Ridgewood Theatre

That’s interesting, they usually did this at the Oasis.
I remember like it was yesterday seeing Alice in Wonderland in the Ridgewood as a kid. I believe I also saw Pinnochio and 101 Dalmations there in the 70’s.
I saw Snow White, Bambi, and I think Peter Pan at the Oasis. I can’t remember if I saw Lady and the Tramp at the Ridgewood or at the Oasis.
I also saw Dumbo at either the Oasis or the Ridgewood. It also could be either.

Regarding the above posts. The pic Warren posted of that marquee is not the one that fell during the snowstorm, although it could have been refaced. It was more boxy then that one. Usually when they did marquees over they just refaced them so that might be what was underneath. Also somebody else mentioned about the Oasis running Rocky Horror and being rundown. I think you may be confusing it with the Arion. I don’t think the Oasis played that at midnight and suprisingly the Oasis was very well maintained right until the end. I don’t think UA must have thought they would be getting rid of it because they had done some renovations including a new curtain a few years before they closed it.

Hi All: Reading your messages has brought back so many memories! Here’s a few of mine along with thoughts: re: the theater and Ridgewood in general:
– my brother PJ and I grew up on Stockholm St., in the same “railroad” apartment as our mom (my mom moved there with her mom & sisters -we moved in 1978) 30 years in one apartment – wow!
– We went to St. Aloysius – don’t see any posts from anyone from St. A’s but there were many kids that went to the Ridgewood that attended St. A’s. How about Miraculous Medal (“Mirac”) alumni? Or is that school too far? (can’t remember)
– Ridgewood Movie Theater memory – MY 1ST DATE! With Pauline Gambino (I was 11, she was 10) we saw a Saturday matinee of AIRPORT 1975 (1974)with Charleton Heston – I don’t remember much about the movie because I was with 2 of the prettiest girls in our neighborhood, Pauline and her sister Patricia (I was dating Pauline but I had a secret crush on Patricia!). I remember my Dad gave me the most money I ever was given, to that time – $5, which I was supposed to use for busfare to and from the movie(the “38” to Myrtle Ave. – ran down Seneca Ave.), 2 movie tickets (sorry Patricia – you’re on your own), snacks, then pizza afterwards (pizzeria on Seneca). Needless to say, I came up short on the denaro (good thing Mr. Gambino gave his daughters plenty of $$).
– My brother, his friend Bernard and I were mugged right in front of the Ridgewood – they stole our snacks that we were sneaking into the theater, but we drew the line when they wanted our movie ticket money – lol – too funny!
– Anyone remember the Ridgewood gang names in the 70’s – like – The Bleeker Boys from of course Bleeker St. or the Kirshbaums, the Latin Tops, The Italian Sons, The Rebels, etc. I remember seeing the movie “The Warriors” (remember “Warriorsssss, Warriorssssssssss) and thinking to myself "what in the world” – those gangs looked like they belonged on a movie set in Hollywood – definitely not NY gangs! Saw that movie at the Elmwood and the police made us all get off the bus home (the Triboro 38 – ran down Woodhaven to Metropolitan (“Metro”) because we were wearing bomber jackets (don’t ask me)
– Gottlieb’s – ya baby! Remember the man that worked there with the funny ear?? “I’m not looking at that really weird ear!” j/k. Tuna fish sandwiches, chocolate milk and open-faced turkey!
– Anyone remember, Linderman’s pharmacy on Seneca, Murkens? Ice Cream on Myrtle, Woolworth’s on Myrtle (“the 5 and dime”), the bakery on Seneca (we used to call it “Moenies”), I think it was supposed to be Mommy’s or something like that near Lindermanns drug store?
– We used to go to the Madison (always seemed a bit cleaner), the Ridgewood, and does anyone remember the Oasis theater? They used to have Rocky Horror there every weekend at midnight? That theater was rundown but had cheap movie tickets. The only problem was unglueing your sneakers from the floor after the movie!
-Saw a post with “Ace/King/Queen/(Jack/10)” – how about Skelzie or Skully (according to what neighborhood you were from – Stockholm St. was “Skelzie”), Ringalario or Ringaleevio – (same thing – we were Ringalario), Hide the Belt, Johnny on the Pony, Tag, Off the Wall, Stoop Ball, Street Tops, Box Ball, pitching pennies, flipping baseball cards, and some of the best “double-dutchers” for the girls
– My brother and I went to St. Francis Prep Class of ‘77 (freshman year was at the old Prep and '81 for me. Seems like a few other Prep alumni here!
– I read in one of the messages that someone had Hodgkins Disease from Ridgewood, so did I. It seems like alot of people have had cancer from Ridgewood-maybe too many (I could name a dozen from my block alone). Maybe the textile mills had something to do with it (I lived next to one).
– My brother and I sold pretzels from the Starr St. pretzel factory -me in front of Wycoff Heights Hospital and my brother walked a 6-mile route and ended up in front of McCrorys on Myrtle Ave. (I was 9 and my brother was 13). Bought 100 pretzels for 3cents and sold them for 10cents (2 for a quarter) – made @$7.00 per day minus the 5-6 I ate! Ridgewood had the BEST pretzels!! Anyone remember the “Pretzel Man” – an old Italian man who stood on the corner of Stockholm St. across from St. A’s – with his white cart.

