant messages such as happened in the Ridgewood Theater (just using this theater as an example, it happens in many, many other theaters too), that goes beyond the Ridgewood Theater itself as a topic would be to have some sort of place within the site that the membership could discuss topics, perhaps cinema related, but not necessarily on topic to individual theaters themselves, would b to have some sort of forum where the membership could talk. Obviously, people have formed freindships within many of these theater sections, and since there is no place to discuss movies, or good times around a theater, outside it’s walls in the neighborhood, etc, you get what happened here in the Ridgewood Theater.
The truth is, there is just so much you can talk about the bricks and plaster of these “cinema treasures” themselves, before you run out of things to say, and the community here obviously has a desire to talk with eachother, just witness the Ridgewood Theater section (as well as many other theaters all over the site where this has happened).
Like it or not, the current movie going experience does involve the mega-plexes as well as the old “cinema treasures”. There are many people here interested in commenting on the “mega-plexes” as well as the old palaces. And for better or worse, all the little tiny neighborhood theaters, which wouldn’t exactly be considered a “treasure”, are just as much a part of the historical movie going experience as a great like Radio City Music Hall will be. Each type of theater does have it’s place.
The data contained in the pages of this site, as well as many of the comments have become an invaluable source of information. Amazingly, someone searching google for some obscure little movie house often comes up with THIS very site in one of the first few search results found. This site comes up in those searches. I have accidentally come up with this site in search results, when I wasn’t even looking for a particular theater, and just doing similar searches on google.
The site has become an invaluable source of information.
That is such a great idea. it would avoid all the clutter that is in a theater like the Ridgewood, unrelated to the Ridgewood, and these kind of topics come up in many many theaters because people are starving for a place like that to discuss random mtheater information, but there’s no place to discuss it unless we use a theater. WHat’s happened in the Ridgewood section is that people use it because they know others check this theater often as it’s a popular theater to begin with, as most of the main members of the site congregate here too.
I was on the M train yesterday, and noticed there is just about NO remnant of this sign left ont he side of the building anymore. It’s bare bricks. You can slightly make out an even older painting (Madison is in a different text), but it is ever so slight. Unless you really really look, it says nothing on the side anymore.
Mmmmm, it sounds like a Mexican Restaurant, and I LOVE mexican food!
Anyway, Jim, believe it or not, those el cars in that opening scene Malcolm X was a train from the NY Transit Museum, it’s an old BMT train. They painted them up (at movie company expense) to look like an old Boston Train. That short scene took a weeks worth of site preparation (and who knows how much planning), and a long weekend to film! It’s amazing how much time goes in to each minute of a movie….
PKoch, thanks! Yes, Used People, that’s the name of the movie I was thinking of!
Haha! I forgot about the Jerky Boys! That was filmed by that bar on Fresh Pond Rd, I think it’s called the Everglades Bar. it’s an old “German Looking” bar.
I heard about the Sopranos episone in Ridgewood. I heard it was on Fresh Pond Rd…. But that could be another scene or episode.
I off hand, cant think of any remaining bars on Linden St. There’s a lot on Fresh Pond Rd. There are a few scattered corner bars all around Ridgewood, and not just the main roads, so there could be one on Linden. I don’t know of any from Forest to Fresh Pond, but there could be some going towards Woodward or Brooklyn.
Oh! I forgot one (and I am sure many more). There was a movie that PKoch told me to rent once, but I forgot the name of it. I did rent and see it, but for the life of me can’t remember the name, he will have to fill us in….but anyway, that movie was filmed in and on the roofs of the 6 family houses on Palmetto St right at the Seneca Ave station in Ridgewood also. Peter, what was the name of that movie again, I can’t remember, but it was a pretty good movie.
I am sure there are many more movies.
Yes, I do know what scene. In French Connection, there is a car chase scene in which a car is chasing the guy on the elevated train. Most of those train scenes on the elevated were on the New Utrecht Ave El in Boro Park, although a few are under the Myrtle line at Onderdonk between Woodbine and Palmetto, under the el. The scene (again through the magic of Hollywood) has the guy chasing under the New Utrect El, and then all of a sudden crashes into a bunch of garages under the el…..the crash scene under the el is iin Ridgewood instead, on Onderdonk Ave under the M Line el…. In the scene you can just make out the double steeples of St Alyoisious Church off in the distance.
There are some other movies that I don’t know the name of filmed in Ridgewood too. There was a movie with Henry Winkler in it filmed on Fresh Pond Rd (or it could have been a TV show). This was in the 80’s. There was also a movie I don’t know the name of filmed across from the Madison theater, in the little park they made out of Woodbine St next to the Diner.
