RKO Bushwick Theatre
1396 Broadway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
1396 Broadway,
Brooklyn,
NY
11221
13 people
favorited this theater
Showing 276 - 300 of 418 comments
Great photo, Life! Thanks for finding it and sharing.
Happened across this while working this morning.
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Thank you, Louis Rugani.
The tragedy was reported in the August 3, 1910 New York Times.
“Room For One More” to be “Buried Alive” in the “Dangerous Ground” of the RKO Bushwick ?
“Room for one more, honey !”
“Room for one more inside, sir …”
Thanks for posting the tragic story, Louis Rugani. What is your source ?
RobertR, thanks for the image.
1952 presenting “The Stars of Tomorrow” on stage
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Three boys were buried alive at the Bushwick Theatre construction site on the Monday afternoon of August 1, 1910. They were apparently on the Broadway side of the site digging tunnels in construction sand when three tons of unshored building materials came down on brothers Alfred, 9, and John Sohn, 6, and their cousin Harold Verhas, 9, all three of 823 Madison Street, one block away. Police and Fire units recovered their bodies at noon on August 2.
The triangular lot formerly held some rickety frame buildings that had been cleared for the theatre, and neighborhood children were accustomed to using the now-vacant lot as a ball field and playground, even after digging began for the foundation.
The contractors fenced off the site but neighborhood children continued to enter and explore.
The boys had lunch at home at noon on Monday and then left to play. When they hadn’t returned by evening, Mrs. Carrie Thompson, an aunt of the Verhas boy, went to report them missing at the Ralph Avenue Police Station.
On Tuesday morning, ten-year-old Alexander Sullivan said he and his fox terrier Spot went to the Bushwick construction site to play, but Spot began to sniff the sand, digging and whining, and trying to lead Alexander to the edge of the Broadway side of the lot. There Alexander saw a hand protruding from the sand and stone. He ran until he found a foot patrolman, Officer Charles Hoffman of the Ralph Avenue Station, who turned in an alarm and then went to the site to dig with his hands, finally carrying out one dead boy. Doctors at the Bushwick Hospital across the street affirmed he had been dead for many hours.
As the news spread, a large and noisy crowd gathered at the site and the Ralph Avenue Station sent out police reserves to keep order and to dig for the other boys. The two Sohn brothers were identified by their father and an aunt, but the Verhas boy was so disfigured by the crushing weight of rock and sand that identification took some time. Officials said it seemed the boys had been struggling to escape.
The cause of the tragedy was never ascertained but there was an unshored ten-to-twelve foot embankment of loose sand along the Broadway sidewalk, and the boys may have been tunneling there.
The feeling then was that the vibration of passing elevated trains may have been enough to trigger a collapse along ten to fifteen feet of sidewalk, made worse by large flagstones from that sidewalk falling into the trench as it caved in and the ten-foot-high fence along Broadway which blocked the view of any potential rescuers while the frequent noisy trains overhead may have drowned out any cries for help.
Thank YOU, Delores, MsDee380, for posting all YOUR memories. I don’t recall The Ramsey Sisters, but I do recall the Delfonics(“La La La La La Means ‘I Love You’”, spring 1968, “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind This Time”, spring 1970, The Dells (“Stay In My Corner”, fall 1968) and of course Solomon Burke (“Everybody Needs Someone To Love”). Yes, the Loews Gates was indeed at Gates Avenue and Broadway, and had two entrances, one on each street. It is now the Pilgrim Baptist Church.
From the year of my birth (1955) until 1966 my family doctor, Dr. Wilchfort, had his office in a brownstone house on your block of Palmetto Street between Bway and Bushwick Avenue, on the odd-numbered, northwest side, but closer to Bushwick Avenue, and the telephone building.
Yes, Bushwick suffered much devastation, especially after the July 13, 1977 blackout. Tourists from Europe used to be bussed into Bushwick from Manhattan, to gawk at the devastation, which they likened to Europe after WW II, but Bushwick is now being re-developed, and the RKO Bushwick is now the School For Social Justice, its interior gutted and completely changed, its exterior preserved.
I last passed by your old block on July 15, 2006, on the B-52 Gates Avenue bus, on the way from the BAM Rose Cinema in downtown Bklyn to my old neighborhood of Ridgewood.
I remember moving to 17 Palmetto Street in 1968, which was across the street from the RKO Bushwick. We had some good times back then. My mother was in the entertainment business and I remember her group, The Ramsey Sisters playing one night there. Also on the bill was the Delfonics, The Dells, Solomon Burke and I believe the Barkays. I remember my brothers and I getting in free because my mother was singing that night. We had a great time. My girlfriends and I used to hang on Woodbine Street and I remember around the corner from Palmetto was Gates Avenue. We also used to go to the movie theater which I believe was named the Loews Gates on Broadway around the corner from Gates Avenue. They had so many stores on Broadway back then. I remember taking the “J” train to school. After the blackout in the 70’s there was looting and majority of the stores closed. After that, it became a runned down area. That was so sad. I’m glad I have those happy memories before all of that happened.
Thanks for the memories…….Dolores D. Ramsey….Richmond, Virginia
Thanks, Lost Memory. I find this interesting. If nothing else, your latest post shows that crime in Bushwick was not confined to the looting, vandalism and arson of the 1960’s to the present.
The view of the RKO Bushwick in the photo at the top of this page does not give a true idea of its size. It’s similar to a view of the Flatiron Building, at 23rd St. and 5th Avenue in Manhattan, looking right at the famous, narrow, acute-angled corner, with the wider rear end hidden in the background.
“I was almost frightened at the size of the building and how spooky it was.”
Bushwick Bill, I can relate. I am reminded of the images of the RKO Bushwick Theater on Matthew Melnick’s “Lost Brooklyn Trips” website :
http://www.lostbrooklyn.org
Some of the images were taken at dusk, or at dawn, with most of the light coming from streetlamps, and showed the back of the building, centered around the corner of Howard Avenue and Madison Street, and showed how big it really was, with the external fire escape stairs zigzagging down to the sidewalk.
I’ll look forward to your “crazier” pics, BushwickBill.
The only 2002 nor'easter I recall was the blizzard of Christmas 2002.
OK, I stand corrected. Does anyone else have any more pics of this theatre. When I went to take these pictures, I was almost frightened at the size of the building and how spooky it was. I got some crazier pics, when I find them I’ll post them ASAP.
Correct. And as I said, I remember that 1992 storm well.
No, I mean December 11th and 12th, 1992. The December 11-12 1992 nor'easter was a well-documented storm.
PKoch, you’re right. But I think you mena Dec. 11 & 12, 2002.
Glad you remember it, Bway. I had stayed over at my parents' place in Ridgewood the night of Thursday the 10th, and, when I tried to go to work from there the following Friday morning, I found myself unable to, because the L and M trains were not running, because of the storm. So I went back home and returned to Dobbs Ferry the following day. I had to take the M and J trains into Manhattan, because the L subway line still wasn’t running.
I think Wednesday the 9th was a full moon, with a lunar eclipse, which would have made the astronomic tide especially high.
You are correct Peter, as I actually drove from Ridgewood to Downtown Brooklyn, via Myrtle Ave, on Saturday, Dec 12, 1992 for something I had to do that day, and it was a pretty snowy day. Remember it like it was yesterday….
Bushwick Bill, I think the winter 2002 nor'easter you took those photos of the RKO Bushwick at the start of, occurred on Friday December 11th and Saturday December 12th, 1992.
I often peered in the windows when passing by on the J train, looking at the interior in complete shambles, with plaster ceilings completely fallen down in the rooms that had the windows facing the el.
Yeah, it was right before they started to make it a school. I had an opportunity to actually sneak inside the building, once they began converting it…..there was enough light to be able to walk around and do some discovery, but I was too chicken to do it….I should’ve done it. I was able to see the lobby part (or what was left of it) and the rest of the ruins.
Thanks so much! That must be just before they began fixing the place up to become the school.
Here are some photos of the old RKO Bushwick Theatre I took around Winter 2002, during the beginning of a Nor-Easter.
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Today’s lesson is on how to hype a lousy sci-fi motion piction…
In pre-Mothra days, (along with “Godzilla vs. Sonny Liston” and other masterpieces from Hell), it was a much simpler world. Fresh from the devastating fallout and effects of WWII, Japanese movie directors could re-release their shining products in America if they were smart enough to have someone here splice in “known” actors, such as Raymond Burr (“Godzilla: King of the Monsters”) and John Carradine (“Half Human”).
In 1959, we ragamuffins began to learn about the evils of hype.
Television ad space was used by movie companies to plug upcoming releases. One such movie was “The Mysterians.” In that 30-second spot, repeated endlessly, we became like lemmings to the proverbial cliff, only in this case, to our local bijou. At the time, mine was the RKO Bushwick.
I can relate one positive at this point: the film was in color, perhaps the first for Japanese movie makers. Postive comments end here, as well. Our expectations had been driven to new heights, but we were provided the pits of drekdom. If there were any high points to the movie, and I concede several, each of those high points was featured in the TV trailer, all 30 (or 60) seconds of ‘em. Never, before or since, have I sensed crowd violence about to erupt upon leaving a theater. We kids were absolutely livid, having been sold a bill of goods by manipulative purveyors of schlock.
It was a most painful lesson: first, in the wallet department – we couldn’t get our money back. Unheard of. Second, in the psychological department – we were scammed, we’d been had, and we KNEW IT! For years, if anyone was callous or stupid enough to mention “The Mysterians” in polite trivial conversation, you could immediately feel collective blood pressure in the room begin to escalate. I’m not kidding.
Don’t ask me why, but I recently purchased a DVD copy of “The Mysterians” (in widescreen, no less!) during my stay in NY. Perhaps I wanted to see if it had remained as bad as I remembered. Dunno if I had still blocked it mentally after all these years, but I neglected to bring it back with me to CA. It’s still laying around, unwrapped, in my Brooklyn casa, and I suspect that there’s some kind of moral in all of this…
[Aside to PKoch: Jump over to the Astoria and see if you recall the third film I described on the midnight triple bill. Reply there if you do…LOL! Thx!]