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(traffic humming)
Then watching the movies there,
it gave me a sense of direction,
what I liked.
I like watching good movies,
and seeing
that life could be many things.
It allowed me to think of
and dream of
what I might be able to do.
I wasn't sure if I could do it, but
I was already figuring out
that this is something that I would like to do
and work in this kind of environment in the movies.
(soft piano music)
Yeah, I was born in Cyprus,
small island in Eastern Mediterranean Sea.
These villages, maybe there was 40, 45 people living here.
It was a very simple town.
People lived very simple.
Fishing, some had a few goats.
It was a carefree period in Cyprus.
Money wasn't the end goal.
It was just surviving,
raising your big family.
My grandfather, my grandmother had nine kids.
My father was the oldest one.
Life was easy-going.
Playing soccer in the street, going to school.
This was a mixed village.
We lived together with a lot of love with our Turkish Cypriots
and the Greek Cypriots as laborers in France
and this is their mosque
and this is our church,
coexisting together.
So living in a mixed village like this,
it was maybe a good basis that I had to coexist
with different people.
So I had no problem with adjusting in New York.
So basically, in our Cypress tradition,
the father of the bride usually,
even if they're very poor,
even if it's just one house,
you'll split it into two smaller houses
to give the daughter because the mother is very important
in our tradition,
it's the mother that takes care of
going to the next generation.
In those years, my mother didn't have a father.
She was an orphan,
so they didn't have a lot of money.
So my grandmother bought the cheapest piece of land,
which was always away from the center of town
where the church is and the mosque.
So she bought it all the way up here because in those years,
there was no houses up here,
to build the little couple of rooms for the daughters.
And my father,
I remember he always was cursing
for having to climb this.
- To go up. - I don't blame him.
It must be hot as fucking hell in the summertime.
(speaking foreign language)
So he finally had enough and moved to the city.
So this was our house in the village.
(speaking foreign language)
This is a typical Cyprus outdoor oven.
Everything seems so smooth now.
I remember we had a wedding here,
believe it or not, in this small area.
Cooking in the outdoor oven,
it was our favorite pastime,
you know, when meat was meat.
(knocking)
Nobody's home though.
(uplifting music)
So at about 12, 13 years old,
I had to drop out of school
and go with the boat, fishing every day.
That's the way they used to make a living those days.
So if he brings fish,
my grandfather would sell it to the nearby towns.
We'd all make money.
If he didn't bring fish,
sometimes he told me he would go
without eating to punish him.
So he always brought fish.
In those days it was just my father
with a small boat like this.
Fish wasn't so popular those days.
The rich people ate meat.
Now it's reverse.
Fish is the way to go.
See this, this stays on top.
Many times when you come back after fishing,
you have to repair all this.
It was hard work.
It wasn't easy work in those years,
you couldn't sell fish.
People wouldn't pay for fish.
That's why my father and my mother moved to Limassol.
So he worked at the port, at the sea port.
(speaking foreign language)
We moved to Limassol afterwards.
This is like a 25-minute ride, but it's a bigger city.
It's a big city.
When I say big city, then it was maybe 50,000, 60,000 people.
Now it's probably double.
This place remains the old part of Limassol,
got the movie theater here,
and the little shops, restaurants around the area,
and this is where everybody gathered to celebrate anything.
(car motor humming)
I don't remember what I saw, maybe I was five, six years.
Five years old.
Yeah, those days you saved five caps.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola was sold in bottles.
You get free admission to the movie.
So that's how we came to see our first movies here.
(voice echoing)
This is our cinema where everybody came,
especially on weekends.
Now it's used as a multifunction theater
for not only movies, but singers and culture,
like a cultural center.
You see, they've done a beautiful job
to bring it back to how it was years ago
and we are very grateful to whoever did this
because as you know, sometimes modern,
when you modernize, you destroy a lot of history.
"Moving Target," ” Paul Newman.
Let's see if we find any good movies.
Yeah, there is some, there we go.
Some Double-O Seven action right over there.
James Bond, James Bond, what year is this?
- '66, '67. - Oh, you know who's in this?
- Who's this? - Giancarlo Giannini.
"Seven Beauties"” and "Swept Away."
Yeah, "Swept Away."
Charles Bronson.
This is the money-maker right there.
- Who's this? - Yeah.
Now the black exploitation movies, they got them all going,
come on, this is the history of the cinema here.
Yeah, this is history of cinema.
And then going to New York,
was this like a family decision or your mother wanted to do it?
My father's sister was there for many years
and she mentioned it to us.
If you had a brother or a sister,
you could legally come to the United States.
So we saw it as an opportunity
to move from Cyprus to New York.
Honestly, I was super excited,
super excited inside of me.
I said, "This is great."
You know, I want to go to New York.
Not that I knew what New York was like,
but there was excitement for me to go.
Guys, take your coffee.
So I was a teenager,
12 years old going from Limassol,
a small town, to New York.
This good friend of mine, she told me
it wasn't the best thing that happened to you as a kid
because you've grown up,
your hormones are changing,
your place of surroundings and all that.
But despite all that,
despite all that, I managed and I love New York
and I feel grateful
for being able to do whatever I accomplished,
whatever little I accomplished,
it gives me great satisfaction.
And I could not do it here.
Only in a place like New York.
So here's to New York.
(speaking foreign language)
(energetic music)
Basically we went from here to Heathrow
and Heathrow to JFK.
It was me, my mother, and my sister,
because my brother and my father went there a few months earlier.
That was in 1970 and there's an escalator and we said,
"What the hell is that?"
And my mother refused to take the escalator,
so we had to go through the steps,
because we didn't know what it was.
The escalator in the airport.
I come to New York, I basically...
All I knew how to say is,
this is a cat.
My name is Nicolas, that's about it.
But very quickly, because I went to regular public school,
I learned very quickly.
In six months I was doing really good
and really doing good in school too.
And then I went to junior high school.
I was a good student,
but then junior high school, I really wanted to get a job.
(train rumbling)
From Astoria this was the first stop with the train.
So I came in this area looking for a job.
Across the street from Bloomingdale's.
This is where it was happening.
Third Avenue and 59th street,
Baronet & Coronet Cinema 1,2, & 3.
The greatest movies played here.
If you had any great movie, it opened up here.
These theaters opened in the early sixties, like '61, '62,
and then everybody in this business
started building around it to capture some of this business.
I mean, the lines were all over around the corners.
It was unbelievable here.
Baronet & Coronet came down a long time ago in this building.
- The Baronet was right here. - It was right here, bro,
- I'm telling you. - Right here.
Cinema 1,2, &3
is the only one that's still around.
- You know what Peekskill is? - No.
We'd come down, get fucking lost.
Park our car, get all this shit ripped off.
Come here.
Stand in line for an hour.
My favorite biggest movie we saw here was "Putney Swope."
- Do you know "Putney Swope"? - No.
You know the movie, right?
It's a big super-duper star's father, Robert Downey.
Then we saw one of the actors on the street.
For guys from PeekskKill, that was a big, big, big movie.
You were voted in here on a jive hummer.
Now how, when are things gonna happen, man?
Your whole cart has been peeped.
When are things gonna start to change?
Where is the revolution you were talking about?
There ain't nothing happening.
There is no revolution, the way you're running this joint, man.
Now when is something gonna happen?
When you gonna do it? When and how?
What day?
Give me a time, man.
Show me how progress is gonna be made.
There ain't no progress the way this is running now.
This is Sonny Williams.
What do you got to say for yourself, Sonny?
Don't feel bad.
Now there's a man who is doing something.
That is a revolution, man.
Don't you understand?
When are you gonna start?
When are you gonna do something?
So RKO Warner built two theaters here in late sixties.
Two 400-seat theaters.
And I went there and I told them I was a 17.
They gave me a job and I started working there in these theaters.
Right here was the entry to one theater
and the entry to the other theater.
And this was the box office, right here where this wall is.
It was the box office.
You buy your ticket, you go to twin one or twin two.
(guitar music)
I worked there as a doorman, an usher, a concession.
I used to change the marquee for extra money.
In that RKO 59th Street,
I used to even clean the theater after closing
because that gave you an extra salary
and I was able to get to school by eight in the morning,
sometimes late but I got there.
I worked around full time,
I think it was $2.00 an hour, 1972, '73,
but over there I worked like a manager almost.
Not the manager, but a night manager.
It was easy work, I mean, you just sit there.
You could read, people go through a turnstile.
You didn't really have to do too much.
(laughter)
We showed 35 millimeter.
We used to show repertory films for a decade
where we played all the movies,
change every couple of days.
