If you’re my cousin Hy, I lost your e-mail address when my hard disk failed a few weeks ago. The only other cousin I know of who would have been old enough to work there during that time period was Sid.
I attended Erasmus Hall High School just a block or two east of the Albermarle in the late 1960s, and saw many movies there. Frankie is very correct — on Friday and Saturday nights, the five or six blocks of Flatbush Ave. between Church Ave. and Cortelyou Rd. were thronged with people. In addition to the Albermarle and the Loew’s Kings, there was the RKO Kenmore on Church off Flatbush, a small art theater (whose name escapes me) on the same block as Erasmus Hall, and a theater on the corner of Flatbush and Cortelyou. My first job ever was assembling the Sunday newspapers (NY Times, Daily News and World-Journal-Tribune) that were delivered between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. in front of the Albermarle Theater; when the movie ended, we sold lots of papers to the patrons heading home, or to a local coffee shop.
It is really great to read these recollections, since my memories of the theater are somewhat vague. The guy with the hook-like nose was probably my uncle, a very tall man who often took the tickets in the small lobby, tearing them in half and depositing half in an old receptacle. I’ve looked through my late father’s photos but can’t find any of the theater, which isn’t very surprising: I don’t think he really liked the theater business, and boasted that after he and his brothers sold the Rogers in the mid-1960s, he never set foot in another movie theater. Ironically, movies are one of the great passions of my life, especially when I can see them at a classic, single-screen movie theater.
My father and uncles owned and operated the Rogers Theater in the 1950s until they sold it in 1964 or 1965. I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. I remember a stain on the screen where someone threw Coca Cola on it. They showed a steady fare of westerns, sci-fi and horror films. I don’t remember any cats, but I distinctly recall large mousetraps that I’d help my father collect before the theater opened. I’d love to hear others' recollections.
The theater was located on a corner. It had no connection to the Rogers Theater on Rogers Ave. My uncles also owned the Banco Theater in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Dubya,
If you’re my cousin Hy, I lost your e-mail address when my hard disk failed a few weeks ago. The only other cousin I know of who would have been old enough to work there during that time period was Sid.
Dubya,
My uncles Phil & Jack owned the theater in the mid 1950s. Were they operating it when you worked there?
I attended Erasmus Hall High School just a block or two east of the Albermarle in the late 1960s, and saw many movies there. Frankie is very correct — on Friday and Saturday nights, the five or six blocks of Flatbush Ave. between Church Ave. and Cortelyou Rd. were thronged with people. In addition to the Albermarle and the Loew’s Kings, there was the RKO Kenmore on Church off Flatbush, a small art theater (whose name escapes me) on the same block as Erasmus Hall, and a theater on the corner of Flatbush and Cortelyou. My first job ever was assembling the Sunday newspapers (NY Times, Daily News and World-Journal-Tribune) that were delivered between 7:00 and 10:00 p.m. in front of the Albermarle Theater; when the movie ended, we sold lots of papers to the patrons heading home, or to a local coffee shop.
It is really great to read these recollections, since my memories of the theater are somewhat vague. The guy with the hook-like nose was probably my uncle, a very tall man who often took the tickets in the small lobby, tearing them in half and depositing half in an old receptacle. I’ve looked through my late father’s photos but can’t find any of the theater, which isn’t very surprising: I don’t think he really liked the theater business, and boasted that after he and his brothers sold the Rogers in the mid-1960s, he never set foot in another movie theater. Ironically, movies are one of the great passions of my life, especially when I can see them at a classic, single-screen movie theater.
My father and uncles owned and operated the Rogers Theater in the 1950s until they sold it in 1964 or 1965. I spent a lot of time there when I was a kid. I remember a stain on the screen where someone threw Coca Cola on it. They showed a steady fare of westerns, sci-fi and horror films. I don’t remember any cats, but I distinctly recall large mousetraps that I’d help my father collect before the theater opened. I’d love to hear others' recollections.
The theater was located on a corner. It had no connection to the Rogers Theater on Rogers Ave. My uncles also owned the Banco Theater in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.