Ridgewood Theatre
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
55-27 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
31 people
favorited this theater
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Ahh The Beatles, one of the greatest musical groups of all time.
Peter , perhaps you read my story on the Commodore page. It really was heartbreaking to see how that theater was disgracefully treated.
If theres any Beatles song that fits the fate of any cherished place it has to be “In My Life”.
I know in my heart when any historic building is razed this song always comes to mind. Especially when Shea Stadium meets its fate.
Yes, once upon a time, Dem Beatles ! The Fab Four !
Panzer65 : Yes, I agree with, and understand you, completely. I hope the Ridgewood does not burn soon, thereby preventing it from ever re-opening as, or becoming, a theater, again.
Yogi Berra ? “It Ain’t Over ‘Till It’s Over” ?
At least the Madison survived as a store, whereas the Commodore is now completely gone.
Peter and Bway
I myself feel the same way too , about posting comments, while this historic gem lingers at the brink of obscurity.
In a way, I have feelings of concern, for if there are people living inside the theater,one can only wonder what will happen next. Will deterioration rapidly consume this wonderful place?
I do hope after reading postings about how the Madison died an untimely death, that my thoughts of “Deja Vu All Over Again” (Yogi Berra) does not occur here.
When you really look at the big picture,time is really not on Ridgewood’s side,the owner may perhaps be unscrupulous,and looking to accelerate the deterioration to lead to events that will forever seal its fate. If you read the postings for the Commodore, I feel that unless control is established over this property, the same fate that consumed Madison and Commodore may be in the future.
Peter.K…….Ohhhhh…Dem Beattle’s! It took me awhile to put my finger on just what you were referring to. Uh, you see, I have this callous……:)
once upon a time :
Have you ever listened to any of The Beatles' music ?
See you at the Parthenon !
Panzer65, I’m glad my Twilight Zone reference was not lost upon you.
Bway, I know what you mean … the Ridgewood is at an urgent crossroads, and there is very little (if anything) that we can do about it. I’ve enjoyed the comments too, but have this feeling of powerlessness from discussing the past of the Ridgewood Theatre while being unable to do anything to help it in the present.
Before reading the Queens Courier article that Warren posted the link to, I didn’t know that, not only the Ridgewood Theatre, but Myrtle Avenue itself, had fallen on such hard economic times.
Admittedly, I’m only in Ridgewood once a month, but, when I am, Myrtle Avenue always seems thriving and busy. There may not be an active storefront in every building, but neither do I see vacant, burned-out buildings with homeless squatting inside, or in use as shooting galleries for junkies.
Ah, but Noah Rosenberg’s Courier article did mention the “bastion of the homeless” in the Ridgewood Theatre’s “shadowy secret rooms”.
I haven’t had anything to add, but have really enjoyed the comments on this theater the last couple days. It’s so sad that as we speak, the fate of the Ridgewood Theater is still a big unknown. We could lose it here in the final hours…. It’s at an urgent crossroads as we speak.
once upon a time
Your welcome concerning our interesting exchanges, thats what makes this site a treasure,sharing memories and thoughts about the past at neighborhood movie houses.
Looking forward to your recollections at the Madison, there’s some uncharted territory there thats yet to be discovered,behind the mezzanine promenade door.
Peter, maybe thats where the mannequins are chanting..Marsha,Marsha..next stop ..The Twilight Zone!
Peter .K…..I think you’ve hit upon a generational gap…. I’ll spend the remainder of the day translating your references to my calloused finger. As for meeting at the Madison, I’ll catch you over there after I write of my Parthenon days this weekend. Chat with you again by Tuesday.
Calloused finger, once upon a time ? I can almost hear you echoing Ringo, at the end of “Helter Skelter”, on the White Album :
“I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS !”
Lots of folks get more recognition dead than alive, like “The immortal Jim Croce” !
Yes, if that rear wall could talk !
See you at the RKO Madison !
Peter……Presently, I’m sitting back eating an eating an apple with one hand and clicking the ‘refresh’ key with the other. With the over two-thousand comments in the Ridgewood Theatre page, I find it easier to just remain at the bottom and refresh each of the seven times (today, so far) that my E-mail tone has sounded. Yesterday, I was getting a calloused finger from fully scrolling down to read your and Panzers interesting comments.
I submit that perhaps, ‘Cappy’ is now getting more recognition than he had, while living. As to the configuration of the wall separating the ‘other venue’s from the theatres balcony’… wow…if that wall could talk….especially the portion of which, backed the ‘infamous’ Third Balcony! (Circa ‘40/’50’s).