Like "Last Tango in Paris" and Pasolini, all the movies.
I knew watching the movies, I was a very quiet kid.
Watching the movies that, this is magic.
It just hit me inside my soul that this is really terrific.
And I started dreaming in my head, making my own movie,
and I was calculating too, because I was a little bit
of a businessman, how much money do I need
to open up a place like this?
So I had to make some quick money.
So across the street was an upscale adult film.
In the '70s this was pretty big, and the early '80s.
It was called the Lido East.
It was the east side to the Pussycat Theater.
So this glass building right here
was the famous Lido East Theater.
It played day and date with the Pussycat Theater on Broadway.
- Which building? - This was the Lido East.
So I worked here for about a year.
I doubled my salary from RKO Warner.
(dramatic music)
So I went over there and asked him for a job
and I worked there for about a year
to make some quick money.
(dramatic music)
And then I said, okay, I had enough of this,
I made some money.
And there was another theater on 59th Street
called the D.W. Griffith.
So I got a job over there working as a manager.
(upbeat music)
And it ends up that these people that own the Griffith
also own the 59th Street
and a bunch of other family theaters,
but also adult theaters because those years,
adult was very big.
My boss was Chelly Wilson.
She was a woman that came from Greece.
When the Nazis came in Greece, she's Jewish,
she left Greece and came to New York
and she opened up the first adult theaters
where the girls were playing volleyball
and their tits bouncing up and down,
and she started all these adult movie theaters in New York.
(lively music)
She had the Eros, the Venus, the Cameo, the Adonis.
She was a tough woman and she worked with other people
like the guys from the Pussycat.
They cooperated together.
Actually this whole building is Richard Basciano.
Richard Basciano was the biggest guy on Times Square.
He died a few months ago.
This whole building is worth a lot of money.
She had all these adult actresses have live performance.
It was the multiplex of those days.
So all these people worked together.
It's the same woman and a Greek man and another Jewish lady
that lived on the East Side.
Very old people.
Lee Pomeranz was one that lived on the East Side.
Chelly Wilson and Nick Justin.
Wilson used to live right upstairs
from a gay porno theater.
With their home office right there
across the street where the bar is.
So that was three adult theaters there.
The Venus, the Eros, and the Capri.
Upstairs was Chelly Wilson's house.
The Eros was right there where that Cafe Expresso is
and next to it was the Venus.
(intense music)
Nick Justin, the Greek guy
because she was more into the art film and the art scene.
Besides being a partner in the adult business,
he had a fancy office at 1501 Broadway,
you know, in Times Square where the ball comes down.
The old Paramount Theater.
I worked out of that office basically.
About a year after working as a manager,
their general manager that run about a dozen theaters,
left with a girl,
a younger girl.
Left his wife and kids.
Left the job and they had nobody to go around to the theaters.
So somebody called me up and they said,
"Nick, can you cover Ted while he's away
until we see what happens?”
So they gave me his car and I started going around
to the theaters.
At the time I was even going to Hunter College,
but I got so interested in the operations
and Ted never came back
and I ended up being a general manager
for about a dozen theaters.
Half of them were art theaters
and half of them were adult theaters.
The adult theaters were doing good cash money.
That was cash, cash.
(dramatic music)
- You got to be kidding. - What?
- This is a dirty movie. - No, no.
This is a movie that a lot of couples come to.
All kinds of couples go here.
- You sure about that? - Yeah.
Yeah, I see them all the time.
Come on.
(speaking foreign language)
(shushing)
The cost, those years, was so much less
to do business in New York.
Those were the times when people just, I mean,
we saw like sold-out shows for porno movies,
and the film repertory we used to sell out in this theater,
The Cinema Village, every single seat.
I mean, people would line up to see all those.
"Last Tango in Paris" and all these other movies, art movies.
After a year of doing this with college,
I had to drop out of college
because it was too much time consuming to do both.
But I... this business just took me over.
(piano music)
There was a big education for me to go around
to all these theaters, watch these people,
how they operate their business.
I learned everything I know in that period because my luck,
they were old and they didn't want to do anything anymore.
And here they had a young kid that they trusted,
with the money.
(grunting)
Nick Justin dies and he leaves,
as an executrix, Chelly Wilson's daughter.
So one of the things that was selling out to people
was the D.W. Griffith Theater
because it didn't make that much money
and it didn't have a long lease.
