Yes. The men’s room window was on the west side of the face of the building. I remember it well. East Coast Rocker, I’m glad the doberman didn’t chomp into you. Thanks for posting on this page. Now I know that you, like me, once lived in Ridgewood. A friend from parochial school (St. Brigid) whom I re-established personal contact with thirteen months ago, thanks to this website, specifically, the Ridgewood Theater page, used to live on Grove between Myrtle and Wyckoff, near the “dummy tracks”, until about 1971.
I remember the name, Bananafish Gardens, from 1973 or so. It made perfect sense to me, and I knew exactly where it came from, because the previous Fall of 1972, I had studied the J.D. Salinger short story, “A Perfect Day For Bananafish”, the first of J.D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories”, in senior English class.
The story culminates in the suicide of Seymour Glass in a Florida Gold Coast hotel while honeymooning with his vain, shallow wife. Bananafish are a metaphor for innocent children being corrupted by the obligatory shallow materialistic garbage of adult life, a theme also to be found in Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher In The Rye”.
Thanks, mrbillyc, that’s beautiful. I recall similar views of the RKO Madison from outside Sal’s barber shop, on the western corner of St. Nicholas and Woodbine, and, going from there towards Myrtle, from just outside Bonafide Opticians and Corato’s Pizza.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Our Neighborhood column in the Times Newsweekly. I’ll go there when I leave here. For too many weeks, it seems, the Times Newsweekly HAD no Our Neighborhood column.
I, too, will always feel connected to Ridgewood.
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed for both Ridgewood and THE Ridgewood!”
Agreed ! It would be such a shame, and so senseless, if the Ridgewood closed, because it’s the longest continuously running theater in NYC and vicinity, and there is no other movie theater for miles around.
mrbillyc, I think I still owe you a private e-mail, and I am sorry for not having replied.
Yes. My mother used to call those crappy junk stores “those little shit shops”, as opposed to quality stores like Protass and Lobell’s, and saw them as a sure sign of the deterioration of the neighborhood. Yet, they were, and are, preferable to vacant lots and buildings that become “shooting galleries” for junkies, or places for the homeless to squat.
The loss of the Madison as a viable building on that block around that time may have spurred the seediness of that block. But then, we can ask, why didn’t it recover when the Madison became a store ?
I know what you mean about Myrtle between Wyckoff and Cypress. I can feel the grunge and the crud pressing into me as soon as I step off the L train at Myrtle Avenue, and it continues as I walk east on Myrtle, despite that old and familiar Optimo Cigar sign. I can feel it fall off of me as soon as I cross Cornelia Street and pass that little McDonald’s Express across from Sterling Optical and Catalpa Avenue.
I think the only way Ridgewood has become a “bad” neighborhood is the increase in crime over the past forty years, but still, nothing like drug shooting wars on the street, or “Fort Apache The Bronx”. And no, no abandoned buildings. I think the worst of it was the RKO Madison Theater sitting gutted and derlelict from late 1977 to whenever the first store within it, opened.
I know I’m repeating myself, but I remember a sign on the RKO Madison in late February 1978 :
“Even when I still lived in Ridgewood, I "abandoned” the Ridgewood for “better theaters”, and that was two decades ago, and the Ridgewood was only a two or three block walk away from my house!"
I did much the same !
What about strong Brooklyn commercial strips near Ridgewood and Bushwick ? That supermarket at Wyckoff and Putnam seems to be the only one of its size within a mile radius of itself, or am I wrong, and have overlooked one ?
Bway, I hope the Ridgewood Theater survives. I can’t see people taking the Q-55 bus and then walking for twenty minutes to get from lower Ridgewood (on the Bushwick / Brooklyn border) to see a movie at Atlas Park, if their homes are within a 15-minute walk of the Ridgewood Theater.
Where are these strong commercial strips within Queens (and Brooklyn), some stronger than the Myrtle and Fresh Pond corridors ?
When is the Atlas Terminal Multiplex due to open ? What type of stores will be in Atlas Terminal Park ?
“BTW, you young whippersnappers know how to hurt a guy."
posted by ‘Tonino’ on Dec 7, 2005 at 7:24am.
