Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Looking again at St. Mark's and 2nd Ave., and more photos of the former St. Marks Cinema



8-Bit and Up, the retro video shop, recently moved away from the second floor of 37 St. Mark's Place at Second Avenue. (Read about the new 8-Bit space on East Third Street here.)

This prime corner space is now mostly without tenants… (save for the newish Verizon Wireless store).



The building won't be empty too much longer. As we first noted back on Oct. 17, a retail outpost of DF Mavens ("The finest dairy-free ice cream in the world. Made in NYC.") is taking the former Eastside Bakery (.net?) location. Winick has the listing with the available retail slots here.

Anyway! All this is all just an excuse to trot out these new-to-us photos of the corner … when it was home to a single-screen movie theater… eventually called the St. Marks Cinema … a movie theatre was in operation here roughly from 1916 to 1985, according to Cinema Treasures...



… this shot is dated 1936 ...



We've written about the theater before here. Maybe you drank beer here and got high once. And there was that time you may have seen "Return of the Jedi" here in 1983.

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11 comments:

  1. nygrumpNovember 12, 2013 at 9:50 AM

    The Orwellian language of "The finest dairy-free ice cream " really bothers me. If its not dairy, its not ice cream. its mock ice cream. healthy, fetishistic MOCK ice cream.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OWRNovember 12, 2013 at 10:28 AM

    saw "Cry Uncle" there more than once. Funniest faux-porn comedy flick ever. Great scuzzy theatre.

    ReplyDelete
  3. 10:36 amNovember 12, 2013 at 10:36 AM

    The Rise And Fall Of NYC's Many Movie Theaters
    http://gothamist.com/2013/11/11/movie_theater_map.php

    ReplyDelete
  4. A little while ago INovember 12, 2013 at 11:14 AM

    Sigh... how I miss The Gap that used to be on that corner.












    Hehehehe

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 12, 2013 at 11:20 AM

    I don't understand why they don't just pull down that whole building. Put up a nice clean new all glass building. You know; Something that will fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousNovember 12, 2013 at 11:24 AM

    Man. the old days… Buying a "tre-bag" of weed. Catching the midnight show of "Alien", Blade Runner", or Dawn of the Dead.
    It was so much fun.

    ReplyDelete
  7. GojiraNovember 12, 2013 at 11:49 AM

    The crappy delicious popcorn, the theater filled with smoke (of both the legal and illegal varieties), the joy of a double-feature, and all for the dizzying price of 2 whole bucks. And newbies wonder why us old-timers miss what used to be.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousNovember 13, 2013 at 9:55 AM

    bring back the movie theater!!!

    ReplyDelete
  9. HippieChickNovember 13, 2013 at 1:48 PM

    Ah, the Rat Ranch, as we fondly called the theater! Saw all kinds of great stuff there, some of it with the Mr. Wasn't the Naked Grape clothing store on that corner before the Gap? And the NEC (Negro Ensemble Company) in the basement?

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousNovember 13, 2013 at 2:09 PM

    Anonymous 9:55,
    You mean someone else should do it? Why not you? Seriously. Take out a loan and open one.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousNovember 14, 2013 at 9:36 AM

    2:09 you are right; that is not a bad idea.:)

    ReplyDelete

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