In Sidney Lumet’s “Bye Bye Braverman” (1968, I think) there’s a scene where the the main characters, who’ve been driving frantically around New York looking for a funeral, stop briefly and run into a Chinese restaurant, emerging, seconds later, with a basket full of egg rolls.
That Chinese restaurant was right next to the Rialto. In between this place and the theater is either a very thin street (too thin to drive a car down) or a service alleyway, I can’t recall which.
In any event, the shots outside the restaurant were angled specifically so that the theater isn’t shown.
That was a great restaurant while it was there. It turned into other businesses afterwards, but their sign remained for years afterwards, I don’t know if it’s still up there.
Another neighborhood theater I loved. I remember going there in the early 70’s right after a major, major snowstorm, the most severe I had ever seen. But they were opened, warm and familiar. A great place to see a flick.
The Rialto was a Century theater for my entire life (I was born in 1956). I never knew it as anything else but a Century theater. This needs to be updated.
I have some really nice shots of this theater on slides somewhere. When I was graduating from Madison High Shcool in 1974, I took them as part of a senior show I was putting together, which ultimately never came off. Finding them is not going to be easy, but I know they’re here somewhere. I’ll look for them. As for the Avalon, I loved that place. it was big, clean comfortable and had a great screen and sound system. It killed me when it closed, another victim in the dismantlement of the Century Theaters chain.
Gustavelifting- Yes. The New China Inn was right next door to McManus Funeral Parlor. My grandafther actually had his wake in that establishment, as well.
Okay Trentonians, the CYO occupies a building which was obviously a theater at some time in the past. Little has been done to hide that fact. A marquee still exists (although it now says CYO on top), even the parking lot is still intact. The address is 920 S. Broad Street. There was a long forgotten Bijou theater on South Broad, but nobody’s come forward with any information about it, and the address is not the same. If you know anything, I’d be curious to know.
As a kid, I spent many a happy Saturday afternoon at both the Brook AND Marine theaters. We’d often have Chinese food at my all time favorite Chinese restaurant, New China Inn on the corner of Flatlands and Flatbush. This place was owned, for decades, by the Choy family, whom I knew very well. It’s the place where Barbra Streisand manned for cash register for a while right before she got her Broadway break. She also used to babysit for the family’s kids. They used to tell me about it and then I heard Streisand mention it on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, as well. I moved out of Brooklyn in 1996 after a nasty divorce, to Trenton NJ. I brought a girlfriend into Brooklyn in 2001 (a short time before 9/11) to go to my favorite eatery and found it had turned into a florist. I was so heartbroken, I’ve never returned.
I’m very surprised to hear that the archdiocese closed Saint Thomas Aquinas School. That place seemed indestructible.
As for the large apartment building squeezed in next to the old Brook theater, it was a notorious hotbed of crime, drugs and prostitution for years and years. I can’t imagine it having fallen down, though. That must have really been something to see.
I also used to frequent the Marine theater, right around the corner; another great neighborhood theater. In the sixties, we’d catch a movie in the afternoon and have dinner at either the Coronet deli (great Jewish specialties, old style) or Honam’s, another fine Chinese restaurant with superb egg rolls.
At 7, my mom let me go to either theater alone or with equally young friends. None of us ever had any problems.
In Sidney Lumet’s “Bye Bye Braverman” (1968, I think) there’s a scene where the the main characters, who’ve been driving frantically around New York looking for a funeral, stop briefly and run into a Chinese restaurant, emerging, seconds later, with a basket full of egg rolls.
That Chinese restaurant was right next to the Rialto. In between this place and the theater is either a very thin street (too thin to drive a car down) or a service alleyway, I can’t recall which.
In any event, the shots outside the restaurant were angled specifically so that the theater isn’t shown.
That was a great restaurant while it was there. It turned into other businesses afterwards, but their sign remained for years afterwards, I don’t know if it’s still up there.
Another neighborhood theater I loved. I remember going there in the early 70’s right after a major, major snowstorm, the most severe I had ever seen. But they were opened, warm and familiar. A great place to see a flick.
The Rialto was a Century theater for my entire life (I was born in 1956). I never knew it as anything else but a Century theater. This needs to be updated.
I have some really nice shots of this theater on slides somewhere. When I was graduating from Madison High Shcool in 1974, I took them as part of a senior show I was putting together, which ultimately never came off. Finding them is not going to be easy, but I know they’re here somewhere. I’ll look for them. As for the Avalon, I loved that place. it was big, clean comfortable and had a great screen and sound system. It killed me when it closed, another victim in the dismantlement of the Century Theaters chain.
Gustavelifting- Yes. The New China Inn was right next door to McManus Funeral Parlor. My grandafther actually had his wake in that establishment, as well.
Okay Trentonians, the CYO occupies a building which was obviously a theater at some time in the past. Little has been done to hide that fact. A marquee still exists (although it now says CYO on top), even the parking lot is still intact. The address is 920 S. Broad Street. There was a long forgotten Bijou theater on South Broad, but nobody’s come forward with any information about it, and the address is not the same. If you know anything, I’d be curious to know.
As a kid, I spent many a happy Saturday afternoon at both the Brook AND Marine theaters. We’d often have Chinese food at my all time favorite Chinese restaurant, New China Inn on the corner of Flatlands and Flatbush. This place was owned, for decades, by the Choy family, whom I knew very well. It’s the place where Barbra Streisand manned for cash register for a while right before she got her Broadway break. She also used to babysit for the family’s kids. They used to tell me about it and then I heard Streisand mention it on “Inside the Actor’s Studio”, as well. I moved out of Brooklyn in 1996 after a nasty divorce, to Trenton NJ. I brought a girlfriend into Brooklyn in 2001 (a short time before 9/11) to go to my favorite eatery and found it had turned into a florist. I was so heartbroken, I’ve never returned.
I’m very surprised to hear that the archdiocese closed Saint Thomas Aquinas School. That place seemed indestructible.
As for the large apartment building squeezed in next to the old Brook theater, it was a notorious hotbed of crime, drugs and prostitution for years and years. I can’t imagine it having fallen down, though. That must have really been something to see.
I also used to frequent the Marine theater, right around the corner; another great neighborhood theater. In the sixties, we’d catch a movie in the afternoon and have dinner at either the Coronet deli (great Jewish specialties, old style) or Honam’s, another fine Chinese restaurant with superb egg rolls.
At 7, my mom let me go to either theater alone or with equally young friends. None of us ever had any problems.