RKO Madison Theatre
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
54-30 Myrtle Avenue,
Ridgewood,
NY
11385
21 people
favorited this theater
Showing 326 - 350 of 1,251 comments
MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN
You are most welcome, Panzer65, to my excellent postings !
Did you REALLY expect the young male characters in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” to know exactly what Led Zeppelin track was on each Led Zeppelin album, given their limited mental capacity ?
Warren has posted an interesting anecdote about how a Led Zeppelin concert movie caused the destruction of the interior of the Drake Theater on Woodhaven Blvd. in Middle Village, Queens.
The Madison was never more than a “nabe”, Warren ? Perhaps it’s time we dug into and began posting here about the Madison’s past history of live performances and appearances.
After viewing the Capitol Theater page and its images, it appears the architecture of the RKO Madison is very similar to that of the Capitol. Marble staircase, elaborate chandeliers, domed ceiling large balcony, ornate interior moldings, and high lobby ceiling.
No sir, I did not see “Fast Times” at the Madison,but since we were going slightly off topic about the geographical errors in “King Kong” I thought this would be a good addition.
Yup. I caught that one when I first saw “Fast Times” in theaters way back when. “Kashmir” is on the album “Physical Graffiti.” What that has to do with the Madison, I have no idea! Perhaps you caught that film here, Panzera? LOL!
Theres a fact error in the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”.One man is talking to the other about women and mentions that to have an ideal date you should play side one of Led Zeppelin 4. The next scene
shows one of the men in a car with his date and playing Led Zeppelin, but the song is not on the aforementioned album.
Can’t seem to be able to go too long here without someone making a disparaging remark about someone else. What a shame.
Schlemiel, chow, and Excalibur.
Thanks Ed Solero on the facts about geographical errors in Hollywood movies, your quite correct, they dont have a fact checker for films like they do in books and/or newspapers.
Warren, Did you go to the balcony, to try that mysterious door Bway has mentioned? I may have to bring my camera . open it and find Madison’s past through photos.
PKoch, Thanks for your excellent postings!
Q: When is a high number on a theater’s counter wholly misleading regarding the actual relevant content therein?
A: When the theater is unfortunate enough to have PKoch posting 3 out of 4 of the posts.
Shalom, ciao, and excelsior
Sorry, that should have been “Kosciuszko”.
Good points, Ed Solero and Bob Furmanek. My thanks to the both of you. Yes, why would Kong, a rampaging, enraged monster, proceed in a straight line from the theater he escaped from, to the Empire State Building ?
How ironic that exposing the inner ornamentation condemns it to demolition !
To further (literally) beat a dead horse on a NYC geography issue (and a more local one at that) I’m sure you all know the one about the policeman (could be “Potsy” in the NY Daily News comic strip) who finds a dead horse on Koscisuzko Street. In writing their report, they find that neither can spell that street name, so they say, “Let’s drag it over to Myrtle (or DeKalb) Avenue !”
Unfortunately, like my experience with the Royal in Bloomfield NJ, you won’t get to see what survives of the original ornamentation until they tear it down. At that point, there’s no hope to save it!
Just to beat a dead horse on this NYC geography issue in the ‘33 “King Kong”, let me just add two things. Firstly, it could be that Kong had rampaged through the City after breaking out of the theater in a random or circular manner. Secondly (and probably more to the heart of the matter), Hollywood has never much concerned itself with accurate geographic depictions of NYC. That probably goes for a lot of other cities as well, but since NY is the only city with which I’m intimately familiar I can only be sure of the inconsistencies in its many cinematic portrayals. “Independence Day” put the Empire State Building smack in the middle of Fifth Avenue (like Grand Central Terminal straddles Park Ave), for example. Speaking of Grand Central, “Men in Black” had Will Smith jumping off the auto-ramp that circumvents the Terminal onto a truck – which then turns a quick corner and winds up in front of the Guggenheim Museum (which is actually some 40 plus blocks uptown and a couple of avenues over).
Anyway, the Hippodrome is a very likely location for the theater in Kong, Lost… great suggestion!
We may never really know for sure what remains within the Liberty Dept. Store of the original RKO Madison interior.
When I walk around inside there, I find myself wishing I had “four-dimensional vision”, like David Bowie had as “The Man Who Fell To Earth”, who, at one point, could see past and present at the same time. Or I feel like the Robin Williams character in “Moscow On The Hudson”, who thought he saw his Russian family in the East Village tenement he lived in, because he was so homesick, and missed them so much.
Or like the Terminator, with his computerized brain, able to superimpose all sorts of graphics on what he actually sees. Like looking up at the curve of the balcony edge, and, while looking at the drop ceiling, being able to “see” beyond it with a superimposed schematic of where the balcony seats and their aisles used to be.
By the way, I noticed the “Store World” on the sign on the wall in one of Warren’s photos. I am trying hard to think, but I wonder if that was the name of the flea market style store that occupied the Madison around the time the Busy Bee store took over. It was short lived.
Also, just to add, I am surprised Warren that you found the interior so startling. I think most here described how the place looked, and that absolutely nothing survived of the theater days inside, aside from the shape of the cureved balcony swooping through the store, it couldn’t possibly be a surprise to see that nothing remained, as many of us who have been through there described the scene in almost painful detail. The depressingness of it has been described here often, on what a beautiful place it once was, and now it’s all gone. All that possibly could remain is maybe a soot covered dome ceiling (from the fire) above the drop ceiling.
I have never seen Myrtle Ave look like a “ghost town”…so I can’t imagine why it may have looked like that. The occupancy rate of the stores on Myrtle Ave between Wyckoff and Fresh Pond Rd are like 99%, so if it was a “ghost town” often, it would show in many vacant stores. Obviously the businesses do quite well to keep all those stores filled, and when one moves out, there’s always another one filling it soon after….so I don’t have any worry for Ridgewood’s shopping district.
Thanks, Lost Memory. Do you think the Jewish holidays might have had something to do with it as well ?
Perhaps.
I think that’s a (deliberate?) misreading.
Is that what you want, Warren ? For Ridgewood to become a ghost town, courtesy of Atlas Park ?
Live shows at the Madison ? Read this page, Bobby Boinko, starting at the top. Al Jolson, perhaps, Ed Sullivan, Shakespeare, The Dave Clark Five, the mystic, “Zelaine”, Bob Johnstone, to name a few …
I never saw one film at the Madison, but I saw many at the Ridgewood,Haven, and Arion not to mention the Sunrise drive in.
The posting counter appears at the top left each time a posting is entered, 1257 is a high number, as compared to the Ridgewood I will have to check. My interest in this page contiues because the Madison has a sort of mystique about it, especially after reading every posting.
There seems to be a lot of interest in this place. What types of live shows did it show with the movies?
http://boinko.com
Understood, Panzer65. Thank YOU ! You never saw even one film at the Madison ?
How many comments does the Ridgewood have posted ? Are the comment counts for the Ridgewood and the Madison a record high for Cinema Tressures ?
Agreed, BklynJim. The Madison, especially in its later years, was almost a “spine-tingling” haunted house itself, haunted by far more than “thirteen” ghosts ! Perfect for those William Castle gimmick B formula shockers !
Let alone Hitchcock’s “Psycho” !
The RKO Madison has 1257 comments posted!