Tonino, how did I hurt you ?
I remember Ripley’s, now that you mention it. It was on the south side of Myrtle between the RKO Madison and Palmetto St., wasn’t it ?
Going east from the RKO Madison to Madison St. was the Ridgewood Garden Chinese Restaurant, at least on the second floor, then the Jay Kay Candy Store on the southwest corner of Myrtle and Madison.
Yes, you may have waited on my dad at Ripley’s, but I mostly remember shopping for clothing at Howard’s on the northwest corner of Myrtle and Putnam, a few doors east of the Ridgewood Theater.
Myrtle Avenue between Wyckoff Avenue and Fresh Pond Road, and Fresh Pond Road between Myrtle Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue, are still very busy and thriving commercial streets. I don’t see people taking the Q-55 bus and then walking for twenty minutes to get from lower Ridgewood (on the Bushwick / Brooklyn border) to shop at Atlas Park. But that area could use a good bookstore. The only one I know of is the Book Kingdom, on the south side of Myrtle Avenue in Glendale, just east of Fresh Pond Road, the LIRR overpass, and Central Avenue.
It’s already settled in my mind, Theaterat. On the way to lunch yesterday, I discussed this with a friend from work, who commented that the TV network that distributes the program is not necessarily the one that broadcasts it.
I suppose fascimiles of the broadcast logs of the TV stations in question, rather than the TV Guide of those days, would be needed to settle the issue.
Thanks for helping to get this page back on topic.
No, in NYC and vicinity, Saturday Night Live remained on NBC in its 11:30 PM Saturday to 1 AM Sunday time slot from its fall 1975 premiere to the present. Kirshner ran in the same time slot on WNEW Channel 5 from mid-September 1973 to at least January 1977.
EdSolero and Theaterat, thanks for sharing your movie and TV memories !
I remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert on WNEW Channel 5 as recently as January 1977. IF ABC Channel 7 had two rock TV shows on in a row, “In Concert” on Friday night and Kirshner on Saturday night, I would have remembered it.
The last two “In Concert” shows I remember were late April or early May 1975 : Keith Richards with Rod Stewart and the Faces, including Tetsu, their then-new bass player, and Alice Cooper’s “Welcome To My Nightmare”.
It would be interesting to get a map of NYC and plot on it the Ridgewood Theater, and all the theaters adjacent to it in every direction, including the proposed Glendale Atlas Terminal multiplex.
Draw straight lines from the Ridgewood Theater to all the adjacent theaters. Draw the perpendicular bisectors of all those straight lines radiating outward from the Ridgewood to all the theaters adjacent to it.
Those perpendicular bisectors will form an irregular polygon around the Ridgewood Theater, and will enclose an area surrounding the Ridgewood Theater, within which the Ridgewood is the closest theater, in terms of straight line distance, “as the crow flies”.
That will give a rough idea of how many people will continue to be patrons of the Ridgewood Theater, with or without the proposed Glendale Atlas Terminal multiplex.
Jennifer M, please see the second post on this page by “Peter.K”. That’s me. I accidentally logged myself out last year and logged back in as “PKoch”.
My Easter Eve 1991 viewing of “Silence Of The Lambs” at Crossbay II was particularly memorable, because I got there from my Ridgewood home by taking the B-18 bus to Jamaica Ave. and Crescent St., then walking to the Crossbay II from there, past the “Last / First Bar In Brooklyn”, on the Bklyn-Queens border, where Fulton St. becomes Rockaway Blvd., thence southeast on Rockaway Blvd. with the sun setting behind me, and a big full moon rising in front of me. A beautiful and poignant clear evening !
I had since broken up with the lady I almost saw “Avalon” with at the Crossbay II in October of 1990, and, while I did NOT walk past her home in South Richmond Hill after seeing “Silence”, I DID see her in church in Manhattan the following day. We just looked at each other without saying a word : a “silence” of our own.
