Myrtle Ave., one of the lengthiest streets in both Brooklyn and Queens, runs for nearly 15 miles from Jay Street MetroTech complex in downtown Brooklyn, east to Jamaica Avenue at the former Triangle Hofbrau.
It was first laid out in 1835 from Fulton St. to as far as Cripplebush Rd., an ancient Kings County track now largely replaced by Bedford Ave. It was extended in 1839 to Brooklyn’s Broadway, and again in 1854 as the tolled Jamaica Plank Road out to Jamaica. (Most of NYC’s toll roads of this type were made “free” around 1890-1900).
Horsecars appeared on Myrtle in 1854, which later became trolleys taking electric power from overhead wires. The El shrouded Myrtle from 1888 to 1969—at first as far as Grand Ave., to Brooklyn’s Broadway early in 1889, and to Wyckoff Ave. later the same year. The eastern extension of the El today shrouds the street from Broadway east to Wyckoff.
The western end of Myrtle Ave. between Fulton and Jay Sts. was eliminated for courthouse construction and Cadman Plaza in the 1950s, while the stretch between Jay St. and Flatbush Avenue Extension became part of MetroTech Center beginning in 1989.
Ridgewood, originally known as South Williamsburg, sprung up north of the reservoir constructed in 1856 to supply water to the then-city of Brooklyn in what’s now known as Highland Park. Water flowed through a series of culverts through Nassau and Queens, and today the names Aqueduct Racetrack, North and South Conduit Aves. and Force Tube Ave. reflect their former presence. The reservoir was named the Ridgewood Reservoir after the Ridgewood Ponds, the culverts’ eastern source, near Wantagh in Nassau County.
When development came to South Williamsburg in the mid-to-late 1800s, residents desired their own identity and came up with the name Evergreen for the nearby Evergreens Cemetery. The region was formally named Ridgewood in the 1910s for the then-important reservoir, which still exists but was decommissioned in the 1960s.
Until the 1910s and ’20s Ridgewood was suburban and rural in some spots, with farms and country homes, but developers Paul Stier and Gustave X. Mathews made marks that still survive by constructing acres of handsome row houses along its streets; Mathews’ blocks, many of which are now landmarked, feature yellow bricks from the Balthazar Kreischer kilns in Staten Island.
The Ridgewood Theater, seen in this 2016 photo, was built in 1916 by prolific theater designer Thomas Lamb and the 2500-seater was based on the Mark Strand Theatre, formerly at Broadway and W. 47th St. at Duffy Square, one of the first buildings constructed especially to show movies. The Beaux-Arts exterior is a riot of glazed terra cotta and has been granted NYC landmark status. Unlike many other area movie houses that closed after a few decades the Ridgewood hung on for over 90 years (albeit as a multiplex), until March, 2008. Its next reel consisted of luxury housing with various businesses including a gym franchise on the ground floor.
Ridgewood National Bank at Myrtle and Cypress Aves. was organized in 1909 by a prominent neighborhood group headed by competing developers Paul Stier and Walter F. Ring, together with architect Louis Berger (who built the attractive attached homes found on Stockholm St. between Woodward and Onderdonk Aves.), and they built this magnificent bank building in 1910; though it is now a Rite Aid, some of its architectural highlights can still be seen inside. Ridgewood National didn’t last long independently—it merged with Manufacturers Trust, an ancestor of JP Morgan Chase, in 1921.
The Ridgewood Remembrance sits at the crossroads of Myrtle and Cypress Aves. and honors neighborhood residents who fought and died in World War I. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1923; the distinctive concrete pillar, topped by a sphere, is 11 feet high and contains three bas-reliefs of a soldier, a sailor and a pilot. The soldier’s accompanied by a woman with a torch, the sailor by the Roman god Neptune, and the airman by an allegorical female figure. The architects were Helmle and Corbett, the sculptor Anton Schaaf.
Opposite the Ridgewood Remembrance is Carl Clemens Triangle, named for the longtime editor and publisher of the Ridgewood Times, in which he bought a share in 1933. He also worked for radio station WHN, which first broadcast from a now-demolished building at 8-16 Cypress Ave.; the station was launched by Ridgewood Times owner George Schubel in 1922. WHN is now ESPN-WPEN 1050. It was the radio home of the Yankees and alternately the Mets in most years between 1958-88. WHN was likely NYC’s most successful country music station, operating in that format from 1973-87.
A coterie of shopkeepers, entrepreneurs and other local residents were the founders of the Savings Bank of Ridgewood, built at the corner of Forest Ave. and George St. in 1921. Eight years later, the name of the bank was changed to Ridgewood Savings Bank, which it’s still known as today. A new main office was completed at Myrtle and Forest Aves. in 1929. It superficially resembles the earlier Ridgewood National Bank (see above) but with massive arched windows and Art Deco touches including the backlit clock on the chamfered corner. Ridgewood, once a heavily German neighborhood, still maintains traces of its heritage, especially in its restaurants, delicatessens and bakeries.
The former RKO Madison was named for Madison St. (which runs in back of the theater) and for, presumably, the street’s namesake, President James Madison. The theater was designed by architect Eugene De Rosa and opened November 24, 1927. It was a large movie palace with more than 3000 seats, a foyer over two stories high with crystal chandeliers, marble staircases and a vaulted ceiling. The theater opened in November 1927 and featured variety and vaudeville shows in addition to motion pictures, and had an orchestra pit with three separate sections for the orchestra, piano and Kimball organ built specially for the theater. The Madison’s owners went all-out to compete with the well-established Ridgewood Theater, which opened in 1916.
Now, only the ground floor is open to the public as a department store, after closing ignominiously as a duplex grindhouse in the 1970s.
In the early-20th century, farmer Walter F. Ring, sensing change in the air as urbanization was taking hold, went out independently and found a partner, William R. Gibson. They formed the Ring-Gibson Company, whose forte was building multi-unit rowhouses with businesses at ground level. They were interested in developing the part of the Ring land that fronted Fresh Pond Road, but as it was still owned by the Ring heirs (of which Walter was one), they couldn’t buy it directly. In a strange and legally questionable arrangement, they asked developers Paul Stier to buy the land, which Ring-Gibson then purchased from him for $1. Much of today’s Fresh Pond Road commercial district came about because of this deal.
The early members of the Ring family were farmers and lived in this house, which was built in 1860. In 1910, they sold the house and moved it to its present location at 70-12 Cypress Hills and 62nd Sts.
Ridgewood recently lost one of its treasures when Morscher’s Pork Store closed. The German inscription on the sidewalk sign, Teschlein, dick dich, means, roughly: “little table, set yourself” and is taken from the Grimm brothers’ classic story “The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack (the context is a magic table that sets itself). Morscher’s was one of a series of butcher shops that have been in this location since the early-1900s, Morscher’s itself since 1957. The shop featured sremska (Hungarian sausage), debricina (Slovenian sausage), kielbasa, wursts, general meat cuts, cheeses, and imported European canned goods.
Rudy’s Bakery & Café, 905 Seneca Ave. between Myrtle and Catalpa Aves., has been in business for nearly 90 years. The German word Konditorei on its awning means, roughly, “a place to sit, relax and eat.” That has been possible in recent years, as Rudy’s has added an interior coffee bar. Best known for cheese danishes, Black Forest cake and its assorted cookies, Rudy’s has entered the 21st century with WiFi access.
—Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)