WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JANUARY 10, 2019 17
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Ridgewood’s starring role in a 1980s movie
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
These days, it’s not uncommon to
see a fi lm shoot on the streets of
Queens, and in particular, Greater
Ridgewood. Many great directors
and television producers have come
to the neighborhood to shoot scenes
on location, from present-day dramas
to period pieces.
We imagine that many directors
fi nd Ridgewood attractive because of
its old-fashioned housing stock, which
makes the area suitable setting depicting
urban life from the 20th century and beyond.
As a result, Ridgewood has served
as a fi lming location for productions
from “Law & Order: Special Victims
Unit” in modern-day America; to Martin
Scorsese’s latest fi lm about the alleged
assassin of Jimmy Hoff a, set in the 1970s;
to “Boardwalk Empire,” the HBO drama
set in the Roaring Twenties; and more.
But long before the entertainment
boom that hit New York City this
century, Ridgewood had a starring
role in the 1985 fi lm “Brighton Beach
Memoirs,” standing in for the titled
Brooklyn neighborhood in a period
piece set in the 1930s.
The movie was adapted from a
semi-autobiographical play written
by the famous playwright, Neil Simon,
who created many classic plays including
“The Odd Couple,” “Lost in Yonkers”
and “The Sunshine Boys.” The fi lm
starred Jonathan Silverman as Eugene
Some of the vintage storefronts created along Seneca Avenue in Ridgewood in 1985 for the fi lming of
"Brighton Beach Memoirs."
Morris Jerome, a 15-year-old teenager
growing up in Depression-era Brighton
Beach experiencing the typical
angst and confl ict that any youngster
at that age would face.
The cast also included Blythe Danner,
Bob Dishy, Brian Drillinger, Stacey
Glick, Judith Ivey and Lisa Waltz.
But Ridgewood was front and center
in the movie. Many scenes were shot
primarily along Seneca Avenue, in
the shadow of the elevated M line near
Palmetto Street; the Ridgewood Times,
as it happened, had their offi ce located
on the same block at the time.
The producers went to great lengths
to transform the Seneca Avenue streetscape
into a main shopping strip that
could have been seen in Brighton
Beach during the 1930s. In a special
section about the fi lm, published in the
Nov. 28, 1985, Ridgewood Times, the
paper went into great detail to explain
the eff ort both in Ridgewood and in the
actual Brighton Beach, where other
scenes were fi lmed:
The Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn
where the action takes place features
a very specifi c architectural style:
Residential streets consist mainly of
uniform single family, two-story wood
frame stucco and brick houses, while
rows of small storefronts were the
order of the day on business streets….
The neighborhood business street
and elevated station that appear in
the fi lm were found at Seneca Avenue
in Ridgewood. About half of the
storefronts on the street still looked
like they did 50 years ago, including
some with leaded glass windows and
ceramic tile walls and fl oors. The other
shops’ appearances were altered to
refl ect the period.
Additional alterations included a
fresh coat of paint for the graffi ti-covered
subway station, the installation of
billboards from the era and the fi tting
of old-fashioned wood panels on the
token booth.
One of the billboards installed for
the picture was kept up for years aft er
the fi lming. It was a huge 1930s-style
advertisement for Planters Peanuts,
painted on the brickface side of 682
Seneca Ave. Graffi ti and other, more
modern ads eventually covered most
of the Planters painting in the 33 years
since fi lming occurred, but you can
still see remnants of it the next time
you pass through the Seneca Avenue
M train station from the Manhattan
bound side.
A distinct feature in the Planters ad,
along with the Mr. Peanut logo, is a
man dressed similar to a delivery courier
or a conductor of the time. Some
observers believed the man’s face was
intentionally drawn to resemble Ronald
Reagan, who was president at the
time “Brighton Beach Memoirs” was
fi lmed — a clever inside joke by the set
designers.
While the fi lming gave Ridgewood
plenty of buzz, the reception from the
public for “Brighton Beach Memoirs”
at the box offi ce was not so memorable.
A box offi ce bomb, “Brighton Beach
Memoirs” grossed just under $12
million at theaters; it was made with
a budget of $18 million.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood:
The Way It Was” that you would like to
share with our readers, please write to
the Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-
15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send
an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com. Any print photographs mailed to
us will be carefully returned to you upon
request.
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