Chopin Theatre

It’s official!!!!! This theater is being gutted for Greenpoint’s first….Starbucks! I don’t know if gutted is the right word since the articles that I’ve read don’t make any mention of any original theater details remaining after its days as a Popeye’s and Burger King. I suppose a Starbucks is better that a fast food place. I guess the big surprise for me is that Greenpoint is getting a Starbucks before hipster nabe Williamsburg next door! Hopefully, the eagle atop the building will remain and be well taken care of by the new proprietors.

Actually, my suspiscion is that the corner building was torn down because they may have widened Greenpoint Ave. The building in the old photo looks like it had a lot more frontage on Manhattan Ave than the one story Mc Donalds does. It may just be an illusion, but it really appears like the lot has been made smaller, probably due to the widening of Greenpoint Ave there. The other 18th Century buildings on that block that they didn’t tear down for redevelopment, although, it appears the old corner building did not house retail, a necessity on a corner such as that.

Attention:
okay I must correct some of your misconceptions about the relationship of Club Exit to the Chopin.The Chopin was on the bottom floor..Club Exit is on the top floor, Club Exit encompasses what used to be a bingo parlor.Club Exit:It has never been on the first floor.Trust me on this one, I am a lifelong Greenpoint resident who used to frequent the Chopin as a little kid and hangs out at Club Exit as an adult.I know my stuff.

When I moved to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Eagle was still standing, and even still had some letters on the marquee. The words seemed to be in Polish (Greenpoint was then and still is a heavily Polish neighborhood even though a lot of wannabe hipsters have been moving in and transforming the neighborhood), but I can’t tell you if it said the title of the last movie or simply “Goodbye”. But that fact that the small marquee still had letters seemed to jib with what long term residents told me, that the Eagle was a working theatre into the 1980’s. Perhaps it had closed at one point, and reopened as a Polish language movie theatre.

It was not replaced by condo’s as speculated above. It was replaced by two different fast food restaurants. The Eagle was on the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Greenpoint Street. The corner became a McDonalds, but surrounding the McDonalds on both sides in a wide “V” shape, and with entrances on either side of it, was a succession of other fast food restaurants. First a Roy Rogers, and then a Burger King that shared space with a Popeye’s Fried Chicken, until the Popeye’s left to be replaced by…a wall in the Burger King.

I always thought that the McDonald’s occupied the body of the former Eagle Theatre, and that the surrounding fast food restaurants occupied the entrance and area behind and to the side of the movie screen.

Here’s an image View link borrowed from poster Warren , whose original posts are listed. Warren , thanks for taking the time to post a photo!Please pardon my borrowing it.

Now I’ve moved to Jackson Heights, Queens, where there is yet another old Eagle Theatre, this one now playing Bollywood films in an Indian neighborhood.

Wow, that is strange. At first glance it looks abandoned! Your photo looks just like I remember it, but to me it looked abandoned!….

Thanks EdSolero. I will check out that Website.

Any ideas, even speculation, as to what might next occupy said premises ?

Hi Warren, I know I did not find the movie yet because I would have stopped looking for it. I am hoping that someday I will rent or buy an obscure horror movie and watch and see the ending (sort of finding it by accident). Alot of people that I have been in contact with already, said they remember seeing this film too, but cannot remember the title.

Thanks Warren. I will have to check out this ProQuest at the library where I live next time I am there. I hope they have it since it is a small library since whenever I look for a regular book there, they always have to order it from a larger branch.

I know that the Chopin never did individual ads from what I found back when I was looking for Newspaper Ads at the library back up north in New York.

I just hope that the New York Times had ads for lower budget Horror movies in their paper like the one I am looking for. Back in New York, I used to look up the New York Post or the Daily News.

PKoch, not yet. I hate to have to resort to having to go back to the library and looking up old newspaper ads for a 3 or 4 year time span. I did that for almost a year and barely made a dent in it. I wish there was a way of looking that information up on the Internet.

Actually, I was only using Hammer Films as an example becuase they were one of the companies that did that. It could have been Hammer, it could have been A.I.P., etc… .

Does anyone remember that new movies used to come out on Wednesday’s instead of Friday’s (occasionally on a Friday). At least in the 1960’s / 1970’s when I used to go to the Chopin.