I still remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert being on WNEW Channel 5, 1973-1974, in NYC, and will need to see pages from the TV Guides of those years to convince me otherwise. I also remember “Creature Features” on Saturday night, 8:30 – 10:00, on WNEW Channel 5, 1969-1970, and Zacherle hosting the six-fingered hand Chiller Theater on WPIX Saturdays 7:30-9:00 PM, sort of a pre MST 3000, for example, showing the audience a piece of paper with “2 + 2 = 5” written on it, at the point in “Killers From Space” in which the bug-eyed zombies from space are showing the Peter Graves character their advanced equations.
Just to make sure we are not arguing at cross purposes mis-informed, I remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert being broadcast on WNEW Channel 5 in New York City, starting mid-September 1973.
A few memories of “In Concert” :
Focus, performing their Top Twenty hit, “Hocus Pocus”, Friday April 13, 1973. In retrospect, the lead vocalist reminded me of Robert “Waddy” Wachtel, but I don’t know if it was him.
Chuck Berry, about two weeks later. He performed “Carol” and “My Ding-A-Ling”, referring to the audience as “all my children”.
“The Midnight Special”, 1-2:30 AM, Saturday November 17, 1973 with David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, and the 1980 “floor” show. A high point of slapstick was Bowie wearing false breasts with hands reaching around from behind.
No, East Coast Rocker, I distinctly remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert as being on WNEW Channel 5 from its inception. Go check a TV website if you don’t believe me, or to produce evidence to refute me.
“In Concert” was on ABC Fridays at 11:30 PM starting in 1972 or 1973.
“The Midnight Special” was on NBC Saturdays from 1 to 2:30 a.m., “Friday Night”. Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was on WNEW Channel 5 Saturdays starting 11:30 PM in mid-September 1973. The debut show featured Earth, Wind and Fire, The Doobie Brothers, Cross Country, and special guest stars …. THE ROLLING STONES !!!! (dubbed promotion videos for “Angie”, two of them, the first one, by itself, the second, with Jagger in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, following dubbed videos of “Silver Train” and “Dancing With Mr. D”.)
The “Angie” videos had Mick Taylor sitting at the piano, with the string backing deleted from the soundtrack. All the videos had different vocals, and slightly different lead guitar, than the original backing tracks from “Goats Head Soup”, their then-latest album.
David Sanborn had a late-night talk show in 1989. I taped it on Sept. 3rd when he had Lou Reed and Mike Rathke with him and the holuse band doing “Dirty Blvd.” and “the national anthem”, “Walk On The Wild Side”, also Lou Reed and John Cale doing two “Songs For Drella” : “You’ve Got The Style It Takes” and “Nobody But You”, about the late Andy Warhol.
I subsequently saw Reed and Cale do “Nobody But You” on David Letterman’s show, but the performance was better on Sanborn’s.
I also saw Sanborn’s show when he had bassist and James Brown band alumnus Bootsie Collins as a guest, urging, “Dave, get ready to roll, Dave get ready to roll !”
Sanborn also played sax on the track “Pretty Beat Up” from the Stones' fall 1983 album “Under Cover”.
Thank you, East Coast Rocker ! I, too, remember Allison Steele The Night bird from WNEW FM 102.7. I saw her at a Janis Ian concert at the Wollman Rink in Central Park in July 1976.
I liked Don Kirshner’s “Rock Concert” on Channel 5, starting with its debut in mid-September 1973, however much I thought Kirshner himself, Mr. “I Dream Of Jeannie” music, being touted as a “rock impresario”, was ridiculous.
I think I saw Billy Crystal for the first time on Kirshner’s show in January 1977. Either that or SNL. He was really up, saying, “I feel great, my nipples are hard”, jogging in place, then he did his parody of high school drug scare movies, “Johnny : IT HAPPENED TO HIM ! IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU !”, starting with the kid jogging around the track, saying “Scholarship” to himself over and over.
Yes. The men’s room window was on the west side of the face of the building. I remember it well. East Coast Rocker, I’m glad the doberman didn’t chomp into you. Thanks for posting on this page. Now I know that you, like me, once lived in Ridgewood. A friend from parochial school (St. Brigid) whom I re-established personal contact with thirteen months ago, thanks to this website, specifically, the Ridgewood Theater page, used to live on Grove between Myrtle and Wyckoff, near the “dummy tracks”, until about 1971.
