Ridgewood Theatre
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
31 people
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Hello to all -
To quote “Newmen” the postman on the old Seinfeld program….
“Zip codes are meaningless
Last I heard, they were pulling seats out of the Commodore (so that doesn’t sound good), but who knows, there may be the highly unlikely event that they were renovating and “replacing” those seats….doubtful, but miracles do happen.
Hehe. To confuse things further, the Queens postal zones are divided up into large districts, so Ridgewood, Queen’s 11385 zip code is served out of the Flushing District (as are all the zips beginning with “113”). Jamaica is another large district, and there are others. It’s just the way mail is broken up in Queens, by the larger districts rather than by individual zip codes. This is done throughout Queens, noo matter where……although it’s just a little more to add confusion into the whole thing.
The one thing that is absolutely, undoubtedly accurate is that the Ridgewood Theater sits physically in Queens, and always did. The “Flushing” postal zip code thing is just an added confusion to make the confusion even more confusing!
My name is Dan. I grew up on 61st St. man, do I remember those Theatres. I went to St. Matthias, but moved to the island before High School. I live in San Diego and frequently travel. Every time I go to the East coast I try and stroll Myrtle Ave from Cooper to Wyckoff sampling food all along the way. I then get on the M to metropolitan and back to fresh Pond where my car is parked.
I don’t know anyone left there but my aunt on 79th. Of course I see her as well. (When I tell her I’m in town)
The main thing I remember was sneaking in before the security guy got to us. We would open the E doors and a burp of kids would rush in and scatter. He didn’t stand a chance of catching but maybe one or two of us and then spend the rest of the movie asking kids for their tickets.
My favorite restaurants are Joes on Forest. I bring my Airline Suppliers and customers there for some great NY hole in the wall Italian food. They love it!!
Thanks for the memories,
best regards,
Dan
Our Man Flint was shown at the Ridgewood in 1966 followed by In Like Flint in 1967. The Matt Helm movie called the Silencers was also shown at the Ridgewood in 1966. These movies were spoofs of the James Bond series of movies.
To answer a much earlier question the Ridgewood was always located in Queens. In a recent movie listing the Ridgewood appears as the Queen City Ridgewood theater. Advertisements often list theatres incorrectly. Although the Rko Madison was more lavish I truly enjoyed my movie experiences at the Ridgewood.
I checked IMDb and the Friday the 13th I saw at the Ridgewood was “Jason Lives Part IV”. That was the last regular movie I saw at the Ridgewood, and that is listed as coming out in 1986. That was the last time I used the Ridgewood as my “regular” theater. As a teenager, it was more fun to go on the subway, and take that to Forest Hills. That was part of the fun of going to the movie (even though my mother thought we were safely walking to the Ridgewood Theater the first times we did that as teenagers.
After that, a few years later I returned for “Problem Child” with John Ritter, and that was in 1990, so that’s the last time I set foot in the Ridgewood.
Friday the 13th was in the balcony theater on the right, and we sat all the way on the right in that theater. I remember clearly where we sat. We sat in the first row in back of the stairway that you enter that theater in. I remember very clearly the fancy ballastraudes of the original railing right in front of us. (That we actually used as a footrest). The whole theater was painted a dark brown (as well as the ballastraudes). The ceiling, walls, floor, everything. You could still see the right hand curve of the ornamental plaster in the ceiling that abrubtly ended where the wall dividing the center theater from the right theater was.
Problem Child, I saw in the center balcony theater. I remember looking up and seeing the center of that plaster circle, with it’s left and right sides abrubtly cut off with the walls on either side.
I believe I saw Beverly Hills Cop in the left had balcony theater. That is where I had one of my fondest memories in the Ridgewood, where it was bright outside, and the person I was with and I tripped up the aisle “steps” in what we though was a dark theater, and trying to find seats and “sitting on people”, and to our horror a about 15 minutes later looking in what seemed to be a “well lit” aisle, and the fools we must have looked like to the people that witnessed our spectacle.
I seemed to always get one of the balcony theaters when I went. I only remember being in the orchestra level theater once since it was cut up, and that was for a double feature the Ridgewood offered with “The Fly” and “Aliens”. That was in the left orchestra theater. I remember sitting right next to the wall dividing the orchestra level in two.
