The Ridgewood Theatre the oldest continuously operating movie house in the nation until it closed a year ago will get an encore, its new owner said yesterday at a hearing before the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Opened as a vaudeville theater in 1916 and surviving every trend in moviemaking history, the limestone theater on Myrtle Avenue in Queens will reopen in July with a three-screen cinema on the upper level and a mix of shops on the first floor.
Mario Saggese, a co-owner of the Ridgewood, insisted that the only way the neighborhood theater could be financially viable is with the addition of a retail complex.
“It would be a financial hardship to have to operate it without that retail,” Saggese said after a hearing on a proposal to landmark the exterior of the building.
The landmarks commission is considering historic designation for the theater’s limestone facade. Saggese said he and co-owner Anthony Motalbano wouldn’t oppose the designation as long as it’s only for the building’s exterior.
After numerous renovations, including the conversion of the 2,500-seat theater into a five-screen multiplex decades ago, Saggese said there’s not much left of the historic interior to save anyway.
“But if we do pull down sheet rock and find a statue or other ornaments still there, we will definitely preserve them,” Saggese said.
The Ridgewood was one of more than 300 theaters across the nation designed by renowned architect Thomas Lamb.
Just a handful remain, including the Ziegfeld in Midtown.
A vote on the theater’s landmark status will be set for later this spring, said landmarks spokeswoman Lisi de Bourbon.
In other business, the commission approved historic status for several public buildings, including Jamaica HS in Queens and the former museum for the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx.