My 72-year old memnory tells me that the theater at the corner of Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, along which the Woodlawn Line IRT train ran, was Loew’s Grand. The Valentine, on the other hand, was on the east side of the Grand Concourse between the RKO Fordham and the confluence of Fordham Road and Kingsbridge Road, which was on the way down the hill toward Third Avenue.
The Paradise was certainly a wonder and the place to make an impression on the girls. It was expensive, however, costing a quarter or a half-a-buck apiece on Saturday night. That was in ‘47 or '48. To go there for a show meant to forego either a soda afterward or to have to walk home the three miles or so to my home neighborhood near Mosholu Parkway. I did the latter one time.
A bit south of the Paradise on the same side of the Concourse was an “art film” house named the Ascot. It specialized in foreign films, and the less-celebrated Hollywood releases. My folks dragged me there once to view Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, a WWII weepy love story. Ugh! My friends and I went to the Ascot for more macho fare. The last one I remember seeing there was Viva Zapata. After 1950 or so, I took girls to Greenwich Village where I remember seeing Marx Bros and WC Fields double bills.
Jerry Breslaw, ex-Bronx, now in the Washington DC area.
My 72-year old memnory tells me that the theater at the corner of Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, along which the Woodlawn Line IRT train ran, was Loew’s Grand. The Valentine, on the other hand, was on the east side of the Grand Concourse between the RKO Fordham and the confluence of Fordham Road and Kingsbridge Road, which was on the way down the hill toward Third Avenue.
The Paradise was certainly a wonder and the place to make an impression on the girls. It was expensive, however, costing a quarter or a half-a-buck apiece on Saturday night. That was in ‘47 or '48. To go there for a show meant to forego either a soda afterward or to have to walk home the three miles or so to my home neighborhood near Mosholu Parkway. I did the latter one time.
A bit south of the Paradise on the same side of the Concourse was an “art film” house named the Ascot. It specialized in foreign films, and the less-celebrated Hollywood releases. My folks dragged me there once to view Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, a WWII weepy love story. Ugh! My friends and I went to the Ascot for more macho fare. The last one I remember seeing there was Viva Zapata. After 1950 or so, I took girls to Greenwich Village where I remember seeing Marx Bros and WC Fields double bills.
Jerry Breslaw, ex-Bronx, now in the Washington DC area.