I remember the name, Bananafish Gardens, from 1973 or so. It made perfect sense to me, and I knew exactly where it came from, because the previous Fall of 1972, I had studied the J.D. Salinger short story, “A Perfect Day For Bananafish”, the first of J.D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories”, in senior English class.
The story culminates in the suicide of Seymour Glass in a Florida Gold Coast hotel while honeymooning with his vain, shallow wife. Bananafish are a metaphor for innocent children being corrupted by the obligatory shallow materialistic garbage of adult life, a theme also to be found in Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher In The Rye”.
Thanks, mrbillyc, that’s beautiful. I recall similar views of the RKO Madison from outside Sal’s barber shop, on the western corner of St. Nicholas and Woodbine, and, going from there towards Myrtle, from just outside Bonafide Opticians and Corato’s Pizza.
Thanks for the heads-up on the Our Neighborhood column in the Times Newsweekly. I’ll go there when I leave here. For too many weeks, it seems, the Times Newsweekly HAD no Our Neighborhood column.
I, too, will always feel connected to Ridgewood.
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed for both Ridgewood and THE Ridgewood!”
Agreed ! It would be such a shame, and so senseless, if the Ridgewood closed, because it’s the longest continuously running theater in NYC and vicinity, and there is no other movie theater for miles around.
mrbillyc, I think I still owe you a private e-mail, and I am sorry for not having replied.
Thanks, Bway, for your good thoughts.
Long live Ridgewood and THE Ridgewood!
Yes. My mother used to call those crappy junk stores “those little shit shops”, as opposed to quality stores like Protass and Lobell’s, and saw them as a sure sign of the deterioration of the neighborhood. Yet, they were, and are, preferable to vacant lots and buildings that become “shooting galleries” for junkies, or places for the homeless to squat.
The loss of the Madison as a viable building on that block around that time may have spurred the seediness of that block. But then, we can ask, why didn’t it recover when the Madison became a store ?
I know what you mean about Myrtle between Wyckoff and Cypress. I can feel the grunge and the crud pressing into me as soon as I step off the L train at Myrtle Avenue, and it continues as I walk east on Myrtle, despite that old and familiar Optimo Cigar sign. I can feel it fall off of me as soon as I cross Cornelia Street and pass that little McDonald’s Express across from Sterling Optical and Catalpa Avenue.
I think the only way Ridgewood has become a “bad” neighborhood is the increase in crime over the past forty years, but still, nothing like drug shooting wars on the street, or “Fort Apache The Bronx”. And no, no abandoned buildings. I think the worst of it was the RKO Madison Theater sitting gutted and derlelict from late 1977 to whenever the first store within it, opened.
I know I’m repeating myself, but I remember a sign on the RKO Madison in late February 1978 :
THIS IS HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD STARTS TO DECAY !
IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, CALL (PHONE NUMBER) …
“Even when I still lived in Ridgewood, I "abandoned” the Ridgewood for “better theaters”, and that was two decades ago, and the Ridgewood was only a two or three block walk away from my house!"
I did much the same !
What about strong Brooklyn commercial strips near Ridgewood and Bushwick ? That supermarket at Wyckoff and Putnam seems to be the only one of its size within a mile radius of itself, or am I wrong, and have overlooked one ?
Bway, I hope the Ridgewood Theater survives. I can’t see people taking the Q-55 bus and then walking for twenty minutes to get from lower Ridgewood (on the Bushwick / Brooklyn border) to see a movie at Atlas Park, if their homes are within a 15-minute walk of the Ridgewood Theater.
Where are these strong commercial strips within Queens (and Brooklyn), some stronger than the Myrtle and Fresh Pond corridors ?
When is the Atlas Terminal Multiplex due to open ? What type of stores will be in Atlas Terminal Park ?
Tonino, when and where did I refer to something before my time is ancient ?
“BTW, you young whippersnappers know how to hurt a guy."
posted by ‘Tonino’ on Dec 7, 2005 at 7:24am.
Tonino, how did I hurt you ?