We live in sunny Las Vegas now – but will never forget Ridgewood!

Cheers!

Hi everyone,

I just found this site and want to thank you all for the wonderful trip down memory lane! I worked at Ridgewood Theatre as a ticket seller when I was 16 years old, during the spring/summer of 1975. I remember them showing the x-rated animated film, Fritz the Cat, followed by a summer Disney series!

I lived on Irving Ave between Harmon & Himrod, and attended Grover Cleveland H.S. I also attended St. Brigid’s from 1971-73. I have not had any contact with any of my classmates or neighborhood friends in decades, but would love to. If any of you remember any Gibsons, O'Neills or Colorundos from Brooklyn, please say hi!

~Donna

That’s it – Gotliebs. Couldn’t remember that name at all. I remember the Parthenon and yes the one on Fresh Pond was the Glenwood. There was an Italian restuarant on the same block, I think it was on the corner before the Glenwood. Do you remember the restaurant called Gebhardt’s. Can’t remember if it was in Glendale or Ridgewood but it was on Myrtle Avenue. Do you remember the Chinese restaurant near the Madison. It was up one long flight of stairs, was quite large and they had female impersonators on the weekends? Haven’t been to the area since about 1990. My family lived in Glendale since 1945 and growing up there left me with many happy memories. It was a great neighborhood.

Thank you, lostmemory. I think you are right about the Dec 1969 snowstorm. I’m not sure on what date it occurred. I have a vague recollection of snow on the ground on Christmas Day 1969, but not to the extent that my parents and I could not drive from Cornelia St. to my grandmother’s house on Harman St. to spend Christmas there. I was probably preoccupied with my Christmas gift, the Stones album “Let It Bleed”, and how great it would sound on my cousin’s stereo.

AprilW., yes, I was referring to your recollection of the date as 2/9/69. The February 13, 1969 edition of the Ridgewood Times is not that easily accessed. A trip to the central library in Jamaica may be necessary.

Please e-mail me at :

.army.mil

I accidentally logged myself out of this site, and am now back as “PKoch” rather than “Peter.K”.

lostmemory, I think the “Mayor Lindsay Snowstorm” was right before Christmas 1969, because it was the second big snowstorm that year, Feb. 9, 1969 being the first, for which Lindsay was criticized for not getting the snow off the streets fast enough.

Hello again, April W. This is Peter K. with the rest of my answer to your last post to me here.

Yes, I lived on the same (southeast) side of Cornelia street as the synagogue, but closer to Cypress Avenue. Yes, Billy Varade lived across the street from me, at about mid-block. I got some hand-me-down “Cat In The Hat” books from him, I think. His mom’s name was Virginia. He ended up attending medical school in Abruzzi, Italy. I remember him mentioning the Twilight Zone episode “Long Live Walter Jameson” one evening as we played in the front gate of my house in fall 1966.

