Colony Theatre

Thank you for updating the theater’s address on this thread, as well as the write-up.

Tinseltoes: Thank you for sharing this very impressive vintage image.

I grew up in Jackson Heights in the 1950s and saw a few movies at the Colony, including High Noon, Disney’s The Living Desert, and at least one of Ingmar Bergman’s films. The Colony was one of two “art houses” in the neighborhood, the other being the Earle on 74th Street.

In the 60s, I went to the Colony the most. One event was showing epic ‘Gone with the Wind’ across two afternoons. Mom said I had to see this on the big screen (same with ‘Wizard of Oz’ at the Midway). Mom told me as a teenager she used to ‘fish’ for people’s hats from the Colony’s balcony with string and gum. Other stores on 82st were Danow’s card shop (1, then 2 locations!), Jamaica Saving Bank (moved from 81st when Field’s expanded into their space), Household Finance and Beneficial Finance, Burger Nest, Kresge’s, Drs Rosenkrans and Adler (oral surgeons), Barricini candy.

I went to ask around and look around today at the former location of this theater, and here’s what I found.

1. On Google Maps, the satellite view shows a large rectangle roof higher than the stores in the front, pretty good evidence of where the theater stood. (Take a look here: http://i.imgur.com/HZHssAn.jpg). I was curious if the stores went all the way back or if there was a possibility of a stock room or something being used that still had original detail from the theater.

2. I started on the south end and went into $5 Shoe store. (http://i.imgur.com/95VOqoD.png). From the street, this looks very small but it opens up into an enormous double-height space. It’s a big L-shaped space, and it goes behind the next two stores—Beverly Boutique and Cohen’s fashion optical. It’s finished in drop ceiling tiles and I did manage to see some original trim or something where one tile was missing. But other than that, there is no indication that it was a movie house.

3. There is a Foot Locker where the entrance once stood. A staff member allowed me to look into the stock room, where I could see the ceiling was not only double-height, but there were still large chunks of the original walls and plaster from the theater. They were painted a greenish color. I managed to spot at least one brass or gold-painted torch-shaped sconce intact from the theater. The wall dividing the back of the store on the right is just bare sheetrock. On the other side of the wall is the $5 shoe store. So the dimensions of the original movie house are intact, if not anything else.

4. The Foot Locker opened up only about 6 or 7 years ago, and I don’t recall what was there prior to that. They have a very low drop ceiling in the front of their store so it’s possible that something original detail is still there, but I sincerely doubt it.

Please update, it was a twin in the 1980s