I remember Ripley’s, now that you mention it. It was on the south side of Myrtle between the RKO Madison and Palmetto St., wasn’t it ?
Going east from the RKO Madison to Madison St. was the Ridgewood Garden Chinese Restaurant, at least on the second floor, then the Jay Kay Candy Store on the southwest corner of Myrtle and Madison.
Yes, you may have waited on my dad at Ripley’s, but I mostly remember shopping for clothing at Howard’s on the northwest corner of Myrtle and Putnam, a few doors east of the Ridgewood Theater.
Myrtle Avenue between Wyckoff Avenue and Fresh Pond Road, and Fresh Pond Road between Myrtle Avenue and Metropolitan Avenue, are still very busy and thriving commercial streets. I don’t see people taking the Q-55 bus and then walking for twenty minutes to get from lower Ridgewood (on the Bushwick / Brooklyn border) to shop at Atlas Park. But that area could use a good bookstore. The only one I know of is the Book Kingdom, on the south side of Myrtle Avenue in Glendale, just east of Fresh Pond Road, the LIRR overpass, and Central Avenue.
Those are great movies and great memories, Raym. Thanks for posting them.
It’s already settled in my mind, Theaterat. On the way to lunch yesterday, I discussed this with a friend from work, who commented that the TV network that distributes the program is not necessarily the one that broadcasts it.
I suppose fascimiles of the broadcast logs of the TV stations in question, rather than the TV Guide of those days, would be needed to settle the issue.
Thanks for helping to get this page back on topic.
How was your date that night ?
No, in NYC and vicinity, Saturday Night Live remained on NBC in its 11:30 PM Saturday to 1 AM Sunday time slot from its fall 1975 premiere to the present. Kirshner ran in the same time slot on WNEW Channel 5 from mid-September 1973 to at least January 1977.
The Cesar Romero / Sid Melton dinosaur movie was titled “Lost Continent” and dates from 1951.
alkan, have you looked for “Brein’s Theater” on this site, or on Cinematour ?
EdSolero and Theaterat, thanks for sharing your movie and TV memories !
I remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert on WNEW Channel 5 as recently as January 1977. IF ABC Channel 7 had two rock TV shows on in a row, “In Concert” on Friday night and Kirshner on Saturday night, I would have remembered it.
The last two “In Concert” shows I remember were late April or early May 1975 : Keith Richards with Rod Stewart and the Faces, including Tetsu, their then-new bass player, and Alice Cooper’s “Welcome To My Nightmare”.
It would be interesting to get a map of NYC and plot on it the Ridgewood Theater, and all the theaters adjacent to it in every direction, including the proposed Glendale Atlas Terminal multiplex.
Draw straight lines from the Ridgewood Theater to all the adjacent theaters. Draw the perpendicular bisectors of all those straight lines radiating outward from the Ridgewood to all the theaters adjacent to it.
Those perpendicular bisectors will form an irregular polygon around the Ridgewood Theater, and will enclose an area surrounding the Ridgewood Theater, within which the Ridgewood is the closest theater, in terms of straight line distance, “as the crow flies”.
That will give a rough idea of how many people will continue to be patrons of the Ridgewood Theater, with or without the proposed Glendale Atlas Terminal multiplex.
Yes, jenniferm, Peter Koch is my full name, I live in Dobbs Ferry NY, just north of NYC, and yes, you may use my memories in your story. Thank you.
Jennifer M, please see the second post on this page by “Peter.K”. That’s me. I accidentally logged myself out last year and logged back in as “PKoch”.
My Easter Eve 1991 viewing of “Silence Of The Lambs” at Crossbay II was particularly memorable, because I got there from my Ridgewood home by taking the B-18 bus to Jamaica Ave. and Crescent St., then walking to the Crossbay II from there, past the “Last / First Bar In Brooklyn”, on the Bklyn-Queens border, where Fulton St. becomes Rockaway Blvd., thence southeast on Rockaway Blvd. with the sun setting behind me, and a big full moon rising in front of me. A beautiful and poignant clear evening !
