The closing date is incorrect. The cinema closed in September 1974. After seeing two mentions here of a purported 1973 closing date, I recalled that the last thing I’d seen there was the closed circuit broadcast of the second Ali-Frazier fight — which took place in January 1974. A look into the New York Magazine archives showed the theater was open into the following September. The last showing was apparently a double bill of two erotic French films, Going Places (Les Valseuses) and Le Sex Shop.
I remember seeing a Saturday matinee of the original production of Grease here when it was the Eden, back in early May 1972. (I also remember it was the day of the Kentucky Derby.)
I moved to a building just a couple of blocks away in 1988, and I remember the place being closed for a time while they rehabbed it as the Village East. It reopened in at least 1989 — not 1991 — because I remember Tango & Cash, a 1989 film, being on the marquee. The only movie I remember actually seeing there was The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. The Loews a block to the west usually had more desirable films.
The closing date is incorrect. The cinema closed in September 1974. After seeing two mentions here of a purported 1973 closing date, I recalled that the last thing I’d seen there was the closed circuit broadcast of the second Ali-Frazier fight — which took place in January 1974. A look into the New York Magazine archives showed the theater was open into the following September. The last showing was apparently a double bill of two erotic French films, Going Places (Les Valseuses) and Le Sex Shop.
I remember going to the Elgin a lot during the summer of 1975. I distinctly recall seeing at least a couple of Russ Meyer films during that period.
I remember seeing a Saturday matinee of the original production of Grease here when it was the Eden, back in early May 1972. (I also remember it was the day of the Kentucky Derby.)
I moved to a building just a couple of blocks away in 1988, and I remember the place being closed for a time while they rehabbed it as the Village East. It reopened in at least 1989 — not 1991 — because I remember Tango & Cash, a 1989 film, being on the marquee. The only movie I remember actually seeing there was The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. The Loews a block to the west usually had more desirable films.