City Cinemas Cinema 1, 2, and 3

The Cinema I and Cinema II were the most important movie theaters in New York in their day. It all went quickly down the toilet when Don Rugoff lost the company.

As a 16-year-old from Tennessee on my first visit to New York City I saw “The Day of the Locust” at the Cinema I and I will never forget the impression that “big-city sophistication” had on me…the experience of waiting in a “ticket holders” line that stretched around the block and sitting in the packed house with hundreds of other people who appreciated the art of film. It was all so exciting!

Hi tlsloews, I was born and raised in Kingsport. I worked for ABC Southeastern Theaters during my teenage years in Kingsport and then moved to Knoxville as manager of the West Town Theater (mostly Disney fare, we were really just babysitters and we made a killing at the concession stand). I don’t remember if there were any Loews theaters in Knoxville at the time. All this was many moons ago, as well, haha…late 70’s. I ended up moving to NYC in 1982 where I worked as a graphic designer. Moved back to TN about 5 years ago and miss NYC something awful.

Some corrections:
“Nashville” opened—and this was unprecedented at the time—at Cinema 11 AND The Baronet in June 1975. Apparently both the Rugoff and W. Reade chains wanted the film badly enough that they were willing to share. That never happened again.
And Harvey Weinstein’s memory failed him. “Raging Bull” opened at the Sutton, not Cinema 1; “Midnight Cowboy” played the Coronet (from May 1969 until late January/early February 1970 when it was replaced by Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point”); and “Rocky” played Cinema 11, not I (I remember seeing “Rocky” at a weekday sneak preview at Cinema 11 in mid-November 1976).
I can still remember the first time I went to Cinema 1. It was Xmas week 1975 to see Truffaut’s “Story of Adele H.” As a kid growing up in Ohio, I used to gaze longingly at the movie ads in the Sunday NYT, and developed a weird kind of relationships with all of those great old theaters. Each of them seemed to have their own particular identity/personality, and you could sometimes predict which movie would open where. (The Coronet played “The Conversation,” “The Graduate,” “Chinatown” and “Paper Moon;” the Sutton premiered “American Graffiti,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore;” and Cinema 1 had exclusive first-run engagements of “A Clockwork Orange,” “Mean Streets,” “The
Exorcist” and “Days of Heaven,” among countless others.) By the time I finally got to go to some of those theaters myself, it was almost a religious experience. After “Adele H.,” I walked next door and
saw Bergmans' “Magic Flute” at the Coronet (another dizzying, momentous occasion for me!)
Sony Lincoln Square and the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas are OK, but nothing compares to the “Bloomingdales Belt” jewel boxes of my adolescence.

“Rocky” opened its world premiere engagement here (Cinema II) thirty-five years ago today.

Cinema II had an NYC area exclusive on “Rocky” for the first three weeks of its release.