I had since broken up with the lady I almost saw “Avalon” with at the Crossbay II in October of 1990, and, while I did NOT walk past her home in South Richmond Hill after seeing “Silence”, I DID see her in church in Manhattan the following day. We just looked at each other without saying a word : a “silence” of our own.
I still remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert being on WNEW Channel 5, 1973-1974, in NYC, and will need to see pages from the TV Guides of those years to convince me otherwise. I also remember “Creature Features” on Saturday night, 8:30 – 10:00, on WNEW Channel 5, 1969-1970, and Zacherle hosting the six-fingered hand Chiller Theater on WPIX Saturdays 7:30-9:00 PM, sort of a pre MST 3000, for example, showing the audience a piece of paper with “2 + 2 = 5” written on it, at the point in “Killers From Space” in which the bug-eyed zombies from space are showing the Peter Graves character their advanced equations.
Just to make sure we are not arguing at cross purposes mis-informed, I remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert being broadcast on WNEW Channel 5 in New York City, starting mid-September 1973.
A few memories of “In Concert” :
Focus, performing their Top Twenty hit, “Hocus Pocus”, Friday April 13, 1973. In retrospect, the lead vocalist reminded me of Robert “Waddy” Wachtel, but I don’t know if it was him.
Chuck Berry, about two weeks later. He performed “Carol” and “My Ding-A-Ling”, referring to the audience as “all my children”.
“The Midnight Special”, 1-2:30 AM, Saturday November 17, 1973 with David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, and the 1980 “floor” show. A high point of slapstick was Bowie wearing false breasts with hands reaching around from behind.
No, East Coast Rocker, I distinctly remember Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert as being on WNEW Channel 5 from its inception. Go check a TV website if you don’t believe me, or to produce evidence to refute me.
“In Concert” was on ABC Fridays at 11:30 PM starting in 1972 or 1973.
“The Midnight Special” was on NBC Saturdays from 1 to 2:30 a.m., “Friday Night”. Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert was on WNEW Channel 5 Saturdays starting 11:30 PM in mid-September 1973. The debut show featured Earth, Wind and Fire, The Doobie Brothers, Cross Country, and special guest stars …. THE ROLLING STONES !!!! (dubbed promotion videos for “Angie”, two of them, the first one, by itself, the second, with Jagger in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, following dubbed videos of “Silver Train” and “Dancing With Mr. D”.)
The “Angie” videos had Mick Taylor sitting at the piano, with the string backing deleted from the soundtrack. All the videos had different vocals, and slightly different lead guitar, than the original backing tracks from “Goats Head Soup”, their then-latest album.
David Sanborn had a late-night talk show in 1989. I taped it on Sept. 3rd when he had Lou Reed and Mike Rathke with him and the holuse band doing “Dirty Blvd.” and “the national anthem”, “Walk On The Wild Side”, also Lou Reed and John Cale doing two “Songs For Drella” : “You’ve Got The Style It Takes” and “Nobody But You”, about the late Andy Warhol.
I subsequently saw Reed and Cale do “Nobody But You” on David Letterman’s show, but the performance was better on Sanborn’s.
I also saw Sanborn’s show when he had bassist and James Brown band alumnus Bootsie Collins as a guest, urging, “Dave, get ready to roll, Dave get ready to roll !”
Sanborn also played sax on the track “Pretty Beat Up” from the Stones' fall 1983 album “Under Cover”.
Thank you, East Coast Rocker ! I, too, remember Allison Steele The Night bird from WNEW FM 102.7. I saw her at a Janis Ian concert at the Wollman Rink in Central Park in July 1976.
I liked Don Kirshner’s “Rock Concert” on Channel 5, starting with its debut in mid-September 1973, however much I thought Kirshner himself, Mr. “I Dream Of Jeannie” music, being touted as a “rock impresario”, was ridiculous.
I think I saw Billy Crystal for the first time on Kirshner’s show in January 1977. Either that or SNL. He was really up, saying, “I feel great, my nipples are hard”, jogging in place, then he did his parody of high school drug scare movies, “Johnny : IT HAPPENED TO HIM ! IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU !”, starting with the kid jogging around the track, saying “Scholarship” to himself over and over.