It only had a few, two, three-year lease.
Yeah, it was an art theater.
I bought that business from Bondi for about $160,000.
I got about $35,000 left and all the money that I saved,
and then the opportunity comes about
where these people I worked for, they told me,
why don't you just give the keys back
for that theater on Third Avenue,
which showed the adult movies?
It was the Jewel Theater.
My mind started thinking, why give it up?
I need something to generate money.
So I took it over.
I give the landlord like $15,000 deposit.
We started fixing up the place.
We put new carpets, we redid the seats,
make the place look nice.
Meantime, we made a cash business grow,
so I had cash flow from that business every week.
Cineplex continued its buying spree
by adding a thousand new screens to a circuit
that now boasted 1,800 screens in 500 locations
in North America and the UK.
Drabinsky spared no expense when buying,
building, and renovating each theater.
He outspent his competitors two to one
in construction costs.
Every theater had to be bigger, better.
To cover his expenses, he raised ticket prices,
arguing he offered a superior movie-going experience.
In the '80s, Cineplex Odeon came to town.
They wanted to buy all the theaters.
They wanted to have control of the movie theater industry.
So they approached me and they wanted to buy the theater.
They offered me like a million and a half.
I was just a kid then, so I didn't understand
big business, and this guy wanted the theater.
So they came into town with a private plane,
I went to their offices, some office over here,
and I'm sitting with the guy, I'm making the deal
and I realized that this guy's a real professional.
By the time I left, he wasn't going to give me
a million and a half, maybe $500,000 and get out.
And I just didn't know what to do.
So I told the guy, I'm sorry, I have to go to the bathroom.
And I just walked out.
I went to the coffee shop, some good coffee shop,
I had a hamburger,
and then this guy was calling all over for me.
Not that this deal was so important to them,
but he had to go to Washington, D.C.,
and the private plane was waiting to buy
another 18 theaters in Washington, D.C.
So he was getting a little bit upset,
and as they told me afterwards,
Drabinsky, they had a voice call from Canada.
He says, "Where's this fucking kid?
Didn't he sign already?
You didn't get this kid yet?"
Anyway, by the time they reached me,
my lawyer told me, "Why'd you walk away?"
I said, "Listen, I'm not coming back."
This guy said he'd pay me a million and a half.
I want a million and a half, otherwise I don't come back.
I'm not giving up the theater.”
So they just wrote me a check.
That was my first big check.
That's how you do it, guys.
(guitar music)
This is my mom's village, Kalavasos,
and she was born here
and in 1970 went to New York.
And in 1983 she died.
She was only 59 years old.
She lived a difficult life.
She was an orphan from her father.
And then she also had a difficult life
because she married my father.
Another difficult man.
To my good luck, she was cleaning the houses,
the apartments, the hallways,
and she was a big... Very, very good with money.
She saved a few dollars.
I remember when I got my first good job
and I had some money and I just said,
"Mama, let's go out to this nice restaurant in New York,"
and she did get dressed and we drove with the car,
and when she saw the restaurant,
she saw it was a little fancy restaurant.
She says, "Oh, come on son, let's go.
It's enough, I saw it, let's go home."
She refused to go spend money,
but in any event, she did manage to save $27,000 in 1983,
secretly, and that money was handed to me
and I was also in my... About 27 years old.
I felt a very big obligation that this woman, my mother,
sacrificed so much to save this much money.
So I felt I needed to make the best that I could,
and what I did that's... Within one year
of my mother's death, I was in business.
I opened my first movie theater,
that only cost me about $30,000 anyway to do.
And from there I started making very good money
and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It's a playground where the kids come and play
and the park was named after her
and this is for the people that lived in her village.
So this is the least I thought we could do
because it's not the amount of money,
it's that you know that person that gave it to you,
gave it to you with a lot of sacrifice and a lot of love.
That is what drove me,
in my own way, to succeed, economically at least.
(speaking foreign language)
I remember that I admired Nick even before I met him.
I knew his father that was visiting Cyprus,
spending time with us, and I knew of this kid
that was a hard-working kid that made himself.
He helped all his family to change their life
from being like a poor and working...
- And happy. - Yes.
And Nick visited Cyprus after 20 years.
I was 22 so I was happy to meet Nick
and also show him around Cyprus.