“A Stranger Among Us” (I recommend that movie for any Ridgewood fan) in addition to being filmed mostly on Forest Ave by the el between about Woodbine to Cornelia also had one scene filmed in Bushwick at the Knickerbocker station in front of the 83rd Police precint.
A movie called “The Believers” from the 80’s I believe, was filmed in front and inside the RKO Bushwick Theater in the human sacrafice on the stage of the abandoned theater scene.
“COming to America” had a few scenes filmed near the Marcy Ave station on the el (a block or two away). I forgot what street exactly (Hombolt St maybe??), but that’s where Eddie Murphy’s character’s hovel of an apartment was really located (not Queens) as Hollywood would have us believe.
The Glenwood was definitely the theater that became a bowling alley near the railrod trestle at Fresh Pond and Myrtle. The old “Glenwood” marquee even survived right to when they tore the building down for the post office.
I only went there once or twice as a kid in the mid 70’s, so don’t remember the interior all that much….but as far as I know, the bowling alley was set up on the orchestra level of the old theater. I have no idea if any old theater ornamentation remained on the ceiling or walls or anywhere, but I also very vaguely recall an area above where you can sit at tables and eat and watch the bowlers…so that must’ve been the balcony area….it’s a very vague memory, so can’t say for sure.
Peter, you are probably right. The dates blend together, I just know is twas sometime in the early 90’s (or more accurately, around 1989).
Hahaha, I love your “entrance to hell” comment!! Especially back then, that spot definitely was the perfect setting for that movie.
Yes, I watched the filming of Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1985 at the Seneca Avenue station on the el. They had the whole neighborhood along Seneca Ave and Palmetto turned into 1939 Brighton Beach. It was so cool.
In 1992, or 1993, they filmed “A Stranger Among Us” at the Forest Ave station at Forest and Putnam. Melanie Grifith plays a cop that goes undercover in the Hasidic Community of Williamsburg, so they turned Forest Ave into Hasidic Williamsburg….another sight to see through the magic of Hollywood.
In 1992, Ghost was filmed at the Myrtle-Broadway station, both under the el on top of the station platforms. There’s a scene when Patrick Swayze is on a J train pulling into the station (with the old Loew’s Broadway Theater still standing there). Willie, the villian in the movie, gets killed and taken by demons under the Myrtle-Broadway platforms on the street…and in the early 90’s the gloominess of that neighborhood was the perfect setting for that movie.
SOme trivia…. If you watch the beginning of the movie Malcolm X, which was filmed at the intersection of Myrtle and Wyckoff in the early 90’s, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington were both there. I watched a lot of the filming. Through the magic of Hollywood, this intersection was converted to Dudley St in Boston in the 1930’s or 40’s, complete with old trains on the el.
Anyway, the barber shop scene was filmed inside that shoe store building, which was made to look like a 1930’s barber shop. There are also some scenes outside…..so rent Malcolm X, and it’s the opening scene.
Here’s a photo of the Strand from just before they tore down the old Fulton St Elevated. Ed, perhaps you should post your aerial photo here too….
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52097
I don’t think it’s the Orpheum, because in the photo on the Orpheum, it doesn’t seem to have the large Doric columns that the photo with the el has.
/theaters/1924/
And while we’re at it, here’s a phot of after they took the Fulton St Elevated down at Franklin and Fulton….is that a theater on the right?
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52499
I found this photo on nycsubway.org, but can’t read the name of the theater. It says it’s Flatbush Ave….however, I am not sure what theater it is, so I figured I’d start my search here….
Here’s a photo of some theater on Flatbush Ave, when they were about to tear the old Fulton Elevated down….
Is this the Flatbush Pavilion?
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52097
Here’s a photo of the old Loews Metropolitan, when they were tearing down the old Fulton St Elevated down, once it was replaced with the Fulton Subway.
The theater had seen light for the first time….
http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?52090
The parachute jump amazingly was completely dismantled, restored, and reassembled a couple years ago. It has recieved landmark status, so now that it is restored, it should remain a fixture at Coney Island.
What does any of this have to do with the Belvedere Theater in Glendale, which is no where near Coney Island?
As for Jim, the Belvedere is/was on Myrtle Ave, at Cypress Hills Street.
Thanks! I just noticed that, they look great!. Unfortunately, those photos are a part of a slideshow, and you can’t pause it to look at the photo carefully.
Wow, that is just amazing. Anyone have any photos of the signs in theater 1?
Oh my god, they left the Ridgewood Theater and came across the street to the RKO Madison. Haha.
