I just spent the past hour+ enjoying these great postings about the Ridgewood. I lived at 1830 Madison Street from 1960 through 1974 and we used to go to the Ridgewood all the time. My Aunt Josie was a manager at the theatre for many years, and when I was little my grandma or mom would take my brother and me there and we would all get in for free (through the front door not the fire door!).
My earliest memory of being at the theater involves not a particular movie but instead my mom buying me little scottie dog magnets (a black one and a white one, plastic dogs on little rocker-shaped magnet bases ) from a vending machine near the ladies room. Other random recollections: seeing Herbie the love bug movie with my friend Joey and his dad one Saturday afternoon and also the time that Batman made a live appearance after the Batman movie (but he was very late and we almost left without seeing him). The last time I can remember going there was with my mom, dad and brother, for a Planet of the Apes marathon (go ape for a day), we sat up in the balcony, and we left after a few hours because our behinds hurt from sitting so long!
All this talk about St. Brigid… hardly any about St. Matthias! Where are the SMS “kids” hiding! I remember the various lay teachers and Sisters (Ms. Pryor and Greeme in Kindergarden, Miss. Cotelessa in 1st, Miss. Roberta Willard in 8th, Sr. Alacine in 7th, Mrs. O'Reilly in 5th, Ms. Brown? in 4th, Sr. Mercia (who had to leave because of grave illness) replaced by Mrs. McNally (who’s daughter Debra was in our class), well I could probably remember all of them if I try hard, but maybe I should just dig out the old class pictures from the basement!
We moved to PA the summer of 1974 after I graduated, I was only back once, around 1989 with my brother. The trees on Madison St. were a shock to see! Everything looked so vivid as we looked around matching our memories with the view before us. We parked the car and walked to Saint Matthias… such a short walk and it seemed much longer in my memory. And the church looked so ornate and brilliant but also so much smaller than it was in my memories of my first communion, confirmation, and all those Sunday masses year after year.
If anyone wants to see some old pix or to say hi (to Tom and Paul), especially Dennis (Bubby), Bobby, Andy (Panda), Joey, Gregory, Donna, Terry, John, [these are mostly kids from our block], we would be happy to hear from you. Thirty years wow! Cheers ridgewood at tomvon dot com
I just spent the past hour+ enjoying these great postings about the Ridgewood. I lived at 1830 Madison Street from 1960 through 1974 and we used to go to the Ridgewood all the time. My Aunt Josie was a manager at the theatre for many years, and when I was little my grandma or mom would take my brother and me there and we would all get in for free (through the front door not the fire door!).
My earliest memory of being at the theater involves not a particular movie but instead my mom buying me little scottie dog magnets (a black one and a white one, plastic dogs on little rocker-shaped magnet bases ) from a vending machine near the ladies room. Other random recollections: seeing Herbie the love bug movie with my friend Joey and his dad one Saturday afternoon and also the time that Batman made a live appearance after the Batman movie (but he was very late and we almost left without seeing him). The last time I can remember going there was with my mom, dad and brother, for a Planet of the Apes marathon (go ape for a day), we sat up in the balcony, and we left after a few hours because our behinds hurt from sitting so long!
All this talk about St. Brigid… hardly any about St. Matthias! Where are the SMS “kids” hiding! I remember the various lay teachers and Sisters (Ms. Pryor and Greeme in Kindergarden, Miss. Cotelessa in 1st, Miss. Roberta Willard in 8th, Sr. Alacine in 7th, Mrs. O'Reilly in 5th, Ms. Brown? in 4th, Sr. Mercia (who had to leave because of grave illness) replaced by Mrs. McNally (who’s daughter Debra was in our class), well I could probably remember all of them if I try hard, but maybe I should just dig out the old class pictures from the basement!
We moved to PA the summer of 1974 after I graduated, I was only back once, around 1989 with my brother. The trees on Madison St. were a shock to see! Everything looked so vivid as we looked around matching our memories with the view before us. We parked the car and walked to Saint Matthias… such a short walk and it seemed much longer in my memory. And the church looked so ornate and brilliant but also so much smaller than it was in my memories of my first communion, confirmation, and all those Sunday masses year after year.
If anyone wants to see some old pix or to say hi (to Tom and Paul), especially Dennis (Bubby), Bobby, Andy (Panda), Joey, Gregory, Donna, Terry, John, [these are mostly kids from our block], we would be happy to hear from you. Thirty years wow! Cheers ridgewood at tomvon dot com