Embassy Theatre
3208 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11208
3208 Fulton Street,
Brooklyn,
NY
11208
5 people
favorited this theater
Showing 226 - 250 of 367 comments
I’m glad you found this site, Muzer. Welcome ! Where on Jamaica Avenue did you live ? PS 65 looks like it’s on 78th St. in Woodhaven, Queens, 1 ½ short blocks south of Jamaica Avenue.PS 171 looks like it’s at Ridgewood and Lincoln Avenues in Cypress Hills, Bklyn. The fish market I remember, from around 1960, corresponding to yours at Fulton and Norwood, was in Ridgewood at Wyckoff and Jefferson Avenues. I can still remember how those french fries tasted !
Do you remember the Haven theater at all ? It also has a page on this site.
Just found this site…Wonderfull memories of all the places I grew up with. Lived on Jamaica Avenue from 1954-1995. Went to PS 65, JHS 171, Franklin K. Lane. Does anyone remember the Fish Market on Fulton Street and Norwood that sold French Frys for 25 cents in a brown paper bag? They were the best!
Linwood Street was, and is, seven blocks to the southwest of Richmond Street, which is where the Embassy was, one block southwest of Chestnut Street, where my dad’s parents and sister used to live.
Linwood Street was also once a stop on the old BMT Fulton St. el, although it ran over Pitkin Avenue, not Fulton St., at Linwood Street.
Thanks, Marian. I had to ask.
Still haven’t re-watched “The Groove Tube” yet, but I will let you know once I have ! I’ll look for you in it !
Peter… nope, no relation. But Vitale is a fairly common name.
I did have relatives named DiMarco who lived on Linwood Street (which is near the Embassy, I think).
Marian, are you, by any chance, related to a podiatrist, Dr. Carmine Vitale, who once (summer 1974, when I saw him) had his office at or near the northeast corner of Woodhaven Blvd. and Park Lane South, in Woodhaven ?
Yes, Marian. It’s one of several Queens neighborhoods between Ridgewood and Richmond Hill. Glendale is another.
My dad’s parents and sister moved from 169 Chestnut Street to 89-03 87th Street, near 89th Avenue, in Woodhaven, in summer 1968. By fall 1970 they had moved to the corner of 60th Place and 60th Road (?) opposite PS 153 in Maspeth, near Fresh Pond Road and Eliot Avenue. That was a lousy apt. where they didn’t get enough heat in winter, and had to go to bed with hats on. Stingy landlord. My grandfather died April 22 or 29th 1972, and was waked in the N F Walker Funeral Home on 80th Street just south of Jamaica Ave in Woodhaven, near the Haven Theatre, which has a page on this site. I’ve posted there.
By Christmas 1972 my grandmother and aunt had moved to 86-03 85th St. in Woodhaven, where they both lived the rest of their lives.
Woodhaven. That’s definitely where his office was!
Thanks for your answer, Marian. I haven’t seen “Groove Tube” in going on 32 years, but, if I see it again, I WILL look for you in it.
Wow … Vitamin B-12 as the cocaine of its time !
Yes, Elderts Lane is the easternmost named street in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, then 75th Street in Woodhaven, Queens, is the next block east of it. I have a friend who used to live on 75th Street a block south of Jamaica Avenue.
Peter… I was paid $1!!! They had me sign a release without asking my age… I was only 16. It was fun, though, because so many people were watching from inside the building on Park and 54th St. that I was stopped for weeks on the street. My hair was extremely long so I was “distinctive”. If you ever watch it again, you’ll see me. And yes… he falls into the fountain at the end!
Dr. Cascio was old, in my mind, in the 1960s. A little white-haired guy that my mother used to drag us to for Vitamin B-12 shots. The cocaine of its time, I tell you. We’d be FLYING after those shots! I remember not being able to sleep and thinking my heart was going to beat its way out of my chest.
I believe his office was on a street somewhere between Atlantic Avenue and Jamaica Avenue, on one of the numbered streets. (Didn’t it go Elderts Lane and then 75th St, etc… ?)
Marian, more power to you for having been in “The Groove Tube” ! I’m glad to read you had a blast doing it. How much were you paid ?
Doesn’t Ken Shapiro jump or fall into a fountain in freeze frame at the end of “Just Me, Just You” ?
