Comments from PeterKoch

Yeah, Mike, it’s good. I’m going to read and annotate it on the way home this evening.

I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre at 11 this morning (March 1 2010 after buying socks at Carl’s Army and Navy Store) and saw no change since my last visit on 22 January 2010.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, Chris, good thoughts. But if the Pilgrim Baptist Church was only “briefly” in the Bushwick, then perhaps the date of March 1978 on the photo is wrong, or else the words Pilgrim Baptist Church and its pastor’s name stayed on the marquee for nine years, because the RKO Bushwick stopped showing movies in 1969.

I find it interesting that, after the Pilgrim Baptist Church moved out of the RKO Bushwick, it began its decay and descent into shambles, the low spiritual point being the human sacrifice of the cult of Santeria shown in the 1987 film “The Believers”.

How brief, John ?

Thanks, John D. I expect to walk by the Ridgewood Theatre this coming Friday morning, and will report here as usual after I have done so.

Thanks, Mike.

I walked past the Ridgewood Theatre this morning at aboout 11:30 a.m.

I saw no change since I was last there six weeks ago on the morning of Friday December 11th 2009.

“if the Ridgewood Theatre is revamped properly, Ridgewood may just become a budding Bushwick, its arts-obsessed Brooklyn neighbor.”

Interesting. A friend of mine at work has referred to Ridgewood as “suburban Bushwick”. Ridgewood never fell into ruin the way Bushwick did, but it can use all the help it can get.

The former Ridgewood Times building becoming condos is quite a difference from when it was Bushwick High Annex thirty years ago.

My Cornelia street neighbors and I always felt oppressed and endangered by the presence of that school on the corner of our home block.

Michael, I’ll see you at the Municipal Building tomorrow.

I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre again this morning, December 11th, 2009.

No change since my last visit, except that there is now only one car seat on the floor between the closed outer gate and the doors of the inner lobby. Only one of those doors was open, the one closest to the ticket booth.

The Rolling Stones poster is still in the ticket booth window.

Then, as I did Nov 20th, I walked to the L / M station at Myrtle and Wyckoff. Again, two miracles there :

The men’s room was open, clean, brightly lit. No gay action or drug dealing within.

And the escalator was working, in both directions !

You’re welcome, Mike.

I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre this morning.

No change since my last visit, except that there were two car seats on the floor between the closed outer gate and the closed doors of the inner lobby.

The Rolling Stones poster is still in the ticket booth window. I took another look at it this morning. Jagger’s hair is short enough for it to have been from the Steel Wheels / Urban Jungle tour of 1990. It shows the Stones with keyboard players Matt Clifford and Chuck Leavell, and backup singers Bernard Fowler, Lisa Fisher, and Cindy Maisel.

Then I walked to the L / M station at Myrtle and Wyckoff. Two miracles there :

The men’s room was open, clean, brightly lit. No gay action or drug dealing within. The toilet actually flushed.

And the escalator was working, in both directions !

I walked by the Ridgewood Theatre this morning. No change since my last visit, except that a photo of the Rolling Stones and about five of their backup musicians and singers was in the window of the ticket booth. Bill Wyman was still among them, so it must have been from 1990 or before.

Thanks for reporting here, John D. You saw more than I did the last time I walked past.