Unlike other theaters such as the Prospect or the RKO Keiths (in nearby Flushing), the Cross Island was of minimal architectural interest. It was just a little neighborhood theater that had the bad luck to be erected just as the videocassette was about to put theaters like it out of business.
This theater opened around Christmas, 1979. One of the two opening films was a revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
I lived within walking distance of the theater and I remember being pissed that a local theater was being built just as I was about to go away to college (in January of 1980).
I saw quite a few films there during its brief existence. The one I remember the most was Walter Hill’s “The Long Riders.”
The theater did not open as a triplex in 1975, but 1976. I know this because I was the first patron in the new theater (and still have somewhere the ticket stub, numbered 000001). The opening film (at least, the one I saw) was a re-release of De Palma’s “The Phantom of the Paradise.” They split the main auditorium on the ground floor in half but didn’t reconfigure the seats, so to see the screen you had to almost look over one shoulder.
In the 1970s they almost never opened the balcony because the audience size didn’t warrant it. The only film I remember that drew enough of a crowd for them to open up the balcony to accomodate them was “Murder on the Orient Express.”
In the 1980s they had video games in the lobby, which I always thought was kind of tacky.
One of the last films I saw there was something called “Wild Style” in the upstairs theater, and the place was already starting to fall apart. I remember a bunch of punks were watching the film and one of the walked back and relieved himself in the back of the auditorium.
I moved from Queens to Manhattan in 1985 and didn’t see any films at the Keith’s after that.
If anyone wants to see what the Keith’s auditorium looked like, just go to the Loews Jersey in Jersey City. Although the lobby looks nothing like the Keith’s, the auditorium gave me a real Proustian rush when I first saw it. It’s a dead ringer for one of the great movie palaces of my childhood.
This is from Theodore Huff’s book “Charlie Chaplin”:
“Some idea of the traffic in Chaplin films may be gained from the records of the little Crystal Hall on 14th Street in New York. From 1914 to 1923, when the theater burned down, Chaplin was on its screen continuously except for one week, when he management tried out an imitator, with disastrous results.”
Also, I believe the account of the fire is inaccurate in at least one detail. Chaplin never made a film called “Crippled Trouble.” Although some of Chaplin’s early films did go by multiple titles, it is far more likely that the film that was on the screen when the first started was “Triple Trouble.”
Unlike other theaters such as the Prospect or the RKO Keiths (in nearby Flushing), the Cross Island was of minimal architectural interest. It was just a little neighborhood theater that had the bad luck to be erected just as the videocassette was about to put theaters like it out of business.
This theater opened around Christmas, 1979. One of the two opening films was a revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
I lived within walking distance of the theater and I remember being pissed that a local theater was being built just as I was about to go away to college (in January of 1980).
I saw quite a few films there during its brief existence. The one I remember the most was Walter Hill’s “The Long Riders.”
Some comments on the RKO Keith’s:
The theater did not open as a triplex in 1975, but 1976. I know this because I was the first patron in the new theater (and still have somewhere the ticket stub, numbered 000001). The opening film (at least, the one I saw) was a re-release of De Palma’s “The Phantom of the Paradise.” They split the main auditorium on the ground floor in half but didn’t reconfigure the seats, so to see the screen you had to almost look over one shoulder.
In the 1970s they almost never opened the balcony because the audience size didn’t warrant it. The only film I remember that drew enough of a crowd for them to open up the balcony to accomodate them was “Murder on the Orient Express.”
In the 1980s they had video games in the lobby, which I always thought was kind of tacky.
One of the last films I saw there was something called “Wild Style” in the upstairs theater, and the place was already starting to fall apart. I remember a bunch of punks were watching the film and one of the walked back and relieved himself in the back of the auditorium.
I moved from Queens to Manhattan in 1985 and didn’t see any films at the Keith’s after that.
If anyone wants to see what the Keith’s auditorium looked like, just go to the Loews Jersey in Jersey City. Although the lobby looks nothing like the Keith’s, the auditorium gave me a real Proustian rush when I first saw it. It’s a dead ringer for one of the great movie palaces of my childhood.
This is from Theodore Huff’s book “Charlie Chaplin”:
“Some idea of the traffic in Chaplin films may be gained from the records of the little Crystal Hall on 14th Street in New York. From 1914 to 1923, when the theater burned down, Chaplin was on its screen continuously except for one week, when he management tried out an imitator, with disastrous results.”
Also, I believe the account of the fire is inaccurate in at least one detail. Chaplin never made a film called “Crippled Trouble.” Although some of Chaplin’s early films did go by multiple titles, it is far more likely that the film that was on the screen when the first started was “Triple Trouble.”