Jackson Heights Life

1936 drawing of the Boulevard theatre at Northern Boulevard and 83rd Street, by Anthony F. Dumas (who apparently drew many NYC theatres).

Quote from: toddg on May 23, 2015, 01:13:35 AM

Interesting, I've never seen this called the Citadel Theater before.  I've seen a number of references to a Colony Theater in what looks like the same location.

Based on the 1939 photo in reply #7, it would appear that the theater was originally called the Citadel and that at some point it was re-named the Colony.

Correction. As has been pointed out in another thread, the marquee in the photo displays "Colony". Looks like the "Citadel" signage referred to something else.

Here's another great photo of 82nd Street.   
http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-6922-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
I'm intrigued by Evergreen Gardens American & Chinese restaurant, featuring music and dancing (the one with the big "Chop Suey" sign).   I wonder what that was like.

P.S. I'm attaching an old newspaper ad I found

The photo also shows the store front for Natural Bloom Cigars. The attached ad in the United States Tobacco Journal for Saturday, November 26, 1921 appears to be for the company.

There's also a reference to Natural Bloom Cigars at the beginning of the third stanza of Weldon Kees's poem Relating to Robinson:

Somewhere in Chelsea, early summer;
And, walking in the twilight toward the docks,   
I thought I made out Robinson ahead of me.

From an uncurtained second-story room, a radio   
Was playing There’s a Small Hotel; a kite
Twisted above dark rooftops and slow drifting birds.   
We were alone there, he and I,
Inhabiting the empty street.

Under a sign for Natural Bloom Cigars,
While lights clicked softly in the dusk from red to green,   
He stopped and gazed into a window
Where a plaster Venus, modeling a truss,
Looked out at Eastbound traffic. (But Robinson,
I knew, was out of town: he summers at a place in Maine,   
Sometimes on Fire Island, sometimes the Cape,
Leaves town in June and comes back after Labor Day.)
And yet, I almost called out, “Robinson!”

There was no chance. Just as I passed,   
Turning my head to search his face,   
His own head turned with mine
And fixed me with dilated, terrifying eyes   
That stopped my blood. His voice
Came at me like an echo in the dark.

“I thought I saw the whirlpool opening.   
Kicked all night at a bolted door.
You must have followed me from Astor Place.   
An empty paper floats down at the last.
And then a day as huge as yesterday in pairs   
Unrolled its horror on my face
Until it blocked—” Running in sweat   
To reach the docks, I turned back
For a second glance. I had no certainty,   
There in the dark, that it was Robinson   
Or someone else.
                                 The block was bare. The Venus,   
Bathed in blue fluorescent light,
Stared toward the river. As I hurried West,   
The lights across the bay were coming on.
The boats moved silently and the low whistles blew.