Riveted in Ridgewood

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Cinematreasures.org is a world unto itself. On the web site’s numerous message boards, cinema aficionados meet, mingle, and argue the merits of historic theaters long-ago turned into a Starbucks or a CVS.
Many debates have sprung up on the web site’s page dedicated to the Ridgewood Theatre. There was the argument over whether or not the theater is technically in Queens or Brooklyn. “The hyphenated address and 11385 zip code confirm the location is in Queens County,” wrote one poster. There was confusion about the blizzard that knocked down the theater’s old marquee - it was February 9, 1969, not 1968, a poster assured.
Lately, however, much of the conversation has revolved around the denouement for the Ridgewood Theatre, the longest continuously operated movie house in New York State and, by many accounts, the entire U.S. The Myrtle Avenue mainstay shut its doors this year on March 9, 91 years after it first opened them. Sadly, much of the theater’s early 20th century splendor - cream-colored walls with delicate gold accents, crushed velvet seats - had been covered up with muted black paint and cheap run-of-the-mill fabric.
Despite its decay - pest infestation, sticky floors and filthy bathrooms - the Ridgewood was still a refuge for movie fans. It was a place to go for a cheap ticket and its mere existence was an anchor point for the nostalgia of Queens expatriots. For others, the Ridgewood was initially a job that paid the bills, but it promptly turned into a quirky clubhouse.
As news spread of the Ridgewood’s closing, 25-year-old Michael Perlman sprang into action. The Chairman of the Rego-Forest Preservation Council and a Queens Preservation Council Board member, Perlman commenced an urgent effort to attract a “historically-sensitive” tenant or buyer. He sent letters to newspapers. He networked with theater owners and corporations, producers and directors. He created a Ridgewood Theatre Myspace page (www.myspace.com/ridgewoodtheatre).
“It really hit local residents, theater buffs and historians by surprise,” Perlman said of the sudden closing of the theater. “And that was heartbreaking to see.”
‘Heartbreaking’ could be a bit of an understatement when you are talking about a community accustomed to supernatural heroics on the big screen. No superhero or even a subtle splash of artistic license could save the Ridgewood, not with economic woes running rampant on Myrtle Avenue.
Theodore M. Renz, the Executive Director of the Myrtle Avenue Business Improvement District and the Ridgewood Local Development Corporation pointed to the high number of vacancies along Myrtle and said 45 solicitations to big retailers have turned up no tenants for the Ridgewood. Renz is promoting “nice adaptive reuse” that would entice a store like H & M or Gap into the theater, but at the same time preserve the faςade and as many interior elements as possible. If a retailer took the ground floor, Renz proposed, an entrance for an upper level movie theater could be created on a side street, opening up a new area for development.
According to Renz and many of the Ridgewood’s devotees, the theater was destined to fail because its most recent owners, the Diaz brothers, put no money into it.
“I was there all the time so I knew all the nooks and crannies of it,” said 25-year-old George Tapia, who started at the theater as a candy boy in 2002 and rose up through the ranks of usher and assistant manager before he left in 2005. Apparently, some of those crannies were a little too dark and deep for comfort. The theater’s shadowy “secret” rooms, some of which housed old projectors, had become a bastion for the homeless.
Tapia was there the night a cleaner was killed. In fact, he was the last person to see her alive. After the murder, Tapia said, the already close-knit group of employees grew closer, celebrating holidays and birthdays in the theater’s ornate lobby.
Standing in front of the Ridgewood’s locked gate, Tapia checked the time on his cell phone. “I would be here right now,” he said peering inside. “Yeah. This place has a lot of memories. A lot of memories,” Tapia said, nodding slowly. “Yeah, well those days are over now,” he added somberly.
The good old days are a different period for Robert Rauschenbach, who began going to the theater in the 1960s at the age of three, long before the advent of the multiplex and the DVD kept would-be moviegoers away.
Rauschenbach remembers when there were 10 theaters in Ridgewood and his native Glendale. Entire neighborhoods would go to movies together, he said.
“When you sat in your seat, and the lights went down, and the curtain opened and the screen was larger than life, it was a whole thing that couldn’t be duplicated anywhere else,” he recalled.
“This is me,” said Monica Harbison, 22, gesturing toward the Ridgewood Theatre and the surrounding neighborhood. As a teenager, Harbison stumbled upon the history of the theater on the Internet as she searched for movie times. She quickly became an aficionado with the help of her theater critic and historian stepfather.
“I guess I’m like an old soul in a young body,” Harbison said, noting how few of her peers are interested in history and old architecture. The Ridgewood’s seats had little fabric left on them and the sound system consisted of “the kind of speakers you buy in an electronics store,” she said.
The customary attitude toward the theater was such: “I’m probably going to get sick in here, but it’s OK - I’m here to see a movie, damn it!” Harbison said, slapping her thigh and smiling.
Harbison, like Rauschenbach, would like to see the Ridgewood remain a movie theater - “A scrub-down and a paint job and it would be fine!” - but she would settle for seeing it converted into a mixed-use performance space with screens for movies, and stages for concerts and events.
Jeff Gottlieb, the President of the Central Queens Historical Society, sees architectural evolution as inherent to society.
“Movie theaters were for profit. If you’re not making money on a particular piece of property you change the use of it or you sell it,” Gottlieb said matter-of-factly. Look at archeology, he explained. “You have four separate civilizations in one area, with different usage. From a movie theater becomes a department store, from a department store the space might be used as a school.”
However, Gottlieb, who has twice conducted a survey of the lost movie houses of central Queens, acknowledges that the Ridgewood will leave a void that is impossible to fill.
Regardless of what the structure is used for, Perlman, who also hopes for a mixed-use cultural facility, is pushing for the theater’s lobby and faςade to be landmarked and is planning another letter campaign to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC).
According to Elisabeth de Bourbon of the LPC, an LPC staff member has photographed the theater. The LPC is presently considering whether the Ridgewood would merit designation among the city’s 25,000 landmarked buildings, based on “architectural, historical or cultural significance.”
However, in keeping with cinematic tradition, the story seems more dramatic than democratic. Many interested parties have said the asking price, which has dropped from $14 million to $11.75 million, for the roughly 53,000 square-foot space is too steep.
According to Perlman, current Ridgewood owner Tony Montalbano recently told a member of the Queens Preservation Council that he had found a tenant. Nevertheless, Montalbano would say nothing else and was resolute in his desire for no further contact. He directed all inquiries to his attorney, who acknowledged the property was still available. An individual at Massey Knakal Realty Services confirmed no tenant or buyer had been secured.
Whatever happens to the Ridgewood Theatre, the story will play out like a classic cinema ‘cliffhanger.’