Please post more of your recollections of Dr. Cascio as they return to you. Thanks in advance.
PKoch: I’m actually IN “The Groove Tube”. I was 16 and they were filming near my job in NYC. I’m the girl with the long dark hair in the last segment (the one with Ken Shapiro dancing in the pink suit to “Just Me, Just You”). I was walking back from the bank and they shot it, and then asked me to do it several more times. It was a blast.
I don’t know Dr. Catapano, but our doctor, Dr. Cascio, also had a office in his home and made house calls. I think he may have been in Richmond Hill or Ridgewood… not sure. I can picture his house as though it were yesterday.
~Marian
Thanks for your lengthy post, Jack Tomai. Good to have you back with us.
My dad’s parents and younger sister lived at 169 Chestnut Street, between Ridgewood Avenue and Fulton Street, from about 1957 to summer 1968, but my parents and I never went to see a movie with them at the Embassy, or any theater in that neighborhood.
BklynJim, thanks for your agreeing with me about those NYC transit calendars. Bill M. even answered an e-mail question from me about one of the images : the Jamaica el passing over the LIRR mainline at 132nd Street above that parking lot full of Bungalow Bar ice cream trucks … similar to one of the Xerox images you gave me.
Our Victorian computer system … another Procrustes in modern dress !
Bill Mangahas issues superb NYC transit calendars each year. Take Peter’s advice and click on that link.
As for the robbie dupree song I mentioned, I am forced to spell it thusly, as our Victorian computer system here has a no-no against this particular word, among others:
“Brooklyn G – i – r – l -s”
Great song , but a sad commentary on literary values on the ‘Net.
I haven’t been checking in for awhile so it’s great to see some new posts.
Re: the Arlington Library: that was my first summer job as a teenager, probably around 63/64. Loved that library and the surrounding area. Haven’t been back there since the 70s but back in the 60s I thought it was a beautiful building and I loved working there.
Re: Dr. Catapano. He was my grandmother’s doctor. Our family doctor was Dr. Morris Zeichner (corner Ridgewood & Autumn). I went to Blessed Sacrament school with Joel Kanengeiser (I probably spelled
that wrong) whose dad was a doctor who had an office in their home
right next to the playground next to Blessed Sacrament Church. A few years later one of my best friends from Delehanty HS in Jamaica was Tom Sileo whose dad was a doctor on the corner of Norwood an Jamaica.
My wife Louise graduated from St. Michael’s HS in the mid 60s. Her best friends were Kathy Poisson and Florence Witkowski. Anybody know them? Louise’s last name at that time was Picini. Her brother, John, was friends with Robbie Dupree from Cypress Hills.
When I was telling my Dad who is 84 and now lives in Florida about this website and we started reminiscing about the old neighborhood, he reminded me that we saw a tear-jearker with Lana Turner called IMITATION OF LIFE and the ending was so sad he said he had to lift his feet off the floor so his shoelaces wouldn’t get wet because everyone in the theater were crying so much! I remember not especially wanting to see that movie but my grandmoter wanted to so we all went! Those were the days when the entire family could go to the movies together! However, I remember around 1960 or so, going to the Embassy with my mom and dad to see a film called A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE which was written by Arthur Miller and my mother was so shocked by the frankness (for those days!) of the movie, that she vowed never to go to the movies again (of course, she relented but it took a while!).
ElaineW, where did you move from NYC to ? What films do YOU remember seeing at the original Cross Bay ? Or have you already posted about them on the Cross Bay Theater page on this site ?
I guess I only went to the old Cross Bay as I moved out of the city by 1974.
Thanks for the link, ElaineW. How did you like Karl B’s other recollections ?
I’m not sure how you could get that 2004 subway calendar, or how I or anyone else could get that image to you.
Try :
I went to both the new and old Cross Bay Theaters. They both have pages on this site. My first time to the old Cross Bay, June 1975, my dad and I saw a double feature of “Flesh Gordon” and “The Groove Tube” and laughed ourselves sore and silly.
My first time to the new Cross Bay was Easter Eve, Saturday March 30 1991 to see “The Silence Of The Lambs”. I took the B-18 bus from Ridgewood to Cypress Hills and walked from the end of that bus line, past “The First / Last Bar in Brooklyn” (on the Bklyn-Queens border) southeast on Rockaway Blvd to the new Cross Bay, with the sun setting behind me and a huge full moon rising in front of me !
