RKO Madison Theatre

Agreed. The Madison greatly enchanced my viewing of the horror films I saw there, such as “The Premature Burial” (summer 1962)“Black Sabbath” (summer 1964),“I Saw What You Did” (summer 1965), “Die Monster Die !” (day before start of school, September 1966), “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave” (January 1969), and “Tales From The Crypt”(March 1972).

Which brings us to two Clive Barker short stories, “Sex, Death and Starshine”, the ultimate haunted theater story, and “Son Of Celluloid”, in which the memories, thoughts and emotions the audience presses upon the images on the screen of a revival cinema, combine with the stomach cancer of a dead escaped convict between the screen and back wall of the theater, to form a shape-shifting monster.

Hi lostmemory … you can check out “House Of Wax” at :

www.imdb.com

if you wish to check the release date. Yes, I know Charles Bronson was in “House Of Wax”. Also Vincent Price and Phyllis Kirk. Perhaps Buchinsky was Bronson’s original first name. That would be on the imdb also.

Bway and lostmemory, thanks for mentioning that “Psycho” was shown at the RKO Madison. Now, one of my favorite films, ever, and a favorite movie house I grew up with, will be forever linked in my psyche.

I recall “Psycho” being shown at the Ridgewood in its May 1969 re-release, and the Daily News referring to it as “Randforce’s Ridgewood”.

I know the Ridgewood played “House of Wax” on it’s 1971 re-release.

For those present and former Ridgewood residents who wish to express their condolences and get-well wishes to Monsignor Kelly of St. Brigid Church, the address is :

St. Brigid Rectory
409 Linden Street
Brooklyn, New York 11237

I was able to find a little bit more out about the Madison today (Warren and I were talking about it under the Rivoli theater the other day).
Anyway, I was in Ridgewood today, and was able to find some time for a walk on Myrtle Ave. I finally went into the Liberty Dept Store. I haven’t been in the building since it was Odd Lot, and that must have been the late 80’s. Well, the Liberty Dept Store is huge. It takes up the entire Madison’s lobby area, the entire area under the balcony and more than ½ of the main auditorium of the Madison, probably ¾ of it. It is exactly how I remember it from the Odd-Lot days. The old balcony stairway is still there, altough has modern stairs and railing (no sign of the Madison marble or railing). The stairway was wide open with a chain across it (man was I tempted to go up there!!!). You can clearly see the curve of the huge balcony right through the middle of the store. There is a drop ceiling under the balcony area, and in the old lobby area. You can no longer tell where the lobby ended, and the area under the balcony in the theater began. Past the balcony, the wall of the balcony (which is sheetrocked) goes up about 3 or 4 feet, and then another higher drop ceiling is the “fake ceiling” for the area of the store in the main auditorium.
They built an office or managers room in the left hand part of the theater, and that goes towards the old stage area. The door was open,and the room is sheetrocked. Then on the right hand side of the theater a huge storage room is located. That door was also open, and had a drop ceiling also, and sheetrocked walls. There is a door that goes outside from there too, presumably one of the former emergency exit doors.
The entire store is sheetrocked, and the store takes up the bulk of the former theater. If there is any part of the theater not in public view, it would be the huge stage area, and possibly a little more around the bend in the storage room that I could not see.
Aside from the totally modernized stairway (hard to imagine that it was once the Madison’s ornate marble stairway), and the curvatire of the balcony, there is NOTHING visable of the old theater. All the walls in the store itself, the office, and the storage room were completely sheetrocked with drop ceilings. The store does take up most of orchestra level of the theater, as well as the entire lobby. If anything at all still exists of the Madison, it can only be the top of the walls, the top of the procenium arch, and the ceiling, and possibly the balcony area (was it one or two balconies), that’s it. At least the mystery of whether Liberty Dept Store occupies the main auditorium or not is solved….now one of us has to get the management of the store to let us go up theat stairway!!!

I agree with you. I suppose the July 13 1977 blackout, and the looting and arson that resulted, was a “low point” of the 1970’s. Another would have been late Sept. / early October 1975 fiscal crisis, when NYC asked President Ford for financial assistance, Ford refused, and NYC almost went into default on its bonds.

The supermarket at the west corner of Wyckoff and Putnam that opened in the late ‘80’s did very well, I think, because it was the only store of its size in the square mile or so, of which it is the center. Similarly, I think the RKO Madison and Ridgewood were the only movie houses in the surrounding square mile, after the Oasis stopped showing movies. Consequently, I think the Madison would have done well, had it been multiplexed.

Thanks, Bway. That’s very interesting ! My father claims to remember a singing star (Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, or Georgie Jessel) coming out of the subway at the southeast corner of Myrtle and Wyckoff, near Optimo Cigars and McDonald’s, and asking for directions to the RKO Madison. My dad remembers telling him, and getting free passes to the show as a result.

My dad also remembers seeing live Shakespeare at the Madison, and the (for its time, 1951) racially controversial film, “Pinky”, introduced live on stage by Ed Sullivan, at the Madison also.

Movie stars leaving their cars and stepping into the RKO Madison, into the late ‘60’s ? I picture Ray Milland doing this for “The Man With The X-Ray Eyes” in 1964, or Susan Oliver for “Change Of Mind” in 1969 ! Please ask your dad about this some more. Thanks in advance !

Th film “Tentacles” mentioned in the opening comment by Robert R was released in 1977 so that is a clue. By late February 1978 the theater was closed, and a designated neighborhood eyesore.

The last film I saw at the RKO Madison Theater was the trashy thriller “Lipstick” starring Chris Sarandon as an electronics freak rapist, Margaux Hemingway as his victim, and younger sister Mariel as his would-be younger victim who witnessed the rape of her older sister. This was in July 1976. The following month the Madison was showing a re-release of “The Exorcist” along with “The Yakuza”, a film about Japanese organized crime. I also remember “Godzilla vs. Megalon” as one of the last films shown by the Madison.

If anyone can tell me the exact or approximate date the Madison closed, and stopped showing films, I would very much appreciate it. It is something I should remember, and yet I do not. Thank you all in advance.

Sorry, that third image should be :

http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?2198

Description given above in my previous comment still applies.

The theater was named after the nearby Madison Street but is actually one block west at Myrtle Avenue and Woodbine Street in Ridgewood, Queens, NYC, NY.

To answer Robert’s question about the theater being intact or not, I don’t know what remains of the beautiful theater that was the Madison. What I do remember was that after being empty for quite a while, the Madison had become a “Consumers” store. Later, it became an “Odd Lot” store. I had visited both of those stores many times. You used to be able to see the outline of the balcony on the ceiling. They put in a “fake ceiling” in the main part of the theater, so don’t know what remained of the old theater as it was all covered. Some time around when it closed as a theater to when it opened as Consumers, the Madison burned, so I don’t know how much of the theater survived between neglect, time, the fire, and just conversion to stores.
The exterior had survived quite nicely. Although the marquee was removed around the time of the store conversion, the marble facade on Myrtle survived quite nicely, and was even cleaned and pointed. Unfortunately, the Liberty Dept store that now occupies the theater covered half the facade with their sign. Now covered are the ornate marble window surroundings that last and were even restored some years earlier.
Also if you stand on the Wyckoff Ave station platform of the M line el, you can just vaguely make out “Madison Theatre” in a rapidly fading painted sign showing a relic from the past.

The RKO Madison Theatre seated 2760 people.