Beth of The Best Hearts are Crunchy is hosting Postcard Friendship Friday now. At her blog today she tells us the legend of the Dogwood Tree.
Here's a vintage photo of the movie theatre I grew up going to for all the great movies of my day.
Once one of the most celebrated movie palaces of New York City, the RKO Keith's Theatre in the Flushing section of Queens, is only a ghost of its former self.
Opened in 1928, by the 1970's, the theatre had been tripled, and as legend has it, in 1986, after almost sixty years of showing movies, the theater was closed and sold. Soon after, its owner attempted to demolish it before a hearing could be held to decide its fate.
Having already removed its famous facade and with part of the theater already gutted, the demolition was halted by the city. The owner soon forfeited the property, and the damaged and stripped RKO Keith's Theatre has sat and waited for its final demolition for almost 30 years.
No one has ever decided what to do with the building and it sits to this day.
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14 comments:
This is always such a sad story - and the same type of thing has been happening in Montreal. Here buildings are sometimes left empty until they "just happen" to catch on fire.
Of course, we can't conserve everything - or freeze a city in a given time period - but it's too bad that some developers cannot at the very least conserve the front of the buildings.
Evelyn in Montreal
Aww, it's a beautiful building! Unfortunately not much compares to the beauty of those days gone by.
Cheers and happy Easter.
I love old cinemas, what a sad story, but a fate shared with many beautiful old buildings.
Howdy
Happy PFF to you .
Thank you for sharing the history of this beautiful building.
How very sad that it is sitting empty with no one to love or restore it's amazing past
for the future.
Thank you again for sharing with us.
May your Easter weekend be filled with many happy moments.
Until next time
Happy Trails
Wow, that is a beautiful building!
Government nonsense at its worst! They had the right to stop the demolition, but then to do nothing is absurd. I bet you have many fond memories of the place.
I hate to see these beautiful old buildings destroyed. They tell our history and we loose a lot when they are demolished.
Wow! What a shame that they messed with it in the first place. I hope you have a very happy Easter Mary!
Maybe they won't pull down the building. One can hope. Most of the old theaters here in Chicago are long gone. Nothing but multiplexes.
That's a sad story. It was more fun to go to the movies in the old theaters.
The theater in my town was "The Rialto", and it holds on, barely. I like these old theaters so much better than the new ones!
What a great sad story, and certainly a good part of your history. Happy Easter.
As a film buff I really loved this postcard. A sad story, buy happily some of these movie palaces with their art deco interiors are restored and even function as luxurous cinemas today. In Amsterdam we are proud of the Tuschinski cinema dating from 1921 which is a real treasure and still a wonderful place to go to the movies. Thanks for sharing. Happy PFF.
Here's a picture of the lobby of Tuschinski: http://www.vwlepaulski.com/Pics3/tuschinski2.jpg
Wow, what a sad story. But I'm glad there are reminders, like this card, of its former glory.
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