I’ll close this comment with gratitude toward you, Panzer and Lost Memory for your interesting exchanges. I’m flattered to think that my contribution had stimulated what I’m discovering is the true spirit of this site .Thank you all for making me feel a part of Cinema Treasures!.
Post script: While still composing the above, the latest three E-tones reveal a shifting interest to the Madison. I plan on writing of that updated Radio-Keith’s Orpheum chain theatre in due course….perhaps by way of the Parthenon, which like the .splendiferous Madison, it carried a Classical name. Oooops, 13th E-tone just sounded! I’ll respond to all, timely and appropriately.
Lost Memory, I entered “5430”, and it worked.
“Maybe only slow dancing was permitted.” :
Remember this cliche, from adult-chaperoned Catholic high school dances ?
“Leave some room for the Holy Ghost !”
“Let the Holy Ghost get his own girlfriend !”
Now on to the Madison Theatre page …
Regarding the former RKO Madison Theatre, the back of the entrance-outer lobby part of the building is completely connected with the main auditorium portion, unlike the Ridgewood Theatre, as previously noted. I think the only restrooms in the RKO Madison were on the balcony level, with none at street level. I think the only non-theater use of the building was that small store in the eastern end of the facade on Myrtle Avenue.
I’m not sure if there was anything else to the second story of the entrance-outer lobby part of the RKO Madison, other than the exit staircase from the balcony to the outer lobby.
Type in “5430 Myrtle Avenue Ridgewood NY 11385”. It won’t work with “54-30” or “New York” spelled out.
I just tried it. Great tool, but the images are a little old. They still show that red-roofed green tower at the turn of the el at Myrtle, Wyckoff and Palmetto.
Thanks, Panzer65, for the compliment and the answer.
Thanks, Lost Memory, for the additional details. I remember that alley on Cypress Avenue with the locked entrance gate. I was last near there the last Saturday of September 1998, at the small barbershop next door to it where I got my last haircut in Ridgewood.
Nothing up there on the third floor of the entrance part of the building, except maybe mannequins that come to life one month out of the year ….. “Marsha ? Marsha !”
In “The After Hours”, on “The Twilight Zone” ….
Or just type in 54-30 Myrtle Avenue for the Madison Theatre ….
Peter,
I must have been anywhere between 8 and 12 when I saw The Sound Of Music at the Ridgewood. So many cherished memories live in that grand theater,its what makes Cinema treasures and its members so distinguished, especially you Peter.
Peter,
Excellent point about how Ridgewood’s asymmetrical design allowed for peculiar sight lines and also windows, which are unusual for a theater. Its apparent Thomas Lamb had incorporated a slight touch of grandeur in Ridgewood’s design.But had designed it with much practicality allowing windows for ventilation, and at the same time, using unused theater space for other venues.
Re: Grove Billiards, pardon me friends for going off topic. I attended the hall to play pool in my teenage years, during the 80’s.Perhaps in the years before my youth it was known as Ridgewood Grove. I beleive it was a boxing and wrestling venue,afeterwards then it was abandoned or burned. Today its a buffet Chinese restaurant, wonder if any remnants remain?
Thanks, Panzer65.
I was twelve when I saw “The Sound of Music” at the Ridgewood with my mother. How old were you, Panzer65, when you saw it there ?
When I watched “The Sound of Music” with my dad at his nursing home in Queens the summer of 1998, 30 ½ years later, during the song “Edelweiss”, I thought of Ridgewood in general, and Edelweiss Import House, across Myrtle Avenue from the Ridgewood Theatre, in particular :
“Bless my Ridgewood forever …”
once upon a time,
Thanks for your reply concerning the configuration of Cappy’s and the Dance Room.I appreciate the time you took to explain in detail how Ridgewood thrived as a multi cultural venue.
How ironic that your saw the Sound of Music at the Ridgewood.That was the first movie I saw there as a child, and every time I watch Julie Andrews sing on that hill ,it reminds me of that day I saw it at the Ridgewood with my mother and brother.
Thanks Lost Memory.
The Ariel veiw really helped to establish where the floor where the dance and pool hall once existed. Just as I thought in my previous post, it took up the top floor, above the lobby and behind the balcony as once upon a time mentioned.
Thank you, Lost Memory, for your help, and for mentioning when Cappy’s Pool Room became Hank’s Billiards. You are somewhere between me and once upon a time in age.
Looking again at the aerial view : what intrigues me now is the the fact that only about a third of the back edge of the roughly square entrance, or outer lobby, which opens onto Myrtle Avenue, touches the southern corner of the silver-roofed auditorium part of the building, with the rest hanging out facing empty alley space between buildings. Where the two touch, of course, is the entrance from the outer to the inner orchestra lobby. That’s why the orchestra level rest rooms had windows out onto that empty alley space between buildings.
