City Lights Cinema
1005 S. St. Francis Drive,
Santa Fe,
NM
87505
1005 S. St. Francis Drive,
Santa Fe,
NM
87505
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Before this was City Lights it went through a number of name changes:
๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ ๐ฉ๐๐ฒ ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ๐ฎ๐๐ฟ๐ฒ (adult) – August 19, 1970 – September 22, 1970 ๐ ๐ถ๐ป๐ถ ๐ฉ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ฑ๐๐น๐ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐บ๐ฎ (adult)– September 23 – December 15, 1970 ๐๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ปโ๐ (adult) – December 16, 1970 – October 6, 1971 ๐๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐บ๐ฎ ๐ซ (adult) – October 7, 1971 – March 21, 1975 At this point the Art Cinema X was relocated to 3rd Street where it lingered until 1989 ๐๐ถ๐ท๐ผ๐ (mainstream) – March 28, 1975 – May 19th (?), 1977
A May 25th, 2013 article in the Santa Fe New Mexican from owner Bill Hill:
“Reader View: Movie-House History โ Donโt Forget City Lights”
I wonder if Bill has some photos he could share with us on Cinema Treasures. I enjoy images of small theaters.
I wonder what the space is now. I visited the shopping center in July 2019 and don’t recall seeing a Domino’s Pizza there and I wasn’t sure where the City Lights had been.
This opened in the first quarter of 1975 as Bijou and renamed and reopened as City Lights on May 20th, 1977. Grand opening ad in photo section.
I worked at this little theater for ~3 years when I was a teenager. It was a great experience and I believe I developed my film taste with all of the cult, foreign, neglected, and classic movies I saw there. I spent a little time a the El Paseo too, but this was the place where I learned manual change-overs, arc carbon lamphouses, and screen masking.
Here’s a bio for Bill Hill the guy that owned and ran the place: http://www.filmprojection.com/bill-hill.html