I don’t think I ever sat in the right orchestra side of the Ridgewood since it was one theater.
And yes, who knows, we may have passed each other many times and may not even know it.
Bway, the last film I saw at the Ridgewood was “Hellraiser 3 : Hell On Earth”, a matinee on Saturday, September 12, 1992. I wanted to see “Godzilla” there in May 1998 but the schedule wasn’t right, so I saw it at the Plaza in Corona instead.
I’ve lost track of how many Friday the 13th movies there have been. I remember seeing the first at the Ridgewood on Tuesday June 17, 1980 in the balcony, with the main attraction the boxing match on closed circuit TV on the orchestra level. Seeing that beautiful, ornate elliptical balcony lobby brought back many memories.
The movie itself : when the girl cuts off Jason’s mom’s head, someone threw a half-empty bucket of popcorn up in the air as a joke, as if it were the head !
Seeing “The Howling” at the Ridgewood on the orchestra level on Friday March 13th 1981 with a full moon outside was scary.
I started switching from the Ridgewood to Forest Hills for movies in 1984, but would still go to the Ridgewood if time was tight, or if I didn’t feel like walking to Forest Hills.
It will be interesting if and when we meet face to face, perhaps to tour and photograph Bushwick, and perhaps remember having passed and seen each other in Ridgewood !
Peter, I also saw “A View to a Kill” in the Ridgewood! In 1985, I still used the Ridgewood regularly, shortly after though, I abandoned it for the Forest Hills theaters, only to return once for one of the Friday the 13th Movies (Whatever one was the one where he is at the bottom of Crystal Lake, and revives at the beginning of the movie, I think Part 6), and the last movie I saw there being “Problem Child” whenever that was out in the early 90’s.
OttoBurger, it could have been both. I remember seeing “You Only Live Twice” at the Ridgewood in September 1967, and “A View To A Kill” at the Ridgewood Multiplex in May 1985. The only way to be sure is to check movie listings in newspaper archives. The New York Times might be the easiest to check.
I have been trying to remember which theatre showed James Bond movies. Was it the Ridgewood or was it the RKO Madison theatre. I thought it was the Ridgewood but I am not sure can anyone remember for me.
Nah. They don’t know me, I don’t think they noticed I was not looking at their merchandise. I sort of walked around pretending like I was a shopper, as opposed to a curiosity seeker.
Understandably so. I would have been too. While you were in there, did anyone give you odd looks, or ask you what you were looking for, or what you were doing in there ? Are you known there from business you’ve done on your building-related job ?
I visited the Liberty Dept Store back in July (I think) of last year. I couldn’t even tell you what merchandise they had in the store, because I spent the 20 minutes I was in there just looking up at the walls and ceiling, trying to find (unsucessfully) anything that remained. There were two open doors, one in the area to the left of what was the stage (which is not recognizable as such, I just assumed that’s where the stage was) that looked into an office area, that had plain sheetrock walls. The other area was to the right of the stage into what appears to be a long narrow storage area, and that too had sheetrock walls, and drop ceiling, although it also had doors to what appeared to be the former theater emergency exits (probably out to Wyckoff Ave).
I left the store without buying anything, and a bit sad.
You’re welcome, Bway. Thanks for the additional details of the inside of what was once the RKO Madison Theater. It would be interesting to ascend the remains of the grand marble staircase past the chain, the curve of the stairway, and up into the old balcony area to see what remains. I suppose one would need special permission from the owners of the store, probably not easily obtained.
Meanwhile, on the west-facing wall, outside, the old block letters “RKO Madison Theater” grow ever fainter, while the new graffiti grows ever bolder and more garish.
My most recent souvenir of what was once the RKO Madison Theater is four plain white t-shirts I bought in the Liberty Dept. Store there on Wednesday, July 24, 2002.
Thanks Peter, as usual for you memories.
Just to add…
Yes, the Ridgewood is definitely a 5-plex, not a 6-plex.
