Ridgewood Theatre

Hi, Mpol :

Thanks for your in-depth and detailed answer to my question. Lincoln reads like a fun, safe place to grow up. So was Ridgewood, for the most part, when I grew up there. I played on its streets until called in by my parents for dinner, too.

Yes, Ridgewood, Queens NY was, and is, a very urban area, yet, to me, at least, idyllic in its own way.

Hi, Peter. K—

Ridgewood, Queens, and Lincoln, MA, were very, very different places to grow up. Whereas Ridgewood, (Queens), NY, seemed like a very urban area, the southern part Lincoln, MA, where I grew up, was a whole different kind of place—very wooded and idyllic, while the northern part of that town was very much like a typical suburban development—the houses smaller and much closer together. Lincoln was divided by Route 2.

Growing up in Lincoln, MA, I and afew of other kids on my street grew up playing hop-scotch, 10-20, hide-and-seek, “cowboys and indians”, “statue”, kickball, jump-rope and Chinese Jump-rope, particularly on summer days and evenings, too, until we were called in by our parents for dinner.

Often, too, we’d play on somebody’s back or front lawn, and, on snowy winter weekends and during school and holiday vacations, we’d go sledding on the street, or flying-saucering on our lawn, from morning until sunset. ice-skating, too, was a fun thing, though I was rather clumsy at it.

Bicycle riding was great, too, and swimming at a man-made pond near the Lincoln-Weston border was a popular past time, as well.

I first became interested in communities like Ridgewood (though I’d never heard of Ridgewood until I began posting here on CinemaTreasures), back in the mid to late 1970’s, when mandatory school busing took Boston by storm, and, when I began living away from home and coming in contact with all kinds of people, a number of who’d been caught up in Boston’s school busing controversy, and either were Boston public school students at the time, and/or who were parents with kids in the Boston Public School system at that time, or who’d been part of the gentrification movement. It was interesting to meet people who were caught up in that controversy, and I wanted to learn and understand as much as I could about people’s response to the controversey, and what made many of Boston’s communities tick. Doing my own research on this also helped, too. After that, although a full understanding has never been possible for me,
I went to our public schools for most of my years, and to a large suburban public high school.

You’re welcome, Peter. K. Thanks for all the info on the Ridgewood community and the Ridgewood Theatre. Communities such as the Ridgewood and other places like it throughout the United States have interested me for a long time. I first became interested in communities like that back in the mid to late 1970’s.

Btw—yes, I did enjoy my visits to NYC for screenings of West Side Story, as well as the one stage play of WSS that I saw there back around Thanksgiving of 1980, at NYC’s Lincoln Center.

You’re a transplanted city guy who moved to the ‘burbs. I did the reverse; I’m a transplanted suburbanite who moved to the city more than 30 years ago and has never wanted to look back since.
Different strokes for different folks. When I read all the postings about Ridgewood, yes, it did convey to me much of the flavor of the Ridgewood community from 50 years ago right up to the present. I enjoyed reading it all, too.

Thanks, Peter. K.

Yup—I do like it here a great deal. You and your wife have a friend who lives in Lincoln, MA?!?. That’s my old hometown. It was a nice, idyllic place to grow up, but after a point, it no longer held anything for me, if one gets the drift. Lincoln, MA. has changed a great deal; there are a lot of quarter, half, and one-million dollar mcmansions that’ve gone up in that town. I do have friends who still live there, but they live in a very, very old house that my friend from high school and her family lived in when she and her siblings were growing up.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand: The Ridgewood Theatre looks like a wonderful theatre. Here’s hoping they don’t destroy the interior and make it into something like a department store or whatever.

Hi, MPol. You are most welcome to the compliment.

Boston, eh ? You’re in good company with Leonard Nimoy and many others. The closest I’ve come to seeing a movie in Boston is as follows :

1) Easter break, early April 1977, took Amtrak to Boston with a friend from school to spend the holiday with him at his home in Boxford. “Yellow Submarine”, screened by Todd Glickman, who’s been on this site, was the feature film then at M.I.T., but my friend and I never went. I have, however, made contact with Todd on this site ! I don’t remember on what theater’s page, though.

Todd posted about some of the movies he remembered screening at M.I.T.

