RKO Keith's Theater (Flushing, Queens)

The RKO Keith's Theater was at 13535 Northern Boulevard, at the intersection with Main Street, in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City. , most of the theater was being demolished and replaced with 269 condominium apartments, developed by Xinyuan Real Estate. The ticket lobby and grand foyer were temporarily removed and are planned to be reinstalled in the condominium development's lobby. The RKO Keith's was originally conceived as a venue for vaudeville, which in the late 1920s was competing with films; as a result, the design was more elaborate than that of older theaters. The building's facade on Northern Boulevard was relatively plain, with a curved marquee facing Main Street (later replaced with a horizontal advertising board). The ground story had storefronts, while the other stories had a brown facade, with marble spandrel panels between the second- and third-story windows. The interior was ornately decorated in plaster and wood. The room measures . Along with the grand foyer, it is the only part of the theater that is preserved. Originally, there was a ticket booth at ground level. The ceiling, of flat plaster painted blue, is supported by carved columns, designed in the Spanish Baroque Revival style. , plans call for a retail elevator vestibule to be built east of the ticket lobby, with two elevators. A circular stair, leading up to retail spaces on the mezzanine level, will also be built east of the ticket lobby. A sloped glass facade will be installed in the base of the condominium building, overlooking the ticket lobby. it measures wide. The east wall of the grand foyer contains a terracotta drinking fountain with polychrome tiles. Auditorium The auditorium contained 2,974 seats across an orchestra level and a balcony. The RKO Keith's auditorium was designed to give the feeling that the audience was in a garden, with Baroque, Gothic, and Moorish ornament in the style of Spanish architect J. M. de Churriguera. The balcony level protruded substantially, nearly reaching the proscenium opening in front of the auditorium. This was characteristic of vaudeville theaters, where the proximity of the audience to the stage was an important factor. The underside of the balcony had cut-glass chandeliers, which hung from panels shaped like eight-pointed stars. The rear wall had an arcade of round arches with double columns. Each column was designed to resemble spirals made of leather and was topped by a capital depicting an angel's or a baby's face. The side and front walls had wooden screens and gilded plaster walls, which wrapped around to the proscenium. Lounges The theater contained four lounges, all designed in the Spanish or Mexican Baroque style. To the east of the grand foyer was a small space with a drinking fountain, plaster walls, and an overhanging lamp. This small space led to the ground-level men's lounge, which was square in plan. The floor was tiled, while the walls were decorated with moldings of gilded plaster. Each corner also had niches flanked by spiral columns. On one wall was a fireplace with a large hood; there were lighting sconces on either side of the fireplace. The 2017 plans call for the ground-level men's lounge to be converted to retail and mechanical space. To the west of the grand foyer was a marble staircase with iron handrails, which led to a circular ground-level women's lounge. The floor was covered with carpets, while the walls were decorated with moldings of gilded plaster. The walls also had niches with gilded plaster surrounds. One section of the wall had a fireplace with a large hood. The plaster ceiling contained moldings, designed to resemble twisting vines. The 2017 plans call for the ground-level women's lounge to be converted to retail. There were two lounges directly adjacent to the mezzanine promenade, directly above the ground-floor lounges. The women's lounge was to the east and the men's lounge was to the west; this was the opposite arrangement from the ground-floor lounges. In both lounges, a wrought-iron chandelier was hung from the wooden ceiling, and there were fireplaces with hoods. The fireplace in the women's lounge was next to an arched window overlooking the foyer. An arched doorway also led from the women's lounge to a restroom. Plans from 2017 indicate that the women's lounge will be replaced by a fitness center, while the men's lounge will be replaced by residential amenity space. South of these will be retail spaces. ==Use as movie palace==

Movie palaces became common in the 1920s, between the end of World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression. In the New York City area, only a small number of operators were involved in the construction of movie palaces. These theaters' designers included the legitimate-theater architects Thomas W. Lamb, C. Howard Crane, and John Eberson, Furthermore, in the 1920s, the dominant vaudeville circuit on the East Coast of the United States was the Keith–Albee circuit, composed of Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Albee. Development and early years In May 1926, the Keith–Albee circuit announced that it planned to build three theaters in New York City as part of a nationwide expansion program, including one venue in Flushing, Queens. The Flushing theater and several others in the expansion program were planned to be funded by a $25 million bond issue. The following year, the Keith–Albee circuit bought a site at the northern end of Main Street, at the intersection with Northern Boulevard. He filed plans for the theater with the Queens Bureau of Buildings in May 1927. At the time of the merger, films were directly competing with vaudeville. The theater was originally projected to be completed by August 1928 but was ultimately completed that December. It opened on December 25, 1928, as a vaudeville house There were 11 acts during the first week, including a Pathé News newsreel and an organ performance of "Hello, Flushing" by Bernie Cowham. Many stars performed at the theater, including Bob Hope, Jack Benny and the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland, Mae West, Milton Berle, Jimmy Durante, and Jerry Lewis. When the theater opened, the surrounding