ElaineW, you probably passed the Bayside and Acacia Cemeteries on your walk to the Cross Bay.
PKoch, the link is http://www.myrecollection.com/ I did enjoy reading a good many of the recollections there. I’d sure like to see that 2004 Subway calendar.
Does anybody remember going to the Cross Bay Theater? We used to walk under the el in Ozone Park to get there. I actually remember the walk more than I remember the theater. I think we had to pass a cemetary that looked very spooky.
ElaineW, my two main memories of that area as a kid in the 1960’s were : 1) taking the subway from Ridgewood to Rockaway and enjoying it coming up out of the ground between Grant Avenue and 80th Street.
2) Once my dad had a car, riding home from Rockaway Beach west on Conduit Blvd., looking north to Liberty Avenue, and seeing the el get lower and lower until my last view of it slanting down into the ground, then a view of “Municipal Parking : Grant Avenue”.
Before that, there was dual service for awhile on Pitkin Avenue in Brownsville / ENY from Van Sinderen Avenue to Chestnut Street : the old Fulton el above, and the new IND subway below.
You’re welcome, ElaineW. Too bad I don’t have the “My Recollection” link to post here. But, please take my word for it, Karl B’s stuff on it is well worth reading.
Best wishes on your train rides. The one in “North By Northwest” is on the Hudson Line from GCT to Tarrytown, that I now commute on every day. That’s real Hudson Valley scenery that you see out the train windows, while Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint are talking.
Grant Avenue IND subway connection : There was an image of that in the 2004 NYC Subway calendar (March). The photo is dated April 22, 1956, and looks southwest from 80th (Hudson) Street. To the right is the Grant Avenue station of the old BMT Liberty Avenue / Pitkin Avenue / Fulton St. el. To the left are the tracks coming up from the new Grant Avenue IND subway station. In between is a house with an ad for Hamburg Savings Bank on it, probably the branch at Fulton and Crescent Sts. Sorry I can’t post a link to it here.
Thanks PKoch for the dentist link. Like that writer, I also like trains (long distance ones) and in a couple of weeks will be taking a trip on Amtrak from California to New York and back. I wish the trains were as luxurious as the ones in the movies, like North by Northwest and Murder on the Orient Express.
I don’t remember the el in City Line, but I do remember when they built the Grant Avenue subway to replace it. They tore down some houses across the street from my parents house to put it in and then there were empty lots left until years later when new houses were built. I believe those buildings were specially built to withstand the subway vibrations under their foundation.
Thanks, BrooklynJim. Good to see you back here on CT, and glad you made it back safely to the “left” coast !
“Karl B” has a great story, among four others, on the “My Recollection” website, about “The best dentist in Brooklyn”, Dr. Brnjamin Dunaif, at the northwest corner of Liberty and Grant Avenues, not far from where the Earl Theatre once was.
If robbie dupree is the same poster as the ‘80s rock/pop singer, I found my 45 copy of “Brooklyn s” complete with picture sleeve on my recent trip. Haven’t read him on CT in over a year. Tell him to resurface as his posts are long overdue.
BTW, I also recall Dr. Catapano’s shingle from the area.
Thanks, Warren, for not giving me the Earl Theater’s # here. ElaineW posted the link anyway. Thanks, ElaineW.
The expression “City Line” is an older one, refers to the Brooklyn-Queens border, and dates from before the incorporation of NYC’s five boroughs in 1898, when Brooklyn was a city in its own right.
Hi, ElaineW. There was, and indeed there still is, a Jahn’s on Hillside Avenue just north of Myrtle Avenue in Richmond Hill, Queens. Yes, the Valencia in Jamaica was very impressive. I don’t ever remember being there myself, but have heard about it from my father and from a friend at work.
I wish “Karl B” was here to discuss the Arlington Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library with you.
Thanks for your Dr. Catapano story. I’m glad your appendicitis got treated properly. In what hospital was your appendix removed ? The younger of my two uncles almost died from a misdiagnosed inflamed appendix. Fortunately, after it had burst, he was hospitalized quickly enough to save his life and get the sepsis out of his abdominal cavity.
The theater I think of as “the itch” (actually my dad) is the former Decatur Theater in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn.