Bway, I agree with you completely about the RKO Bushwick in the 1980’s, both in terms of how it appeared in the film “The Believers” and how creepy the Bushwick appears in the images of Matthew Melnick’s “Lost Brooklyn Trips”. Those desolate images of his make Brooklyn look like a lost city of the dead, or damned !
Thanks for all the details, guys. Maybe I’ll comment on some of them later.
BklynJim, good for you on your “A Hard Day’s Night” double-disc DVD purchase. I seem to recall someone, a Glendale, Queens native, commenting on this Hillside theater page, about taking a break from a boring philosophy class at St. John’s U Jamaica campus to see “Hard Day’s Night” at the Hillside.
Here’s the link to the IMDb page for “First Men in The Moon”. One can see for one’s self that the release date in the USA was (Friday) November 20, 1964. Yes, I remember Gertz Dept. Store in Jamaica. Also Goodwin’s.
That’s a beautiful photo, Lost Memory. Not just the theaters, but the cobblestoned street, streetlights, and trolley tracks.
Re : playlist posted by JRS40 : my best friend, who lives in Chicago, once sent me a postcard showing the State Lake. Consistent with 11/21 and 12/7/79, STAR TREK and HALLOWEEN appeared on the marquee.
To which I could add : PRINCE OF THE CITY in early October 1981, RETURN OF THE JEDI, July 1983.
The elevation drawing is good, too. Sort of the Louis Sullivan, American “Prairie School” of architecture ?
Chicago’s been a second home to me, for half my life, to date, ever since my first visit to my best friend there, first weekend of October 1980.
Thanks, leroyelliston, for posting your memories of the Hillside. I would think that the Queens County Courthouse had entrances on both Sutphin Boulevard and Hillside Avenue.
Have you clicked on the links I posted three years ago to images of the Sutphin Blvd el station on nycsubway.org that show the Hillside in the background ? I’m rather pleased with, and proud of, the detective work that Erwin M and I did to figure out that one image must have been right after the February 4, 1961 blizzard.
I believe “Anchors Aweigh” also starred Kathryn Grayson as the female lead. It can be checked on the IMDb :
Thanks, Panzer65. The Ridgewood, RKO Madison, and RKO Bushwick, all border on Madison Street. Oddly, the marquee of the Madison was on Myrtle Avenue at Woodbine, not Madison, St.
In a nutshell, Warren, who was B.S. Moss, and what did he do for the RKO Madison Theatre in Ridgewood ?
Thanks, Bklyn Jim, for your answer about “X”, and about the Myrtle El express track. You might also want to check out the 1924 BMT subway and el map on nycsubway.org, if you haven’t, already.
Yes. The traffic light at Wyckoff and Cornelia was installed sometime in the first half of the 1990’s.
Decades earlier, the installation of the traffic light at Cypress Avenue and Vermont Place, at the top of the hill, near the entrance to the Jackie Robinson (Cypress Avenue exit) couldn’t have come soon enough. Imagine such a busy intersection without a traffic light for so many years !
Yeah, Bway, I’ll bet. It reads like you saw lots more of the filming than I did. Compared to you, I just barely glanced at it.
Should I look for you in the film ? Did you get on-camera as an “on-the-spot extra” ?
I remember the scene where they are standing on the el mezzanine stairway when the brother goes to enlist in the military. I seem to recall the Planter’s Peanut sign, that had been painted on the building, in the background.
I think my favorite line from the play was when the older brother exclaims angrily to the younger :
“How come every time I get into trouble, I have to tell you what a naked girl looks like ?!?!?!”
BklynJim, thanks in advance for the shot of the trolley under the el between Forest & Fresh Pond Rd.
The Myrtle El DID have an express track between Wyckoff and Myrtle-Bway, hence the two platforms and three trackways at Wyckoff. I think express trains ceased operation in 1946. Bway would have more details. Also “The Old Timer” of The Times Newsweekly, formerly the Ridgewood Times.
The tower did obscure the marquee of the Madison, but not the western wall. I think I’ve seen that el video with the view of the wall of the Madison at the GCT Transit Museum Store, summer 2002 or 2003. As I’ve already posted, the background music was “East side, west side, all around the town …”. It was very poignant watching it with my 7 or 8 year old son, wanting to share it with him, yet knowing that that view into my past couldn’t possibly mean to him what it means to me.
More power to you for the “Malcolm X” DVD. Wonder why they selected “the depot” as Boston for that film.
Thanks, Bway, for all the details. I think I was able to read MADISON THEATRE from the western wall of the RKO Madison Theater in summer 1976 from the outdoor observation deck of the World Trade Center, using one of the 25 power pay binoculars, available there. Another guy up there was reading telephone numbers off billboards in Flatbush using his Questar telescope.
Please excuse the repetition if I’ve already posted about this.
I submitted comments to Christina Wilkinson on her Ridgewood article that you just posted a link to, in early August 2005. I don’t know if she’s responded to them yet. I haven’t checked.
You and me both, LuisV.
I don’t remember the Kurtz store offhand.
“Cooley High” was released in 1975.
Thank you, Warren, for this information about the demise of the Long Island Press, and its final movie timetable.
I remember “Cooley High” being on TV in April 1977.
Thanks, Bway.
Bway, I agree with you completely about the RKO Bushwick in the 1980’s, both in terms of how it appeared in the film “The Believers” and how creepy the Bushwick appears in the images of Matthew Melnick’s “Lost Brooklyn Trips”. Those desolate images of his make Brooklyn look like a lost city of the dead, or damned !
Thanks, Bway. Was the closing date at 168th Street September 11th or October 10th, 1977 ? I think I just saw the latter date on nycsubway.org.
Better a chain drug store like CVS or Eckerd than a shooting gallery or squatting for the homeless.
Or, in the case of the Bushwick, human sacrifice for devil worship in the cult of Santeria (“The Believers”, 1987, filmed there).
Thanks, Warren. I didn’t know that those other Queens theaters were “atmospheric”, that is, that their ceilings mimicked the evening sky.
No, Queens Logic, I don’t think that Jamaica movie theater you remember was any other than the Valencia.
BTW, are you the Queens cousin of Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic ?
From Slougham Road to Sutphin Blvd., perhaps ?
Thanks for all the details, guys. Maybe I’ll comment on some of them later.
BklynJim, good for you on your “A Hard Day’s Night” double-disc DVD purchase. I seem to recall someone, a Glendale, Queens native, commenting on this Hillside theater page, about taking a break from a boring philosophy class at St. John’s U Jamaica campus to see “Hard Day’s Night” at the Hillside.
Here’s the link to the IMDb page for “First Men in The Moon”. One can see for one’s self that the release date in the USA was (Friday) November 20, 1964. Yes, I remember Gertz Dept. Store in Jamaica. Also Goodwin’s.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058100/
Thanks, BWChicago. I wasn’t sure.
That’s a beautiful photo, Lost Memory. Not just the theaters, but the cobblestoned street, streetlights, and trolley tracks.
Re : playlist posted by JRS40 : my best friend, who lives in Chicago, once sent me a postcard showing the State Lake. Consistent with 11/21 and 12/7/79, STAR TREK and HALLOWEEN appeared on the marquee.
To which I could add : PRINCE OF THE CITY in early October 1981, RETURN OF THE JEDI, July 1983.
The elevation drawing is good, too. Sort of the Louis Sullivan, American “Prairie School” of architecture ?
Chicago’s been a second home to me, for half my life, to date, ever since my first visit to my best friend there, first weekend of October 1980.
Thanks, leroyelliston, for posting your memories of the Hillside. I would think that the Queens County Courthouse had entrances on both Sutphin Boulevard and Hillside Avenue.