That’s really odd! I don’t think the Ridgewood was cut up in 1978 yet, but not sure. Perhaps that was a misprint for the Madison? it’s odd that the Ridgewood Theater would be in both the Brooklyn and QUeens listings, and a different movie for each!
I also agree with Ed. There are many happy memories in even the strip mall 1960’s strip mall theaters too, and under many of those theaters you will read comments from people who have fond memories inside those walls, just like someone who has great memories of the Loews Valencia. Is that 1960’s shopping mall theater a “cinema treasure” in terms of the bricks and plaster? Probably not, but the value of those theaters go beyond just the paster, bricks, and gold lef paint, and to those that hold fond memories inside seeing movies, they are a “cinema treasure”.
QUOTE by Ed:
“That place would probably have to be a pay-site and would likely be a very dry and scholarly forum for only the most serious and studious of movie theater enthusiasts”
Yes, and it would completely lose the human-ness of this site. Cinematour has a forum, with a more elite “into” it crowd, and it lacks the inviting nature of this site. I would never even consider posting there, or even really reading through that site.
QUOTE by PKoch:
*The important thing is, I think, is that they both show movies. In fifty years, they may be as much “cinema treasures” to the people who are then posting on this site, who saw movies there as kids, as the Ridgewood and RKO Madison Theaters are to us now. *
Exactly. And you don’t even have to wait 50 years. There are many 1970’s non-descript architectually theaters that people talk very fondly of on this site already. I even have fond memories of movies in 1980’s multiplexes. You can’t help it happening.
I think that a real large solution that would end, or at least cut down on the rampant messages such as happened in the Ridgewood Theater (just using this theater as an example, it happens in many, many other theaters too), that goes beyond the Ridgewood Theater itself as a topic would be to have some sort of place within the site that the membership could discuss topics, perhaps cinema related, but not necessarily on topic to individual theaters themselves, would b to have some sort of forum where the membership could talk. Obviously, people have formed freindships within many of these theater sections, and since there is no place to discuss movies, or good times around a theater, outside it’s walls in the neighborhood, etc, you get what happened here in the Ridgewood Theater.
The truth is, there is just so much you can talk about the bricks and plaster of these “cinema treasures” themselves, before you run out of things to say, and the community here obviously has a desire to talk with eachother, just witness the Ridgewood Theater section (as well as many other theaters all over the site where this has happened).
Like it or not, the current movie going experience does involve the mega-plexes as well as the old “cinema treasures”. There are many people here interested in commenting on the “mega-plexes” as well as the old palaces. And for better or worse, all the little tiny neighborhood theaters, which wouldn’t exactly be considered a “treasure”, are just as much a part of the historical movie going experience as a great like Radio City Music Hall will be. Each type of theater does have it’s place.
The data contained in the pages of this site, as well as many of the comments have become an invaluable source of information. Amazingly, someone searching google for some obscure little movie house often comes up with THIS very site in one of the first few search results found. This site comes up in those searches. I have accidentally come up with this site in search results, when I wasn’t even looking for a particular theater, and just doing similar searches on google.
The site has become an invaluable source of information.
That is such a great idea. it would avoid all the clutter that is in a theater like the Ridgewood, unrelated to the Ridgewood, and these kind of topics come up in many many theaters because people are starving for a place like that to discuss random mtheater information, but there’s no place to discuss it unless we use a theater. WHat’s happened in the Ridgewood section is that people use it because they know others check this theater often as it’s a popular theater to begin with, as most of the main members of the site congregate here too.
I was on the M train yesterday, and noticed there is just about NO remnant of this sign left ont he side of the building anymore. It’s bare bricks. You can slightly make out an even older painting (Madison is in a different text), but it is ever so slight. Unless you really really look, it says nothing on the side anymore.
Mmmmm, it sounds like a Mexican Restaurant, and I LOVE mexican food!
Anyway, Jim, believe it or not, those el cars in that opening scene Malcolm X was a train from the NY Transit Museum, it’s an old BMT train. They painted them up (at movie company expense) to look like an old Boston Train. That short scene took a weeks worth of site preparation (and who knows how much planning), and a long weekend to film! It’s amazing how much time goes in to each minute of a movie….
PKoch, thanks! Yes, Used People, that’s the name of the movie I was thinking of!
PErhaps the corner of Linden and Fresh Pond Rd? There are a few bars if not in that intersection, very close to it.
Haha! I forgot about the Jerky Boys! That was filmed by that bar on Fresh Pond Rd, I think it’s called the Everglades Bar. it’s an old “German Looking” bar.
I heard about the Sopranos episone in Ridgewood. I heard it was on Fresh Pond Rd…. But that could be another scene or episode.
