LOL Comedy Lounge

For a short time – and I mean a VERY short time, maybe for a month or two – after the Giuliani-engineered clean-up of Times Square, the Cine 1 & 2 harkened back to its grindhouse days, showcasing low-budget, straight-to-video horror flicks in triple bills.

City Cinemas only had a booking arrangement here, it was operated as a normal theatre by the porno people who owned it. It was called the West Side Cinema 1 & 2. The name Cine 1 & 2 was put on the Hollywood Twin on 8th Ave. for a while. When this theatre went back to porno the Cine 1 & 2 name came back here and West Side Cinema 1 & 2 name went out the window.

If I’m not mistaken this twin opened in the mid 70s by as the Agee 1 and 2…It was named after the writer and critic James Agee and operated by Cinecom who also had the Carnegie Hall Cinema at the time…The programming was mostly art but didn’t last very long and went Spanish until the 80s…When City Cinemas had it in the mid 80s there was some Warner Bros first run but mostly studio stuff that other theatres wouldn’t touch ie Bill Cosby in Leonard Part VI and often Manhattan exclusives
The auditoria were nothing special…long tunnelly 300 seaters