Merrick Theater
163-06 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
163-06 Jamaica Avenue,
Jamaica,
NY
11432
9 people
favorited this theater
Showing 1 - 25 of 42 comments
Spaces are repurposed but original ceilings are usually there albeit hidden.
Way before Blink Fitness 1979 the second floor had roller skating called Jamaica roller dome. I remember going there and chating with the manager and the DJ. The place had a GLI sound system and LiteLab lighting system. The ceiling of the rink was a drop ceiling. They offered me to see the DJ booth but to get to it I walked through a door and climbed up an old dark staircase along side rubbish which I knew was part of the top balcony. At that point I could look across and see the original ceiling to the theater with wires holding up the drop ceiling. It looked so beautiful though some spots had water damage, it felt like being in a time capsule.Then walked down the other side steps to a door that led to the DJ booth.
The inside was gutted. Not sure if it happened before the gym, but it’s gone now.
From the street view, I can see through windows cut into the side of the auditorium showing track lighting along a flat white ceiling. Whether they gutted the auditorium or simply put in a drop ceiling I cannot tell.
I assume the interior was completely destroyed?
Although the heading for the Merrick places it as third in size of the Jamaica theaters, at the time of it’s opening it was advertised as Jamaica’s largest playhouse.
Uploaded 1930 ad showing under the management of Century Theaters. In later years under the Skouras banner but returned to Century at the end of its days.
Uploaded current Jamaica Avenue photo showing Merrick as retail space.
There is indeed a gym, Blink Fitness, occupying the theater.
Tinseltoes… I know this is a pet peeve of yours (and it bugs me, too) but I think the address ribbon to which you refer is a function of how the database is organized. Not that I have a lot of experience at developing and mapping out websites, but I do believe that it isn’t a matter of fixing the ribbon as it is of getting the database organized into more logical geographic buckets. In other words, it is likely not going to be a quick and easy fix.
And, in that radius, the Plaza in South Jamaica. Don’t sweat the nearby theatres. Many times it says none in 15 miles and there is one down the street. This is something they’ve never fixed.
A photo of the building from 2011.
According to this article much of this theater will soon be occupied by a gym.
No, No No. When you put the Queens in it just confuses the situation. Previously, half of the Queens theatres on CT had the Queens disignation, with or without the actual village. A special purge was done so that only the Queens Village theatres, the Queens and Community, would access when you input Queens. Rather than posting this problem here you have to contact CT directly. They don’t monitor the comments for fixes. Go to “about” and follow the prompts.
The Merrick Theatre showed mainly 20th Century Fox films (The Valencia and Hillside showed MGM while the Alden showed mainly Warners). I remember the first screening of THE ROBE at the Merrick. It was the first CinemaScope feature. I was 11 and the projectionist invited my sister and I up to his booth to show us the new lens used for the process. I was so thrilled to be in the inner sanctum of that booth that I stayed there immobile looking out the little window for the whole first reel until I noticed my sister outside frantically waving at me to come down. I quickly returned to reality in the deep maroon deco interior of that spacious hall.
Well the zip is as you specified on 6/2
Tinseltoes I find if you remove the dash from the address usally does the trick. try 16306 Jamaica Avenue,Jamaica, NY 11432 insted of163-06 Jamaica Avenue,Jamaica, NY 11432.
Maybe you should contact the folks at CT and ask them. I have had a lively exchange with them on a number of issues over the past several days.
Inasmuch as the theatre address is Jamaica the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill reference seems to have come from nowhere. It’s not as tho' “Jamaica” doesn’t appear.
If this picture is accurate, then it was located on the Corner of Jamaica Avenue & what was then New York Boulevard. I believe that it is because in 1980, I became a DJ in that very building which became a skating rink named The Jamaica Rollerdome & the address was 92-07 new York Blvd (Now Guy Brewer Blvd).
After going up the steps on the 2nd floor, that was where the skate floor was located. In order to get to the DJ booth, I had to go to the far left & scale another flight of stairs which appeared to have once been a movie balcony.
Those who know the area will remember that N.Y. Blvd (Guy Brewer Blvd) cuts off at Jamaica Ave, where it became 163rd St. as you headed north toward Hillside Avenue. Diagonally across the street was Woolworth’s & in the late 70s, The Wiz was directly across the street on the S.W. corner.
At least we have Tinseltoes link above. The last three stops of the BMT Jamaica Line, Sutphin Blvd., 160th St. and 168th St. were eliminated as of October 10, 1977. The Metropolitan Av. and Queens Blvd. stops in 1985. The El was gradually dismantled to the point where it now connects into the Archer Av. Subway Station (1988).
No, Tinseltoes. It is still incorrect, showing a location under elevated train tracks well to the west of the theater’s actual site. I believe it’s been something like 35 years since the J train roared past the Merrick!
I posted that photo, which I took just a couple of weeks ago while riding the rails home from Manhattan. I posted a similar shot of the Hillside Theatre from the same trip. I also took a pic of the RKO Alden, but that one was just way too dark and blurry to publish here. Until either myself or some other enterprising individual can get down to Jamaica with a camera, these images will have to do.
Robboehm… The rules for posting pictures on this site state that one should only post images that they themselves have photographed. I’m not sure how strict a rule this is, but I intend to follow it as best I can – even though I have seen plenty of vintage photographs posted here that surely have come from third-party sources. I have no idea what sort of infringement-of-rights issues such postings may or may not hold. The only exceptions I’ve allowed myself are some newspaper clippings I’ve uploaded.
The reality is that CT only has this photo available to put up front by the current logic. Now if some techie person could extract a better photo from any links that might still be valid and do what is necessary to get it UP FRONT it will be in the mix to be chosen by the daily default logic.
The reality for me is that, as a Long Island Rail Road commuter, the view shown is the one I looked at for thirty years. I hadn’t been on foot in Jamaica since the mid 1960s when Gertz and Macy’s were still there and I was living in Bellerose, Nassau, around the corner from the Bellerose Theatre which is now in Floral Park since the Nassau part of Bellerose is serviced by the Floral Park Post Office, which is about a mile plus further away than the Bellerose Post Office which, in my day was on Braddock Avenue.
Theatre opened 15 January 1921 and the Eberson remodel was done in 1939.