As for the grand marble staircase in the Madison Theater’s lobby, it is completely unrecognizable today, although it does exist in it’s exact location, within the now Liberty Dept Store (which is now basically one big room. There is not one artifact existing within the old Madison Theatre to even say that it was a theater at one time, except for the curvature of the huge balcony right through the middle of the store, which divides the store to two ceiling heights a lower one for the area that was once under the balcony, and part of the lobby area, and then the ceiling past the balcony curvature in the main auditorium, that has a false drop ceiling installed, which is about two feet higher than the level of the ceiling under the balcony area.
The only other visable artifact remaining is the grand marble staircase. The catch is though that the staircase looks nothing like it did in it’s Madison days. It has been completely stripped of it’s white marble and it’s ornate railing. It now has black rubber linoleum on it, and a modern horizontal bar railing. There is a chain across it. I often wonderd what lies behind the chain and the curve of the stairway, and up in the old balkcony area. I wonder if anything is visible up there yet. Could the original walls remain? Could the Madison’s balcony area also over look the area above the false ceiling of the auditorium area, and actually have the ceiling of the Madison Theater visable yet (what’s left of it anyway, what with decades of neglect and fire)?
Hello Eugene Iemola :
Peter Koch, St. Brigid School, Class of 1969 back again. I think I was the first to mention Paula Rapollo (my classmate) on this Ridgewood Theater page.
As you were Class of 1966, perhaps you remember the Scarangella girls, Nancy and Jeannie, who were a few years older than me, and lived on my block, Cornelia Street between Cypress and Wyckoff Avenues.
Regarding your Madison Theater visit, 1972-73, I too have noticed how places seem much smaller to one as an adult than one remembers them being as a child. Two examples of this for me would be the column at the entrance to the restaurant on the main floor of the NYC’s Metropolitan Museum Of Art, and the Pteranodon mural in NYC’s American Museum Of Natural History, which is no longer there.
The ceiling of the main lobby of that museum still seems immensely high to me, especially with that towering barasaurus skeleton there to help emphasize it.
The Ridgewood is now, to my knowledge, a five-plex. My last visit there was Saturday, Sept. 12 1992 to see “Hellraiser 3 : Hell On Earth” while visiting my parents in Ridgewood.
The last film I saw at the RKO Madison was the trashy “Lipstick” in June 1976. The last films I noticed playing there were “The Exorcist” and “The Yakuza” in August 1976.
One of the first films I saw at the Ridgewood was “Morgan The Pirate” in summer 1961. I remember the black pirate flag and plastic pieces of eight I got in the lobby. One of the first films I saw at the RKO Madison was “Reptilicus” in spring 1961, followed by “Premature Burial” and “Journey To The Seventh Planet” in summer 1962. I remember what beautiful theaters both the Ridgewood and the Madison were.
The RKO Madison Theater is now a Liberty Dept. Store.
Peter Koch
I remember the white marble staircase at the far end of the lobby that led to the mezzanine and balcony and how high the ceiling was at the RKO, which is what we called it, or else, the Madison. I can’t get over how they cut the RIDGEWOOD up into six theaters. Maybe that’s why today I think of the Ridgewood as having been bigger. When I last visited the MADISON around 1972-73, I hadn’t been inside for a very long time and it did indeed seem smaller than I had remembered it from when I was a mere lad.
It may have appeared that the Ridgewood Theatre was the larger theatre, in reality the RKO Madison Theatre had apprximately 800 more seats than the Ridgewood. Both theatres served the area well. It is a shame that the RKO Madison was lost.
Hello Everyone:
I am a former Ridgewoodite who attended movies during the Sixties and early Seventies at just about every theater in Queens and Brooklyn named above. I too am a graduate of St. Brigid’s, class of ‘66, and I’m just tickled to read all of the posts regarding these wonderful times spent around the neighborhood and, in particular, the movie theaters.
While I grew up in the Brooklyn side of Ridgewood on Hart Street below Cypress Avenue, (which I believe, at the time, was the boarderline between Brooklyn and Queens), I would have to wait for the bus on the corner of DeKalb and Wyckoff, by the Bon Ton Diner and the entrance to the LL Canarsie Line, to get to St. Brigid’s. If I was early enough to walk to school, I’d have to walk beneath the marquee of the Wagner Theater. That theater was the very last theater in the old neighborhood that I ever got to see the inside of when sometime in 1970-71 they ran I AM CURIOUS (YELLOW) with my buddies from Hart Street. It was like a shoe-box, very different than the Madison, Ridgewood or even the Parthenon and more like the Starr on Knickerbocker Avenue in that it didn’t have a balcony.