The door under my front stoop led to the cellar. My kitchen and living room windows faced the back yard. The kitchen walls were light yellow, the living room walls a light green. The living room linoleum was alternating one foot squares of off-white and light brown. The kitchen linoleum was a darker gray, with black and colored speckles, sort of a tweed, and rather worn. Facing my house
from the street, the stoop and stairs were to the right.

My cousin Fran is now almost totally disabled by multiple sclerosis. At best, she can barely speak only at certain times. It is heartbreaking for her mother, my aunt. My aunt and my mother were not twins, but born 22 months apart, my aunt in May 1923 and my mother in March 1925. I know they resembled each other.

Thank you for mentioning my father as very kind. I will ask if he remembers you when next I see him.

I remember playing astronauts and space aliens with you in my front gate. I remember you making this crook-fingered hand gesture at me and saying, “This ray really kills you !” I think I complied by pretending to die.

I remember your very sharp and accurate perception that I really liked the Child Guidance plastic railroad set (tracks and cars) that I had then. I think what I enjoyed most about it was how easily I could build so many different layouts with it. My dad and I ordered another piece for it (crossover, maybe) which never came in the mail. I can still see and hear you say, in your serious way, “You really like that toy, don’t you ?”

I am now a hydrologic engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, doing mostly flood control projects in NY and NJ. Yes, I am quite a movie theater buff. Click on my user name on this board and see how many theaters I have commented on !

I have 8mm footage of the old marquee laying in front of the theatre that my dad took during the blizzard.

Heh lostmemory, you seem to know the sneak in tactics a bit too well. It’s okay, you can plea the 5th.
Seriously though, I remember watching movies when the Ridgewood was still one theater and the doors would open. They would almost blind you because you were used to the darkness. I don’t remember it after the theater was multiplexed, but that’s probably because I usually wound up in one of the balcony theaters.
Just last year, I had a chance to peak into the downstairs theater on the Madison St side. Workers were fixing the doors one morning, and had them open, there was no one there, so I steped in a few feet to take a look around. After all, it had been more than a decade since I had been in the theater. It brought back a lot of memories.

Hello Peter!

I really enjoyed reading your memories of people from St. Brigid’s days. You never mentioned your kindergarten teacher’s name. Were we in the same class? I had Miss Vitolo, who had red hair and who was very nice. Our class was in the basement of the “annex” building on the Grove Street side. In first grade, I had Sr. Mary Davidica who was also very nice. In second grage I had Sr, Mary Sylvia, who was an older nun, but a warm and wonderful person. It was, therefore, a huge shock to meet up with Mrs. Wagner in the 3rd grade.

Oh how she hated me. She picked on everything I did. I was always in trouble in her class…for talking, for asking questions, for almost anything. She enjoyed humiliating me (and others, it wasn’t just me). Once —and you may remember this, Peter— she had a boy give her his belt and she TIED me to my seat because she said I was fidgeting too much!

I was religious in those days, and after that incident, I prayed and prayed every night that God would make Mrs. Wagner stop picking on me. Sure enough, my prayers were answered. He sent her a baby, and she couldn’t finish out the school year. He sent me Miss Campanella, who was kind and sweet and good. An “angel,” just as you said.

Fourth grade was Sr. Mary Helen. Yes, she was a character. I remember she enjoyed Greek and Roman mythology and had us doing book reports on myths. She apparently thought this was an excellent way to interest the kids (which it did, I loved reading the stories) with short stories and to get us writing mini book reports (on index cards, if you remember). She had to abandon it, though, when word got out that she was teaching us about “false gods.”

