Cobble Hill Cinemas
265 Court Street | also 267 Court Street | Cobble Hill | built 1930
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1926
The Lido Theater opens on Court Street with room for 600 people
The movie house opened as the Lido, with a small lobby but seating for 600. Its facade originally had elegant arches around the entrance, echoed by Gothic arched trim near the roofline. The Brownstoner writeup calls the rest of the design purely practical, a modest neighborhood theater of the kind that were common in the 1920s.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1934
Alterations add a private men's club with twenty members above the Lido
After changes made in 1934, the building held the theater on the ground floor and a private gentlemen's club on the second floor. The club had twenty members. An apartment took the top floor.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1939
A furnace explosion next door collapses a wall of the Lido while it is full of children and parents
On the day after Christmas, the Lido was full of children and parents when the furnace of the adjoining pool hall exploded. Smoke had started seeping in before the blast, so the audience was already being led out, and nobody panicked. A brick wall between the two buildings fell, leaving some people with smoke inhalation or minor burns. Neither building was badly damaged.
Source: brownstoner.com
- 1968
The Lido becomes the Rex Cinema and turns to B-movies and kung fu films
The theater that opened as the Lido was known as the Rex Cinema by 1968. Under that name it showed B-movies and kung fu films.
“The Lido operated till 1968, when its name changed to The Rex Cinema, and it was known for screening B-movies and Kung Fu films.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1982
Harvey Elgart's Cobble Hill Cinemas splits the theater in two, the first step toward a five-screen house
Local projectionist Harvey Elgart converted the old theater in the 1980s into Cobble Hill Cinemas, back to first-run films. It was twinned on September 24, 1982, and became a three-screen theater on March 25, 1988. On July 19, 1991, two more theaters were added upstairs, making it a five-plex.
Source: Wikipedia
- 2007
Cobble Hill Cinemas serves as a filming location for Spider-Man 3
The five-screen theater on the corner of Court and Butler Streets appeared on camera in the 2007 film Spider-Man 3. It is still run by the Elgart family through H&K Cinema Corp., which also manages theaters in Williamsburg, Kew Gardens and Mamaroneck.
“The cinema was notably used as a filming location for the 2007 film Spider-Man 3.”
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Cobble Hill CinemasWikipedia
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