section of Flushing was rapidly growing into a residential and commercial hub. By February 1930, the theater hosted performances twice a day and often played to a full house. Following further mergers, KAO became part of Radio-Keith-Orpheum, subsequently RKO Pictures. Some time in the 1930s, the theater switched to screening movies nearly exclusively. In addition to films, the theater hosted children's programs in the late 1930s. Some vaudeville features continued at the Flushing theater through the end of that decade, but they tended to charge very low admission. RKO managers changed their policy for screening double features (where patrons could see two films for one ticket price) at the Flushing Keith's in 1941. After this change, the more popular feature was typically screened at 9 p.m., while the less popular feature was shown later, so patrons could leave early if they did not want to see the second feature. RKO briefly tried to revive vaudeville at the Flushing theater and its other neighborhood venues in the early 1940s. For example, the B. F. Keith's Oldtime Vaudeville Revue performed there in February 1942, The Flushing theater also continued to host some productions for children in the late 1940s. The Flushing Keith's continued to prosper after World War II in spite of a decline in New York City's large neighborhood movie palaces during that time. Many such theaters in Manhattan were demolished, but those in the outer boroughs were generally either divided into smaller complexes or outright abandoned. The theater's outer lobby was damaged in a car crash in 1955, when a driver on Main Street died of a heart attack while driving; two patrons were killed in the crash. Live performances continued in later years, such as in 1965 when Hollywood stars Cesar Romero and Connie Stevens performed at the Flushing Keith's. Flushing had started to decline by the late 1960s, and the theater's success decreased with it. The theater's owners renovated the auditorium around 1976, turning the RKO Keith's into a multiplex with three screens. The lower level had two screens while the balcony level contained the third screen; these spaces were separated by partitions. The next year, developer Lawrence Gresser proposed redeveloping the theater into a shopping mall. and, in February 1982, the National Trust for Historic Preservation gave the New York Landmarks Conservancy a $3,000 grant for the preservation of the theater's interior, provided the Landmarks Conservancy could raise matching funds. The theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The project was redesigned that August into an office complex, but residents still opposed it. Fred Ferretti of The New York Times wrote in 1983 that the RKO Keith's remained "one of the city's great theaters", despite its subdivision and the uncertainty over the theater's fate. The LPC designated the interior as a landmark in February 1984, citing it as "one of the few surviving examples in New York of the uniquely American institution of the movie palace". The New York City Planning Commission endorsed the designation. The New York City Board of Estimate then had to review the landmark status for ratification in June 1984, Queens borough president Donald Manes, a member of the Board of Estimate, This left the main portion of the theater vulnerable to redevelopment. Manes had overturned six landmark designations in Queens over the past several years. The RKO Keith's landmark status was unusual in that neither the exterior nor the main portion of the interior was protected. Typically, most landmarked interiors in New York City were inside buildings whose exteriors were also landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and Grand Central Terminal. ==Closure and abandonment==

Huang ownership By the 1980s, Flushing's white population was moving out, while its Asian population grew drastically, particularly in Flushing's Chinatown. Huang then acquired the RKO Keith's for $3.4 million. Huang, a Taiwanese-American developer who had turned Flushing into "New York's second Chinatown" over the preceding decade, downtown Flushing did not receive another movie theater for 35 years. Residents expressed concerns over Huang's acquisition of the theater, as he had publicly announced plans to demolish the auditorium. Huang said the theater was "a junk building"; he had to erect sidewalk sheds on Northern Boulevard because part of the facade had begun to fall off. The Committee gained support from the Theater Historical Society, Queens Historical Society, New York Landmarks Conservancy, Queensborough Preservation League, and State Senator Frank Padavan. The Queens Historical Society wrote a letter to the organization's founder, Jerry Rotondi, saying, "The Committee's work to protect a recognized landmark from insensitive development and inappropriate use... [is] very commendable." Early that March, after most of the auditorium had been demolished, the New York City Department of Buildings issued an order demanding that Huang stop all work on the theater. The stop-work order came after the inspectors found that three of the landmarked columns in the ticket lobby had been destroyed. The construction permit was also revoked. The stop-work order remained in place for the next several years. Further deterioration At the start of 1989, two sets of bronze doors were stolen from the theater along with their frames, and Rotondi requested a thorough inspection after realizing that someone had penetrated the wooden barrier surrounding the theater. Preservationist Richard McTighe and Huang decided that a gate should be erected to separate the landmarked interior from the rest of the site. but withdrew his application shortly afterwards. Huang indicated the next month that he wanted to sell the theater. Local residents started a petition to preserve the theater, which garnered 3,500 signatures. A fire was set inside the empty theater that July. Though local media accused Huang of wrongdoing, Huang denied the accusations against him. Despite the fact that the LPC's preservation rules were among the strictest in the United States, the damage to the lobby was not fixed for several years. A preservation group found that, from