In the 1950s, Kenny Owens, now 70 years old, remembers pooling money with his friends to buy one ticket to a movie at the now-shuttered Meserole Theater. After one child entered the theater, he or she would crack open the back door and everyone else would run in, hiding from a particularly severe usher who would throw out any scofflaws.
Owens, who was born and raised in Greenpoint but now lives in Madison, Wisconsin, looks back fondly on these escapades as well as the theater’s stale popcorn, the “majestic” red carpet and the rumble of the G train as it passed underground during showings.
“It was a real refuge from the neighborhood,” he said in an interview over the phone.
That same nostalgia is motivating more than 700 current and former Greenpoint residents to organize on Facebook to preserve the vacant building at 723-725 Manhattan Ave., after Greenpointers published an article detailing the owner’s plans to partially demolish the former theater and construct a five-story development in its place.
While the effort to preserve the building is in its early stages, 63-year-old John Altyn, one of the organizers of the group, has already sought help from the office of Assemblymember Emily Gallagher.
“Everything in Greenpoint is being erased, torn down or changed into something else,” said Altyn, who grew up in Greenpoint. He now lives in Ridgewood.
Constructed in 1921 on where one of the founding families of Greenpoint had originally built a home, the former theater was eventually repurposed as a roller rink in 1979. After less than a decade, a pharmacy that eventually became known as Rite Aid moved in and decided to preserve the roller rink’s disco ball.
The former Meserole Theater has an approximately 100-year history, but the prospects of its achieving landmark status are tenuous, according to Simeon Bankoff, the executive director of the historic preservation nonprofit Historic Districts Council.
“It’s not an obvious slam dunk,” Bankoff said.
The prior owners have altered the former theater’s interior and exterior. Moreover, the facade, isn’t “something that wows you and pronounces that it’s a theater,” he commented.
While there have been recent examples of historical movie theaters that have continued operating as movie theaters—most notably the new Nitehawk cinema in Park Slope—these stories are few and far between, he said in a phone interview.
Ultimately, though Bankoff wasn’t the most hopeful for the theater’s future, he does believe in preserving the former Meserole Theater in some way. “It’s still very important. It’s got the proper scale. It reminds people of what that section of Greenpoint was, whereas a tall featureless building does not.'”
Joanna Zdziaszek, a 54-year-old Greenpoint resident agrees. She remembers watching movies with her babysitter at the Meserole Theater when she was growing up.
“To hear that it’s going to be demolished, it’s really sad,” Zdziaszek said. “I hope they can save it.”
Thank you Ben for this article. I see the “Practical” statements of Executive Director Bankoff, only seeing a structure, I and WE; those who are participating in our group “The Meserole Theater Project” see the possibilities of its interior. It’s potential as a theater for film festivals from local and world-wide filmmakers. To Art Exhibits to Live Music and even a small museum about Greenpoint itself. It can and WILL bring together neighbors who at times, seem at odds with each other. Saving the Meserole will become a center for the “Arts” and those who enjoy the Arts. And in the long-run ask locals who grew up and still live in Greenpoint about the Carnegie Library built in 1906. Those of us who were born before 1970 would remember its grandeur before it was TORN DOWN in 1970. Architecture is the fashion of endless time.
Thank you and don’t give up John Altyn. Meserole was very very special to not just our FB group but many more original Greenpointers even if we are spread all over the States!
Thank you Antoinette. I promise WE won’t give up. Enough is enough. Our Meserole theater could once again be a place of family and friends gathering, and welcome those who are new to Greenpoint and the surrounding neighborhoods. We will pursue it to save it for generations to come and stop it from being torn down where just a few who will fill their own pockets.
I am wondering if you reached out to New York 1 news. I wrote the note on one of your Facebook posts as another neighborhood is trying to save a bank they feel should be landmarked. Maybe they can do a piece on the situation here in Greenpoint.
Wow…TWO landmarks side-by-side: The old Meserole Theatre Building and Peter Pan Doughnuts…delicious reminders of our food and cultural histories.
We could learn from Paris, Lisbon, London, Rome and to a degree Buenos Aires…go-to places…where there is preservation, or at least re-purposing solid inner-spaces and facades (such as creating a grand lobby and building above and around) of so many of their architectural gems – to be appreciated for generations to come. Here in Brooklyn, any free-standing one and two-story building, historic or otherwise (theatres, temples, banks, churches, supermarkets, even gas stations) could be under siege and endangered, to be replaced by a vertical “vanilla” tower. Flatbush Savings Bank and the Chase branch in Brighton Beach are just two of the latest in the news. IMHO, sad.
Thank you so much MJ in Kensington. It is such a tragedy when far too many people see ONLY money for themselves rather than preserving the past. The Meserole Theater could bring in enormous amounts of money for the owners if they saw the BIG PICTURE as you have. Thank you and please share this information. The facebook page is The Meserole Theater Project. Please join us if you wish. Thank you.
I am 82 years old. Other than some years at school in Europe and in other parts of the US, I have lived in Greenpoint my whole life. I remember when Greenpoint had 4 movie theaters: The Midway, The Chopain, The Greenpoint, and The Meserole. Now there are none. Greenpoint has changed and prospered over the years. Why can’t we have at least one movie house?