Have you clicked on the links I posted three years ago to images of the Sutphin Blvd el station on nycsubway.org that show the Hillside in the background ? I’m rather pleased with, and proud of, the detective work that Erwin M and I did to figure out that one image must have been right after the February 4, 1961 blizzard.
I believe “Anchors Aweigh” also starred Kathryn Grayson as the female lead. It can be checked on the IMDb :
www.imdb.com
Thanks, Panzer65. The Ridgewood, RKO Madison, and RKO Bushwick, all border on Madison Street. Oddly, the marquee of the Madison was on Myrtle Avenue at Woodbine, not Madison, St.
In a nutshell, Warren, who was B.S. Moss, and what did he do for the RKO Madison Theatre in Ridgewood ?
Thanks, Bway and Warren.
Thanks, Bklyn Jim, for your answer about “X”, and about the Myrtle El express track. You might also want to check out the 1924 BMT subway and el map on nycsubway.org, if you haven’t, already.
Yes. The traffic light at Wyckoff and Cornelia was installed sometime in the first half of the 1990’s.
Decades earlier, the installation of the traffic light at Cypress Avenue and Vermont Place, at the top of the hill, near the entrance to the Jackie Robinson (Cypress Avenue exit) couldn’t have come soon enough. Imagine such a busy intersection without a traffic light for so many years !
Yeah, Bway, I’ll bet. It reads like you saw lots more of the filming than I did. Compared to you, I just barely glanced at it.
Should I look for you in the film ? Did you get on-camera as an “on-the-spot extra” ?
I remember the scene where they are standing on the el mezzanine stairway when the brother goes to enlist in the military. I seem to recall the Planter’s Peanut sign, that had been painted on the building, in the background.
I think my favorite line from the play was when the older brother exclaims angrily to the younger :
“How come every time I get into trouble, I have to tell you what a naked girl looks like ?!?!?!”
I saw “Brighton Beach Memoirs” being filmed at Seneca and Palmetto in late November 1986.
Good for you, Bway !
BklynJim, thanks in advance for the shot of the trolley under the el between Forest & Fresh Pond Rd.
The Myrtle El DID have an express track between Wyckoff and Myrtle-Bway, hence the two platforms and three trackways at Wyckoff. I think express trains ceased operation in 1946. Bway would have more details. Also “The Old Timer” of The Times Newsweekly, formerly the Ridgewood Times.
The tower did obscure the marquee of the Madison, but not the western wall. I think I’ve seen that el video with the view of the wall of the Madison at the GCT Transit Museum Store, summer 2002 or 2003. As I’ve already posted, the background music was “East side, west side, all around the town …”. It was very poignant watching it with my 7 or 8 year old son, wanting to share it with him, yet knowing that that view into my past couldn’t possibly mean to him what it means to me.
More power to you for the “Malcolm X” DVD. Wonder why they selected “the depot” as Boston for that film.
As promised, my work friend’s movie-going experience at Loew’s Valencia :
“The Ten Commandments”, with his father, late 1950’s.
“The Bridge Over The River Kwai”, with Uncle Jerry, probably also cousin Robert and Aunt Bernice, 1957
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (James Stewart and John Wayne), probably 1964.
“Fantastic Voyage”, 1966.
“To Sir With Love”, 1967, with friend, Tom Krauss.
Thanks, Bway, for all the details. I think I was able to read MADISON THEATRE from the western wall of the RKO Madison Theater in summer 1976 from the outdoor observation deck of the World Trade Center, using one of the 25 power pay binoculars, available there. Another guy up there was reading telephone numbers off billboards in Flatbush using his Questar telescope.
Please excuse the repetition if I’ve already posted about this.
I submitted comments to Christina Wilkinson on her Ridgewood article that you just posted a link to, in early August 2005. I don’t know if she’s responded to them yet. I haven’t checked.
Thanks, Panzer65. Bway’s got lots of details from his recent exploration of the building.
Panzer65, your link doesn’t look like it’s active. Try putting it on a line of its own.