We were friends then, Peter. I remember your house on Cornelia Street. You lived on the Synagogue side of the street, but up toward Cypress. Did you know an older boy named Billy Varade from the other side of the Street? You had a big stoop outside and I remember going into your house through a door under the stoop(?) Oh Peter, I sometimes have an excellent memory for detail, but I am not doing so well here. I have a vague memory of a large sunlit room with a long wall on the left, light-colored or yellow linoleum, windows facing the yard. I remember the stairway in your house was on the left, like mine was.

I remember your mom and dad. You’ve mentioned your cousin, Fran, several times (how is she?). Were your mom and her mom twin sisters? They looked a lot alike. I remember your dad was very kind, and very nice to me. I remember going to your house often and playing in your front gate, though you will have to refresh my not so amazing memory as to what kinds of stuff we did. I do remember having fun with you.

So Peter, what are you doing now? I think I read you are an engineer for the Army. Good for you! You seem to be a Movie Theater buff. You know, reading what people have had to say on this site, I’m surprised there’s no one starting up a group to talk to the Ridgewood Theater’s owners about their plans for the Theater’s future, or for ways to help get it Restored.

Hello everyone,

The house where I lived from 1955 to 1975 was at 55-14 Myrtle Avenue, diagonally across the street from the Ridgewood Theater. We didn’t own the house growing up, but my grandfather bought the house sometime around 1975 and my mother continued to live there until it was finally sold in 1995.

Reading this discussion has been a pleasure for me. Peter, as you already know, I am your friend from 4th grade, April. As has been stated again and again, your memory is remarkable. Yes, you were right, I lived over the Ridgewood Toyland, the store with the mechanical pony outside.

I have so many happy memories of both the Ridgewood and the Madison Theaters. The RKO Madison was a splendid theater, grand and spacious. As has been mentioned, it was cleaner than the Ridgewood Theater. No doubt that was in some part due to the mean, humorless matrons who didn’t allow you to move or talk when you came without your parents. Does anyone remember the nasty matron with the red hair?

Admission was 50 cents when I first started going on my own to the movies. I remember the Ridgewood Theater just as you’ve all described it. Yes, it had a very steep balcony, which was disorienting in the dark. Invariably, someone would sneak into the theater by the side door and suddenly the darkened theater would be lit on the left by a doorway of blinding sun — and so you could never see exactly who was sneaking in.

When you lived on Myrtle Avenue you had to develop an ability to sleep with noise. My room was right on the Avenue. There were all kinds of noises. There was the screech of the EL train as it rounded the turn at Wyckoff through open windows on a cool summer night. There were the endless fire engines racing past the house in the early night hours, mostly towards what was then called “Lower Ridgewood.” There was also a bus stop right outside our house where people waited a long time for the bus, talking and making noise. People walked on the Avenue all night long to and from the train station.

“Strange” noises, however, woke me right up. Things like the breaking of glass (before roll-down gates), fire, yelling — anything that wasn’t “normal.”

One night I awoke to a “strange” sound. It was late at night, but unusually quiet. It sounded like the limbs of a big tree rubbing together in a strong wind. I went to the window and looked out. It was snowing. The street was quiet, no cars, no people, and of course, no trees. The creaking went from little creaks to heavy, heaving-type creaking. It seemed to be coming from the Theater.

After a few minutes, the noise got worse. There was a prolonged sound now, the groaning of metal, and straining sounds as the marquis slowly pulled away from the theater. In a moment it fell to the snow-covered ground in an almost quiet THUD.

I stood stunned for a few minutes before I woke my mother. I was filled with emotion. I saw that the huge chains that had apparently once held the marguis were lying limply against the building. I couldn’t believe what happened. It surely was exciting.

I’ve always wondered if there are any other eye witnesses. Anyone?

Hello to all of you from St. Brigid’s days. What a pleasure it has been to find you here. I remember you all —Peter, DABOC, Vicki,Dawn N.and Cathy A. I hope you are all well. You other guys who I don’t know have done some amazing research on these local theaters. Thank you for such interesting information. Monica, I have enjoyed reading what you have written about the Ridgewood Theater and about Ridgewood, in general. I would love to hear more about the place Ridgewood is today.