I off hand, cant think of any remaining bars on Linden St. There’s a lot on Fresh Pond Rd. There are a few scattered corner bars all around Ridgewood, and not just the main roads, so there could be one on Linden. I don’t know of any from Forest to Fresh Pond, but there could be some going towards Woodward or Brooklyn.
Oh! I forgot one (and I am sure many more). There was a movie that PKoch told me to rent once, but I forgot the name of it. I did rent and see it, but for the life of me can’t remember the name, he will have to fill us in….but anyway, that movie was filmed in and on the roofs of the 6 family houses on Palmetto St right at the Seneca Ave station in Ridgewood also. Peter, what was the name of that movie again, I can’t remember, but it was a pretty good movie.
I am sure there are many more movies.
Yes, I do know what scene. In French Connection, there is a car chase scene in which a car is chasing the guy on the elevated train. Most of those train scenes on the elevated were on the New Utrecht Ave El in Boro Park, although a few are under the Myrtle line at Onderdonk between Woodbine and Palmetto, under the el. The scene (again through the magic of Hollywood) has the guy chasing under the New Utrect El, and then all of a sudden crashes into a bunch of garages under the el…..the crash scene under the el is iin Ridgewood instead, on Onderdonk Ave under the M Line el…. In the scene you can just make out the double steeples of St Alyoisious Church off in the distance.
There are some other movies that I don’t know the name of filmed in Ridgewood too. There was a movie with Henry Winkler in it filmed on Fresh Pond Rd (or it could have been a TV show). This was in the 80’s. There was also a movie I don’t know the name of filmed across from the Madison theater, in the little park they made out of Woodbine St next to the Diner.
“A Stranger Among Us” (I recommend that movie for any Ridgewood fan) in addition to being filmed mostly on Forest Ave by the el between about Woodbine to Cornelia also had one scene filmed in Bushwick at the Knickerbocker station in front of the 83rd Police precint.
A movie called “The Believers” from the 80’s I believe, was filmed in front and inside the RKO Bushwick Theater in the human sacrafice on the stage of the abandoned theater scene.
“COming to America” had a few scenes filmed near the Marcy Ave station on the el (a block or two away). I forgot what street exactly (Hombolt St maybe??), but that’s where Eddie Murphy’s character’s hovel of an apartment was really located (not Queens) as Hollywood would have us believe.
The Glenwood was definitely the theater that became a bowling alley near the railrod trestle at Fresh Pond and Myrtle. The old “Glenwood” marquee even survived right to when they tore the building down for the post office.
I only went there once or twice as a kid in the mid 70’s, so don’t remember the interior all that much….but as far as I know, the bowling alley was set up on the orchestra level of the old theater. I have no idea if any old theater ornamentation remained on the ceiling or walls or anywhere, but I also very vaguely recall an area above where you can sit at tables and eat and watch the bowlers…so that must’ve been the balcony area….it’s a very vague memory, so can’t say for sure.
Peter, you are probably right. The dates blend together, I just know is twas sometime in the early 90’s (or more accurately, around 1989).
Hahaha, I love your “entrance to hell” comment!! Especially back then, that spot definitely was the perfect setting for that movie.
Yes, I watched the filming of Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1985 at the Seneca Avenue station on the el. They had the whole neighborhood along Seneca Ave and Palmetto turned into 1939 Brighton Beach. It was so cool.
In 1992, or 1993, they filmed “A Stranger Among Us” at the Forest Ave station at Forest and Putnam. Melanie Grifith plays a cop that goes undercover in the Hasidic Community of Williamsburg, so they turned Forest Ave into Hasidic Williamsburg….another sight to see through the magic of Hollywood.
In 1992, Ghost was filmed at the Myrtle-Broadway station, both under the el on top of the station platforms. There’s a scene when Patrick Swayze is on a J train pulling into the station (with the old Loew’s Broadway Theater still standing there). Willie, the villian in the movie, gets killed and taken by demons under the Myrtle-Broadway platforms on the street…and in the early 90’s the gloominess of that neighborhood was the perfect setting for that movie.
SOme trivia…. If you watch the beginning of the movie Malcolm X, which was filmed at the intersection of Myrtle and Wyckoff in the early 90’s, Spike Lee and Denzel Washington were both there. I watched a lot of the filming. Through the magic of Hollywood, this intersection was converted to Dudley St in Boston in the 1930’s or 40’s, complete with old trains on the el.
Anyway, the barber shop scene was filmed inside that shoe store building, which was made to look like a 1930’s barber shop. There are also some scenes outside…..so rent Malcolm X, and it’s the opening scene.
I can’t tell if they are trolley tracks or wires under the el. I think they are wires, but not sure.