This Tuesday, January 12, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission will vote whether to make a Ridgewood landmark an official city landmark. Up for designation is the three-story limestone and terra cotta Classical Revival facade of the Ridgewood Theatre (55-27 Myrtle Ave). Minutes before this vote, the commission will decide on the status of another historic Queens building, Richmond Hill's P.S. 66 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School.
The theater operated continuously from its 1916 opening until 2008, considered the longest-running movie house in the nation. In its early days, it staged Vaudeville, then screened silent films and the first "all-talkie," Lights of New York (1928). The Ridgewood was designed by famous American theater architect Thomas White Lamb, who built the original Ziegfield. (His great-grandson, Thomas A. Lamb, wrote a testimony supporting landmark status for the theater).
Present co-owner Mario Saggese supports landmarking the facade. He said he envisions a historically sensitive plan for the downstairs auditorium space. There would be shops downstairs and modern screens upstairs. Preservationist and Friends of Ridgewood Theatre founder Michael Perlman, who calls theaters "the ultimate public institutions," says that if the Ridgewood were "preserved and adaptively reused for theater-related purposes, it would contribute to an up-and-coming neighborhood and a diverse borough."
The public meeting will be held from 10:15 to 10:25 a.m., January 12, 2009, at the Municipal Building in Manhattan (1 Centre St, 9th Floor North).
Comments