You’re welcome, Panzer65.
once upon a time :
Thanks for answering my Richard Widmark – wheelchair question. The aunt of mine who told me of this perfidious deed in cinema also saw “The Paradine Case” at the Ridgewood Theatre on a hot free summer afternoon in 1947, or 1948.
Cappy passing on from spaghetti re-heated on the radiator : perhaps it came from the Villa Maria Italian restaurant, which used to be on the northeast side of Cypress Avenue, between Myrtle and Putnam Avenues, across Cypress Avenue from the WW I monument and B-18 bus stop. My favorite take-out meal from there was a veal cutlet and spaghetti. I can almost taste it now. Puglia’s in Little Italy (Mulberry and Hester) has something similar as a lunch special, which I’ve enjoyed in the last few years with my son.
I think there is now an electronics store where the Villa Maria once was. I last ate in the Villa Maria in August 1990.
I, too, saw “The Sound Of Music” at the Ridgewood, with my mom, in 1967. Perhaps we unknowingly sat in the same audience together !
What did you think of Ridgewood in your 1967 visit ?
My first experience of the Ridgewood as a multi-screened theater was Tuesday June 17 1980. “Friday the 13th” was playing in the balcony, and a boxing match was playing in the orchestra below on closed-circuit TV. The beauty of that was that it got me into the balcony of the Ridgewood, with its beautiful, elliptical inner lobby, for the first time in a LONG time !
I saw “The Howling” at the Ridgewood on Friday, March 13, 1981, on the orchestra level. I don’t remember if there was another film showing in the balcony. By the time I saw “Blowout” at the Ridgewood in late July 1981, it was at least a triplex : another film showing there then was “The Wolfen”.
Thanks for your architectural details and speculations about Cappy’s.
I, too, recall the Ridgewood Grove Arena, as does my father, who as a boy once lived across the street from it, near the eastern corner of Cypress Avenue and Palmetto Street. I think there was still wrestling there as late as summer 1982.
The Silver Dollar Club was the name of the dance hall I was trying to remember. Thanks.
Peter ,
Thanks for your reply concerning Ridgewood Theater’s top floor.
Panzer 65…..thank you so much for you kind words. I relocated from Ridgewood in 1960 and in a 1967 visit I attended the Ridgewood and saw ‘the Sound of Music’. Consequently, I never knew the Ridgewood as a multi-screened theatre. Personally, from a nostalgic point of view, perhaps I’m glad I didn’t.
As for Cappy’s location; If, standing in front of the box office and looking to the right, one would see a single door. On the door was a large blue sign with the circular image with the words ‘Silver Dollar Club’. That club, which I never attended, was above Cappy’s.
I knew the size of the pool room approximated the theatre lobby. I would guess that Cappys back wall was adjacent to the second balcony and the Club wall, the ‘infamous’ third balcony’s back wall. But…come to think of it…the back walls of the aisles leading forward to both balcony’s probably served as a boundary wall for the Club and the Pool Room. Perhaps, this isn’t much help in figuring out the structural placements.. but…I do know both ‘enterprises’ were there. Let’s hope a more informed opinion may come from another member. I’ll close my architectural prowess by noting that the back wall of the pool room….was definitely not slanted!!!
As for the Grove Billiards, I don’t remember such. The only Grove I knew of was the Ridgewood Grove, alongside of the trolley tracks and ’El’. Note, I remember when it had a large fire in the early 1940’s. Perhaps another could enlarge on that event.
Peter…Thanks again for a quick and very welcome response. As for your query, Re: ‘Wheelchair’ …Yes, Richard Widmark, as the young tough and sadistic ’Johnny Udo’ did push the old lady down a flight of stairs…but only after pulling a phone line from the wall and tying her in. Her downward tumbling was accompanied by his repetitive jeering laughter. Remarkably, it was Widmark’s first film and even more noteworthy, that was the first scene shot when making the movie!
As for the upper floors of the Ridgewood; Cappy’s Pool Room was on the first landing. It was about the width and depth of the theatre lobby. I knew not the name of ‘Hank’s’. It might be supposed that Cappy… passed it on to Hank…. After Cappy might have… passed on… from eating all the spaghetti he used to heat and reheat on the radiator.
One the top landing was the ‘Silver Dollar Club’. As a young teen, I never attended it. It seemed to cater to fellows in their late teens and early 20’s.
Hello Panzer65 :
That’s a good question, but I have never thought about it. I will defer to once upon a time or someone like him with experience, who, unlike myself, was in Cappy’s or that teen dance hall : someone who was once inside the Ridgewood Theater building for some other purpose than to see a film.