UA Quartet
16006 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11358
16006 Northern Boulevard,
Flushing,
NY
11358
9 people
favorited this theater
Showing 101 - 113 of 113 comments
Sad story, Mike69… gutted right down to the steel beams and bricks with not a lick of original interior work remaining. For all intents and purposes I would suggest this be listed as a complete demolition, but since the original exterior structure still exists, I suppose “the building” is still there. Are you able to categorize the type of decor, Mike, or recollect more specific details about it? You mentioned the Keith’s, but surely this wasn’t an atmospheric room (courtyard setting with painted “night sky” ceiling). Was the balcony still there or was this demolished at the time of quading (assuming there was a balcony to begin with)?
Hey all, just recently became a member. The Quartet was one of my childhood theaters and I had the luck of being able to get a peek inside during its “gutting” . About 4 or 5 years ago I saw the trucks in front of the place and i recognized the name on one of the trucks was one of my friends who is an electrician. Basicly he was there to “turn off all the power to the place and set up temporary power for the workers. The walls from the quading had been removed and to my astonishment, it was like a mini rko keiths!! sculpted paster everywhere a stage with carved collumns the detail to the ceiling was unbelievable. There were even painted murals. I was planning to get a digital camera so the following week i went out to by one . I came back and one of the sweepers let me in while everyone was at lunch. I basiclly walked into a compleatlly gutted room. Nothing. It was all gone down to just steal beams and bricks. What a total disapointment. I really never new the theater had been that "grand” and i guess nobody else rememberd thats how it was lost. A few weeks later the knucklheads actually cut down the entire marquee. And then for some dopey reason put up a new one the same basic dimentions of the old one. Anyone have any photos, either the roosevelt or even the quartet in its glory days?
So then the Roosevelt marquee is still hidden underneath as you posted back in February of last year, RobertR?
Thats the Quartets old marquee in those photos resurfaced.
While out touring the borough with my handy digital a couple of weekends back, I snapped these two shots of the former Roosevelt/UA Quartet. As you can tell from the first photo, the Eckerd drug store that took over the site has recently closed as has the Macy’s Bed showroom that shared the space. In the 2nd photo, you’ll notice that the building(s) adjacent to the theater’s left were razed to make way for a parking lot. As a result, a full profile of the former theater was exposed for the first time I that can recollect.
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I don’t recall ever catching a flick here, under either the Roosevelt or Quartet marquee. Do you guys know for sure that the old Roosevelt marquee was dismantled when the site converted to retail space? The facsimile marquee that is currently at the site looks a lot like the one from it’s UA days.
Here is an ad from 1973 when UA proudly hailed the Quartet as the east coasts only quad cinema. Look at the eclectic selection of films playing, from GWTW to Fritz The Cat
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I saw a Gone With The Wind re-release here around 1969 when it was still the Roosevelt Theater. My recollection is that the place didn’t have air conditioning. After it became the Quartet, I saw many, many movies here – Animal House, The China Syndrome and Rocky are three I remember most. The place was a typical multiplex, almost no ornamentation and box-like rooms to see the films. Two instances stand out for annoying audiences, though – at Grease a girl behind me sang all the songs loudly! But the worst was a psychopath at Midnight Express who went apeshit in the scene when a cat was hanged – he thought it was hilarious. Funny, over 20 years later and I still can’t get that idiot out of my mind. Anyway, the Quartet was a functional place that gave a lot of people a neighborhood place to see movies. Along with the Prospect and RKO Keith’s, it’s just another movie house that’s disappeared from Flushing.
I went to the Quartet only once during the winter of ‘78 to watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and remember waiting almost an hour on line inside a beautiful large lobby before the ushers let people into the auditoriums. The auditorium itself was small but the screen was big enough to enjoy the movie.
The old Quartet theatre is now occupied by MacyBed and Genovese Drugs. It was a nice theatre in the early 80’s. It was a shame to see it go downhill into the early 90’s. Unfortunately it could not compete with the newer theatre in the rebuilt Bay Terrace shopping center (about 1.5 â€" 2 miles away).
What’s the present state of the Roosevelt/Quartet? Is it still standing or has it been converted to retail or some other use?
This was pretty much my neighborhood movie house along with the Main St Flushing theaters and Loews Bay Terrace As a child I
was taken to many a Disney film here, CINDERELLA, SON OF FLUBBER,
MERLIN JONES, etc. My parochial school was 2 blocks away I saw my first film with grade school chums as a 7 year old, BATMAN-we were allowed to attend by ourselves! (think this would have been at most a G, or “GP” rated film even then) The Roosevelt was in steep decline then (brackish water in the fountains, moldy candy in art deco dispensers) and by the time I saw OLIVER! seeing a movie there became an adventure, not knowing if the sound would cut out or print would be burned through. 2nd run, Godzilla, and AIP horror became the order of the day. Influenced by what Redstone was doing with multiplexing, UA Theatres remade this into a snappy, happening place well loved by the locals. I saw 50-100 films through 1977 after the remodeling, it took me 3 tries to get into JAWS 2! By the mid-80s the
neighborhood and theatre were both starting to decline and the
aura was more than a little spooky-which definitely affected the mood
you sought when seeing LICENSE TO DRIVE, BACHELOR PARTY, etc.
Alan V. Karr,
I went here to see alot of movies in the late 80’s….it was a well run, clean, nice place even if a little old fashioned…good memories…
Another Quartet trivia item, the original neon and light bulb marquee from The Roosevelt was totally intact under the huge stainless steel Quartet one. Too bad it could not have been saved somehow, even moved to another location.