I was a movie-geek even in my St. Brigid days. While very active in the Boy Scouts, when we weren’t going on a trip to Alpine park, I’d get up early in the morning and walk up Starr Street to the pretzel factory where I’d exchange my .50 cents allowance for a basket of fresh, hot pretzels and then, sitting on a box in front of my friend Jimmy’s father’s vegetable store on Knickerbocker Avenue, sell them all in a matter of hours, transforming the original .50 cents into five dollars, enough money in those days to go to the movies in the afternoon, go home and eat dinner with the family, rush off to St. Brigid’s for Confession, and then go bowling at, well if you’re from the area then you’ll guess it, Hart Lanes.
Someone above mentioned a Paula Rapollo and I knew her when she was a little kid, having lived right next door to her on Hart Street. I was friends with her older brother Robbie, who was a year behind me at St. Brigids. They had a little sister too, by the name of Linda.
While I really loved the RKO MADISON, they used to show 15 COLOR CARTOONS early on Saturday mornings, The RIDGEWOOD theater seemed to be the bigger theater and the atmosphere was way more relaxed. While you had to sit on the left side at the Ridgewood, it was always easier to sneak off to the center seating section and watch the movie head-on, and if you crouched real low in your seat, you could probably get away with it for the whole afternoon. At the Parthenon, I remember, you could get a bag of popcorn for .15 cents, .10 cents cheaper than either the Madison or the Ridgewood.
Hope to share more memories with all my neighbors soon.
Eugene.
The rather steep increase in the value of the Ridgewood theatre should be good news to people in Ridgewood itself. The area appears to be recovering. Higher values should stimulate the economy in the area.
Wow, we should have bought the place in 2000, before it almost doubled in value by just under a million!
As for the 40 by 65 feet, lost memory is correct, the actally theater building is 65 feet back. The lobby is the 40 X 65 dimentions given.
Hi Everyone, my name is Katherine Angwin and I grew up on Woodbine St between Cypress and St Nicholas Ave. I went to St Brigid’s also and Grover Cleveland. I used to hang out on Madison St behind the Ridgewood theatre on the fire escape steps. I also used to hang out behind the Madison movie theatre. I worked at Madison Drugs for many years and it is a few doors down from where Joe’s Army Navy store was and next door to where Pernice Cleaners and Myrtle Card shop was. April I remember lived upstairs and she was a friend of my childhood neighbor Betty Jo Kender. Lydia and Lenny Dullinger lived upstairs from the drug store and Robin Hoffman used to live upstairs from the women clothing store that was next to Pernice cleaners and Royal Pizzeria…I think it was called Cinderella and it sold womens undergarment and house dresses. I remember the blizzard that caused the marquis to fall down…we just don’t get blizzards like we used to. When someone questioned about the Madison being a furniture store they may be thinking about Selingers furniture store that was next to the theatre but burnt down from a fire in the chinese restaurant that was above it…I am not sure if it was Lee Fong’s who relocated a few doors down from the madison theatre towards wyckoff ave….selingers moved to madison st and myrtle ave then. When I was in high school I worked at the McDonalds when it firt opened up on Myrtle near Wyckoff and then at Key Foods on Woodbine and St Nicholas. It was great reading all of these stories…brought back lots of memories.
Thanks
Kathy
Great memories.I went to St.Martin of Tous grammar school.We went to shows on saturday afternoons.Beautiful theatre.Saw the scariest moviie of my life Circus of horrors.Wow!ConnieStevens showed up once too!This was 1960 circa.I thought it became a bingo hall or church?
The Ritz Theatre on Fulton Street shows seating of 594 while the Ritz Theatre on Myrtle Avenue shows seating of 600. These are not the same theatres.
I also show a Ritz Theatre located at 2085 Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood. Perhaps there was a Ritz Theatre located in this Block Buster building and one located on Fulton Street. Ritz was a very common name. You may also want to investigate a Washington Theatre which was located on Myrtle Avenue. The Washington Theatre closed around 1935 or 36. Sorry but I don’t have the address handy.