the 1965 creation of the city's landmarks law to 1990, the Board of Estimate had overturned or modified 21 landmark designations. Of these, the RKO Keith's was one of only five landmarks that had been significantly altered or destroyed afterward. In March 1993, the LPC mandated that Huang keep $40,000 in an escrow account for the theater's restoration. Huang filed for bankruptcy in 1993 (later RKO Delaware Huang again requested permission to redevelop the RKO Keith's site at a hearing with the LPC in July 1996. At the time, city inspectors had found that up to of fuel had leaked into the basement. Huang promised to remediate the theater's environmental issues but then ignored the order. Criminal charges and lawsuit Early in 1997, the city government said it would consider Huang's request for a certificate of occupancy if he and the city agreed to hire a third-party architect or engineer to oversee the work. Local officials proposed that the state government charge Huang with racketeering so the state could seize the theater through criminal forfeiture. Huang was arrested in March 1997 and charged with environmental violations in relation to the RKO Keith's after city officials discovered that he had lied about cleaning up the oil leak in the theater. and he unsuccessfully attempted to dismiss the environmental charges against him. In January 1998, a judge for the New York Supreme Court, the state's trial court, postponed Huang's criminal trial by a year after Huang's lawyers claimed that he could not get a fair trial in Queens. The postponement was criticized by Huang's opponents, such as state senator Leonard P. Stavisky, who said, "Justice delayed is justice denied." A local task force hosted a meeting in November 1998 to determine the theater's future, but city officials did not attend the meeting because it was open to the public. Huang pleaded guilty in January 1999 to lying about having cleaned up the leak in the theater. Huang sued the LPC and the DOB for $39 million in May 2000, alleging that the agencies continued to delay the theater's redevelopment. He dropped his lawsuit in December 2001 and consented to spending $40,000 on repairing the lobby and auditorium the following March. The media subsequently reported that Shaya Boymelgreen of Boymelgreen Developers was negotiating to buy the building for $12 million. By then, the planks in front of the theater had been removed. A hole behind the proscenium arch exposed the auditorium to the outdoors, and plaster and paint were peeling off the walls and ceilings. Glenn Collins of The New York Times characterized the theater as "a Sistine Chapel for connoisseurs of decay". The next year, Community Board 7 approved a revised plan, which was narrower and was set back further from Northern Boulevard. The project, as approved, would have contained 200 condominium apartments, along with 229 parking spaces. In 2007, Boymelgreen and his development partner Lev Leviev decided to stop working together, and Boymelgreen put the RKO Keith's site for sale. Eastern Consolidated was originally hired as the broker. Real estate brokerage Massey Knakal had taken over the listing by May 2008, seeking $31 million for the site. Preservationists sought to purchase the RKO Keith's Theater in 2009 in the hopes of reusing or renovating it as a performing arts center. The theater was valued at $24 million. In order to fully revitalize the theater, Friends of RKO Keith's sought to collect donations from various film stars. Jon Favreau was one such actor who the group hoped would make a donation, since he once worked there. By late 2009, Venator Capital was planning to buy the mortgage on the theater from Boymelgreen's lender, Doral Bank, for $20 million. Preservationists held a fundraiser for the theater in early 2010. Doral took over ownership of the theater and sold it in May 2010 to developer Patrick Thompson for $20 million. Thompson planned to restore the lobby and build condominiums and a senior center behind it. the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the next month that the development's height might interfere with planes landing at the nearby LaGuardia Airport. The FAA concluded in October 2011 that the new development had to be reduced by four stories and approved a revised plan the following May. The theater had accumulated $400,000 in unpaid taxes by March 2012, as Thompson had not paid taxes for 14 months. Thompson was reportedly looking to sell the theater by that time, but he was able to reduce his delinquent tax bill over the next several months. Jerry Karlik of JK Equities bought the theater in 2013 for $30 million. Karlik wished to downsize the project to 269 condos and reduce the number of parking spaces in the basement. In addition, Karlik wished to redesign the curtain wall in front of the lobby and increase the building's height to accommodate mechanical space. By February 2016, Karlik had placed the building for sale again after JK Equities canceled plans to redevelop the RKO Keith's site. The previous developers had received a tax exemption for the site, which was also included in the sale. Graffiti artists had covered many parts of the abandoned theater, and its windows had been sealed with boards or bricks. Xinyuan announced that it would build a 16-story luxury condominium tower in the space, with 269 residential units and no hotel rooms. The new building, which would keep the original facade over the lower floors, would be designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners. Following the announcement of Xinyuan's revised plans, preservationist and Forest Hills resident Richard Thornhill started a petition to restore the theater to Lamb's original design. The petition received 4,400 signatures. Xinyuan presented its plans for the redevelopment of RKO Keith's to Queens Community Board 7 members in February 2019. Xinyuan submitted a new proposal for the site in August 2020, which called for hotel rooms in the new building. The demolition of the theater began the same year. Maverick Real Estate Partners, which had acquired Madison Realty's loan, indicated in July 2023 that it would foreclose on the site after Xinyuan defaulted on its real estate taxes. ==See also==