2) Next month, late May 1977, on my way to start a summer job, being trained in Waltham, some of us went into downtown Boston to see the newly debuted “Star Wars”, but I was not among them.

Currently my wife and I have a friend living in Lincoln, Mass.

Thank you again, Mpol, for your interest in Ridgewood and Bushwick movie theatres !

Thanks, mrbillyc. It’s been interesting to read about how a theatre really was sort of a holding action of a community.

I also might add, Peter. K, that our town didn’t have any movie theatre or anything like that to go to. We ended up going to movie theatres in other nearby towns and even downtown Boston to see movies.

ERC: That’s just nuts! I’m not doubting you, but I just can’t see someone going through the expense of renovting a theater and then just letting it sit there. I can’t comment on The Ritz but at The Paradise, the theater was stunningly restored! As beautiful as the day it opened (or so it has been stated by people who have seen it in person). Why would that owner go through that kind of meticulous restoration and then do nothing with it?

Regardless, these are isolated instances and my hope is that the public will eventually have access to these gems in the near future. The best part? They have in fact been saved! They have been restored! They have already beaten the odds.

Movie534: I can’t explain the Ritz situation. Nor can I explain why the Loews Paradise in The Bronx, after a stunning milti million dollar renovation is just sitting there unused. There is an ocassional eccentric owner out there, but it also proves my point. Someone spent all that money and is still not getting any income from it! It’s crazy! Certainly, if they were trying they could book events, but would it be enough to have it be a going concern to a typical investor.

As much as I love movie palaces, if I had $25MM, would I restore the Loews Kings myself? Probably not, because I too would need to see a return on my investment. I would, however, be willing to put in some money as part of a much larger group as long as it had a proper business plan on how it would be able to operate on its own without subsidy.

Regarding the Paradise, I’m hoping that the city eventually forecloses on it for lack of paying property taxes and resells it to someone who will put it to work as a performing arts center for the entire Bronx which so richly deserves it.

Luis i am going to quote you here.
“The movie going public requires seating, sight lines and screen sizes that most older theaters were unable to compete with.”

Some of and most of the older theatres had great sight lines. As far as screen sizes who are you kidding? I love watching a movie on a 25X60 foot screen. Some of these new so called multiplex movie houses have screens so small you can buy a flat screen HD TV bigger then that. As far as seats go many of the older palaces have upgraded to more comfortable seats even if it means a smaller seating capacity. When I think back to 1977 seeing Star Wars,then later on seeing Hunt for Red October and Days of Thunder at the 1440 seat Loews Astor Plaza. The sight lines were great the seats comfy and the sound system was state of the art. I tried looking it up on CT and it was not listed but a google search found that it is now the Nokia and basicaly no longer a movie theatre but a concert venue. It was still one of the best places to see a moveie.

Since I don’t live in the NY area, I don’t really have a dog in this discussion, but, knowing me, I almost always have something or other to say, anyhow.

We have lost probably thousands of movie palaces over the years. The sad reality is that a great many of them could not have been saved. The were technically and functionally obsolete in today’s world. The movie going public requires seating, sight lines and screen sizes that most older theaters were unable to compete with, to say nothing of the fact that almost all of the older theaters were just too big to be economical to operate.

Having said that, every effort should be made to save those that can be reused in a manner that pays for its renovation and continued operation unless a municipal entity agrees to provide either grants for renovations or operating subsidies for its continuing operations.

It is not enough to say “oh, they should renovate it and operate it as a theater again” Who is “They?” People are in business to make money. Governments are strapped for cash. These are very dificult times. It is very gratifying to see that The Beacon Theatre in Manhattan is about to reopen after a sparkling renovation. Who paid for it?; the huge conglomerate Cablevision. How is it paying for itself? By using its stage as a concert venue. There are no current plans to show movies (though I think that would be a great idea).

I don’t see anyone stepping forward with the resources of a company like Cablevision to save the Ridgewood and if there was such a company, I would much rather they apply their money and attention to the renovation and re-opening of the Loews Kings or The Brooklyn Paramount than the Ridgewood. Brooklyn and the city would be much better served with those palaces restored. Alas, we can’t save them all. We should focus on those most worth keeping.

Thanks Waren, I guess it’s the theatre that refuses to die!