Loews Lefrak City Triplex
59-16 99th Street,
Corona,
NY
11368
59-16 99th Street,
Corona,
NY
11368
7 people
favorited this theater
Showing 26 - 50 of 93 comments
I lived across from lefrak city in REGO PARK gardens back in the mid ‘60s (when the area was nice) we always assumed and thought we lived in rego park. i tend to believe it is corona and always was. i think the LIE is the dividing line between rego park and corona.
I worked for Loews during the time the theatre closed and the Queens Division office was moved from there to the Bay Terrace. It was always referred to as the Loews Lefrak or just simply “The Lefrak”.
According to the 1984 New York Times article quoted and linked to in Lost Memory’s Oct 27, 2006 post above, the theater was called “the Loew’s at Lefrak City” which is certainly pretentious enough.
BTW, among the other notable things in that article, the complex was marking its 25th anniversary in 1984, which would make 1959 the starting date; never once does the article refer to Lefrak City, Samuel J. Lefrak, or the Lefrak Organization as “LeFrak”; and there’s this paragraph:
“The development, which has apartment towers grouped in four-building sections, is bordered by 57th Avenue, Junction Boulevard, 99th Street and the Horace Harding Expressway. Depending on whom one talks to, it is in Elmhurst, Corona, or, as Mr. Lefrak maintains, Rego Park.”
lefrak is a jew .. always was… always will be..there is nothing to be ashamed of. in fact lefrak city was something like 85% jewish when it was first built in the early ‘60s. in fact most of that area was jewish at one time.
I’m pleased to see that the listing here has been revised to say Corona, NY, which is accurate. I hope this site never is seduced by this other apparently insidious revisionism, which we had alluded to earlier: the insistence by the Lefraks to recast themselves as the LeFraks. Apparently some media outlets are now buying into that scheme. I was dismayed to find this story in the online TimesLedger.com:
Man shot in LeFrak City after argument: Police
02/21/2008
LEFRAK CITY – A LeFrak City man was shot in the buttocks early Tuesday morning, police said. At 1:39 a.m., officers responded to 83-32 57th Ave. to find a man shot once in the lower left flank, police said. The victim had been involved in an argument with several other men, police said. He was treated for the wound at the scene and taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center with non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
Getting shot in the butt there sounds about right, but LeFrak City? Come on!
Thanks, Bloop. I remember that newspaper ad, along with the TV commercials showing the Ernest Borgnine character begging for mercy from Willard.
WILLARD AD: View link
Thanks, guys.
Obviously, Microsoft has expanded the meaning of the word “live”…
Thanks! Yes, that’s the one I meant….I know about the Fresh Meadows too, that’s on the other side of the expressway….
Anyway, as for the Lowes Cineplex…I didn’t realize it was torn down until now, although, I have been through on the expressway often…I guess out of sight, out of mind. Thanks again for clearing that up!
BTW, the local live images must be older than 2005, as thats when it was torn down.
Aha! Never mind what I just said. The theater you’re talking about is this one:
/theaters/6154/
If that’s a theater, it’s not one I recognize. But just a very short distance East, on the other side of the LIE, is what I used to know as the Century Fresh Meadows. Could that be what you’re thinking of?
View link
So not that we got that all cleared up, anyone know what the name of the theater with the murals painted above the long marquee was, that I linked above, further down the LIE?
View link
The original artist’s rendering, which is linked to a couple of times above, shows the sign as simply “UA Theatre” and that’s what I remember it actually saying (about the ONLY thing in that rendering that is accurate!). The early publicity referred to it as the “new UA Theatre”. They never referred to it, at least initially, as the UA Lefrak or UA Lefrak City, that I can recall. But in addition to the 60s-era ad posted by RobertR for the computerized Ali-Marciano fight simulation in which it is The U.A. Theatre, to which Lost Memory links again above, there is in another ad he posted on Nov. 7, 2005 for a 1970 run of Five Easy Pieces, and the name is given as UA’s LEFRAK CITY. I don’t see any ads posted for the Loews incarnation (and I wasn’t around any longer when they owned it).
I have ads showing this as Loews Lefrak from when it was triplexed as soon as I have time I will get them out and scan them.
Jeffrey1955 asked above what a “frak” is in French. Perhaps we need to consult the Milton Berle routine about the performers, Fric and Frac, or maybe the Gherkin Jerkers.
Le Krak ? What about LeFreak, by Chic, from early 1979 ?
Thanks, guys. Hopefully, links to the appropriate newspaper ads will soon be posted.
Actually, its opening name was the cumbersome “United Artists All-Purpose D-150 Theatre.”
Lefrak City was built in stages, beginning with the first sections on Junction Blvd. about 1961, with additional sections going all the way back to 99th Street by 1966.
lefrak city was built in the late ‘50s and started leasing in the early '60s. i am guessing no later then 1962. Mr. lefrak was a well known builder in queens. He built most (if not all) of the 6 story buildings in rego park, forest hills.
Thanks, all.
When was Lefrak City built, 1964 ?
it was called loews lefrak. i saw planet of the apes there in 1968. i lived in rego park gardens off of junction blvd. thats when the neighborhood was nice, clean and safe. times have changed.
Yes, that’s it. (I had forgotten about Loehmann’s.) The Warehouse Super Center sign is on the old marquee.
Here’s a better link looking west:
View link
Thanks jeffrey. I was confused with the theater in the second link.
So you are talking about the building linked below, where Loermann’s used to be in?
View link