Art East Cinema
1105 1st Avenue,
New York,
NY
10065
1105 1st Avenue,
New York,
NY
10065
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Showing 26 - 38 of 38 comments
With the lack of East side screens right now and more when they destroy Cinema 1 & 2 they could actually get first run product here. This listing should also be updated to include the other name of Art East. What was it,s name as porno was it East World?
I wish I had taken a photo of the exterior of this theater during its porn days…. The marquee announcing “Squalor Motel” was a highlight for folks coming off the ramp from the Queensboro Bridge.
I walked by here on Sunday and Chicago City Limits has vacated the premises and it is now for rent. The lobby is cluttered with debris and the slot in the box office where you slide the money is open to the elements. As I said elsewhere, I never stepped foot into this theatre, though I do remember in the early 1990s walking by to check it out when it opened for about a minute as either an art theatre or a rep house. I remember the film “Jacquot” was the last film to play there.
A short hop from there is the Queensboro Bridge. In the late 1960s there was talk of the Cinémathèque Française constructing a New York branch of the famous Paris institution in the form of a screening facility beneath the Manhattan end of the bridge’s concrete support structure. That, of course, never materialized, but what a great idea!
Thats it the Art East, I cant remember if he tried commercial movies first and then went art or the other way around.
The address for the First Avenue Screening Room/Art East Cinema/Chicago City Limits was indeed 1105 First Avenue.
The First Avenue Screening Room was known as the Art East Cinema during its brief run as a discount house in ‘91-'92. Its grand-reopening presentation as the Art East Cinema was an offering JUST shy of being an art house-type flick – the Leslie Nielsen comedy 'All I Want for Christmas’.
I saw Diary of a Shagentu Burglar there. The theater was very uncomfortable.
Is this the theatre that the owner of the Avenue U opened when he lost that theatre? He started off playing art moveovers and then went commercial films for $3. I cant recall the name. It is like across the street from Dangerfields? If this is the one, it had alot of different names over the years.
No…I also saw Toshio Matsumoto’s “Funeral Parade of Roses” here on June 9, 1973.
Br, yes, I believe it was located between 61st and 62nd Street on the west side of First Avenue. So the street address you gave is probably correct.
The only film I ever saw there was Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodes'ka-den” in October of 1974. Other films that played there were “First Position” (“A Dancer’s Life”), Renoir’s “The Little Theatre of Jean Renoir” and the Cuban film by Alea, “Memories of Underdevelopment.”
On what block was the First Avenue Screening Room located? Is this the space that was last occupied by the Chicago City Limits improv comedy troupe and located at 1105 First Avenue between 61st and 62nd?
This theatre shifted policy many times. I remember seeing IF Stone’s Weekly there during its early days as an art house. It then went porn both gay and straight, $1, porn and then a brief comeback as a discount house before closing down.