Parsons Quad Theatre
78-28 Parsons Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11366
78-28 Parsons Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11366
4 people
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Showing 26 - 40 of 40 comments
Hey Ed I am almost positive that the hospital is closed now. I beleive it closed about 2000 or so but I am sure it is now closed. Hey I agree about IHOP. It was the only one I would go to other than Northern Blvd as well. The one on Hillside Ave was always less desireable! Hey do you remeber when McDonalds used to be a Jack in the Box? I’m going way back!
That’s it! Thanks folks.
the resturant was called “On The Turnpike”
The IHOP had “Turnpike” in it. Other words I dont remember. It was painted pink for some reason. It is now a Autozone.
Bobby… I assume you mean St. Joseph’s Hospital on 79th Ave around 158th Street. It’s just down the block from the where the Parsons Theater used to be (on the other side of Parsons Blvd) and still functioning. I remember that IHOP. Once it closed, I had to go all the way to Northern Blvd for a stack of their pancakes. Now you got me thinking trying to figure out the name of the place that took over that IHOP!
I remember when the theatre was still open in the mid 80’s. For all the late run movies played everyone would walk/drive up to White Castle on Union Turnpkie and Parsons(demolished and now a Rite Aid.)
Right before the theatre was closed or sold, there was a shootout during a movie and I think someone died. And sure enough it was demolished and turned into apartments. I almost movied into the apartments in the early 90’s when I still lived in Queens.
I used to work up at McDonalds and used to ride the 25/34 to get there from Jamacia Ave. Great neighborhood because we had the hospital and IHOP a couple a blocks away. Sadly both are now closed! Can’t remember the name of the hospital.
Thank you again, Warren, for your diligence! You’re expanding this site well beyond what I ever envisioned it might provide. I remember seeing “The Man Who Never Was” at the Parsons, and, as may imagine, the CinemaScope image was pretty small in that narrow proscenium.
The screen listing above should be changed to quad.
Wow, This brings back memories of my childhood. We lived in one of the Bernstein attached row houses that dominated the neigborhood on the west side of Parsons Boulevard. The developer rushed to provide post WWII housing for returning GI’s and their young families. The construction was somewhat shoddy having been built on long pilings driven into the swampy wetland that, prior to 1946, was all wooded.
As a child, age 3, I watched with fascination as a steam driven pile driver pounded one telephone pole after another into the soft earth. I was saddened by the loss of my beloved forest which, until then, was my playground. Another Queens street with an identical row of attached houses became my new backyard.
The Parson’s theater opened when I was age 3. If memory serves me, the marque was painted navy blue. At age 7 I remember seeing the 3D sci-fi thriller “It Came From Outer Space” at the Parsons. It was very scary in 3D. I hid in my seat, at times not daring to look at the screen.
The Parsons was the first movie house I’d ever seen and will forever be fixed in my memory as what a modern movie theater should look like.
Despite the fact that I lived not all that far away from the Parsons for about ten years (and during my childhood, moviegoing “prime” at that), I think I only went to the Parsons twice. Looking back, and judging from the info that I’ve been reading on this site, I suppose this was because I probably saw the films I wanted to see at the Merrick, Alden or Valencia, etc., first — before they ever played the Parsons.
But, if I remember correctly, the Parsons was part of a handsome “ensemble” of small buildings (the other buildings in the ensemble — if there indeed was one — housing retail stores). In my memory, at least, the theater is part of an ensemble that was similar in concept to that of another really special theater, the “Beekman”(?), on the Upper East Side of Manhattan — but smaller and in a different, more modest, style.
In any case, I had always seen the Parsons as a small, “special” and “glamorous” Queens theater and, as a kid, was eager to see movies there.
My family moved to 78th Road between 150th and 153rd Streets in Kew Gardens Hills in January of 1970, when I was five years old. Our house (my mother still lives there) was only a block and a half from the Parsons theater, and I saw many, many movies there. When The Ten Commandments was re-released for a short time in 1973 (I think), I saw it there. The last movie I saw there was Back to the Future in 1985.
I also remember when the theater was closed and then demolished to make way for the current townhouses. The townhouses opened in about 1990, just at the beginning of the recession of the early ‘90s, so the developer had a lot of trouble filling the units. To this day, I don’t think its at full capacity. Interestingly, the block south of the former theater site has not really changed at all – Buddy’s Bicycle Shop has been there for 51 years.
When Loews got rid of the Parsons it was taken over by the owner of The Utopia & Center and was quaded.
The architect of the Parsons Theatre was Samuel Lewis Malkind for the owner Northcrest Gardens, Inc. and was tobe operated by Interborough Circuit, Inc.
The Parsons Theatre seated 1080 people.
The Parsons was actually a block north of Union Turnpike on the west side of Parsons Blvd. The last movie I saw here was “Tootsie” in ‘82. Then I went to Buddy’s Bicycle shop down the street and purchased a 10 speed. Buddy’s is still there.