Finding the Oldest Cinema in New York City

By Editing Luke on April 15, 2024.

Source: Editing Luke
Finding the Oldest Cinema in New York City
Your Cinema Needs You has made it to NYC where I’ve been in ongoing discussions about further festival placements and screenings for the documentary this year. Fingers crossed. A few meetings aren’t much of a storyline though, so I made my way to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to search out what is believed to be the oldest, surviving, purpose-built cinema remaining in all 5 boroughs of New York City.This is the Alpine Cinema, originally the Loew’s Alpine built in 1921.The Alpine is a rare holdout in a city that has demolished some incredible structures. And, despite numerous older live theatre venues which have survived, there are but a few relics from the silent era of movies still standing in New York City today. It’s one more thing that makes the documentary about the Monarch Theatre in Medicine Hat, Alberta special. The Monarch Theatre (built in 1911) has the oldest surviving New York City cinema beat by a full decade, and needless to say, New York had a bit of a leg up with hundreds and hundreds of cinemas built here over the last century.It makes you realize that cinemas like the Alpine and the Monarch really are diamonds in the rough. Also, I’ve become a bit hooked on visiting them in person.

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