And then the day at the park,
I was impressed that, although everybody was running
to be with the president and to take pictures
and enjoy that day,
Nick was by me
and he was very, very nice and very polite.
I only came here for a week because the park
and I felt an obligation to come there.
I didn't want to be ignorant.
So I came here for a week
and I really had no other intention.
But when I first saw Christiana,
just something hit me
and I knew that I had to use every trick
I saw in the movies.
(laughter)
And then her friend, and to me inside of me,
it's like my mother was the reason I came here
and then I meet Christiana.
I wasn't really looking.
I never thought I would leave my country
and I've, you know, it was... But I really felt
that I didn't want to lose him.
So without even thinking about it, it was, the answer was yes.
- Did you go back with him? - No.
He told me I'm going to go back and take care of things
- and come back. - And come back and marry you.
Yeah, the next day he went there, he called me.
He goes on, when are we getting married?
I said, we just decided.
I said, okay, but a few days went by
and I couldn't stay away.
I felt so... I wanted to see him.
So I went and to find him in New York.
He said that he was planning to come back here,
but he never did.
So yeah.
You never leave New York.
(groovy music)
So between Third Avenue giving me the cash flow
and then making that deal on 59th Street
for a million and a half, gave me a good starting money
to look into other theaters.
I kept looking for theaters all over
that were not doing so well.
Theaters that were maybe up for sale
that needed fixing and things like that.
So I opened up at one time a movie theater
up by Columbia University,
the Columbia Cinema,
and we had a nice big premiere of "La Bamba" there.
And meantime, some of their adult theaters,
they just were walking away from them because they were old.
The business was dying.
Early '80s, these theaters were on their way out.
So I caught those theaters on the way out.
So I was building up my art theaters
and the regular movie theaters,
but I took a shot by taking one of those old operations
to keep them going, to make some money,
some more cash flow.
(waves crashing, wind blowing)
So that was a cash flow place for me
because it was making some money
and I focused a little bit more on it
and I doubled the profits there.
You do anything like they do to any regular theater,
you have to upgrade it, you have to clean it up,
put new furnishings,
make it a nicer experience for the patron.
People do appreciate it.
She ever see you kiss a man?
No.
(chattering)
Well, basically a place where people met mostly.
A lot of people just went there to meet.
They also had partnerships in the bath,
which I never dealt with.
This is a movie theater,
this is what movies I wanted to see.
Now, whether you go there to hang out and meet somebody
or what's the difference?
I mean, what do you do today on the internet
that it's available everywhere?
(women screaming)
(indistinct conversation)
(indistinct yelling)
(atmospheric humming)
(indistinct shouting)
(mellow music)
(yelling)
(horns blaring)
(birds chirping)
Yeah, the city was pressured.
That was the years of Giuliani.
They basically wanted to clean Times Square out,
so they expanded their whole policy
throughout the city.
They went around and making these charges
to all adult theaters.
So if they saw somebody doing something,
then they had reason to shut you down.
So they shut me down and then I reopened.
But as long as you did things legal,
they couldn't close you.
Wouldn't police every patron.
You know, things could happen.
Things happen in regular theaters,
if you notice.
Going back many, many years,
what do people do in movie theaters?
This is just the city was focusing more
on the adult theaters.
(soft dramatic music)
But the neighborhood never bothered
because we always run, if I can say,
a respectable front, not to provoke anybody,
not to have any pictures in the front
so kids can see as they're walking by,
but because the place has been there for so many decades,
the patrons know where to come.
I think everything could have its place.
It's how you do it.
You could have adult, you could have regular,
you know, you have to do it with a little respect for the area.
(piano music)
(heavy breathing)
At that time I was buying the business,
but even though the rents were low,
because I knew I wanted to stay in this business
because I loved what I was doing with a passion
and whether it was showing adult movies, art movies,
or first run movies, I just liked it.
I really was excited about it,
and I knew that in order to stay in this business,
I need to protect the longevity
by buying the buildings.
So at one point,
I offered more money and I bought the buildings.
Can I help you with something, sir?
Yeah, you got this in a sneaker?
(chuckling)
I was in the neighborhood so I thought I'd come in.
Why are you whispering?
- I'm whispering? - Yeah.
Sorry.
- I just want to talk to you. - Okay.
Why don't you have a seat?
I'll be with you in a minute.
The first one I bought was Third Avenue
for a million dollars.
I tried to make it a regular movie,
and I opened "Sea of Love" with Al Pacino and...
But then these big companies
started building these multiplexes.
Like overbuilt.
And then in '92, I just developed it
and made the place into apartments
and The VNYL upscale bar.
Is that a gay bar now?
All right, so where's the theater we're talking about?
- Nick. - This is it.
Where?
I don't see no theater.
Oh, this is it, The VNYL, bro.
- Is this a theater? No. - Yeah.
This is a movie theater?
This was the Jewel Theater in the old days.
This goes back,
it was a vaudeville house with talkies,
Charlie Chaplin.
You know, for a nickel you came
and you slept overnight in the old days.
In 1890, this was a place
where gentlemen used to hang out,
respectable gentlemen used to hang out...
- Like us. - with doubtful
character women.
- What is it now? - Now it's VNYL,
- Vintage New York Lifestyle. - What was this, variety?
It's a multistory club.
Somewhere you can come and have private parties
or if Abel wants to hang out with his buddies
on the second floor or the second floor mezzanine.
I bought the building 25 years ago.
Actually, it's a very, very luxurious place.
Very fancy place.
Just like it was in 1891.
(mellow music)
When you go against these big companies,
they just take away the product,
so what am I gonna show?
Go back to adult movies?
So I just figured, okay, I'm better off.
I'll make it residential and finish with that.
(indistinct talking)
Make some noise!
(cheering and applause)
(indistinct shouting)
Everybody knows that the film studios
and these big chains, at one point or another,
there is collusion.
Even the Justice Department knows.
But the bottom line is you try to prove that in court.
Did you ever think of trying it?
You can't beat these guys.
They have an army of lawyers.
The court system doesn't care
to waste their money on issues like this.
So you always lose.
(train rumbling)
The only reason I did it is because...
(piano music)
for seven years, the theater in Queens,
they took the first run movies away
and I was suffering.
But I refused to close that theater
because a lady gifted me that theater,
an old lady that was like my second mother.
And there was no way I was going to close the theater
and I was begging them for film
and nobody would listen.
And then I thought, okay,
if I keep it as a movie theater,
I'll give it to these big chains.
They didn't want it.
It was an impossible situation.
So I sent them a letter and I said,
"Okay, why don't you take the theater?"
Take the business over.
Just leave it as a movie theater.
I don't want to turn it into a drug store
or a supermarket.
I just want to keep it as a theater
"even if it's your business."
They didn't even bother answering.
So I figured the only way
they're gonna at least listen to me
or look at my offer that it exists was to sue them.
And I sued them.
Patty, theater one, what time is the next show?
(mellow music)
(indistinct conversation)
To my luck, of course I didn't win,
because you cannot beat the system.
After 50, 60 years,
Fox made an announcement
and said from May 2016, "We don't care who you are,
we're giving everybody the movies.
We want people to go to the movie theaters.
We don't want to see no more movie theaters closed."
The gray is what's available.
The screen is up there, so...
The screen is up there.
- How many seats do you want? - Two.
The screen is up here, you want to sit in the first,
second, third, fourth, fifth row?
(indistinct remarks)
- In the aisle. - Aisle.
Oh, you want to go back there?
- Back there, yeah? - Yeah.
Okay.
Sixteen dollars.
I'll sign for this guy.
We want to get him to sign.
These big companies,
the only reason they make statements like that
is because there's pressure.
There was an open investigation from the Department of Justice.
So these big corporations,
what they don't like is lawsuits.
So to avoid themselves the headache,
all these big companies,
for the first time after decades,
decided we're going to give everybody the movies.
They said, "We don't want to see movie theaters close down."
So I have to take them at their word.
It doesn't matter, the end result is,
for the first time after seven years,
I was getting first run movies
and then Paramount followed a month later,
Universal, Lionsgate,
and then the theater came back to life.
(unintelligible) the owner of this independent movie theater
here in Forest Hills, Queens,
says he could be facing closure,
and he's hoping the success of that movie,
"American Sniper," helps him stay open.
But it all started because
Warner Bros. Gave me a movie.
A first run movie,
the first run movie that I ever played there
in seven years, "American Sniper."
And then the whole neighborhood was up in arms
because they really didn't want the theater closed.
So they all came to the theater and supported it,
and their support was so tremendous
that all the news...
Channel ♪, Channel 11, Channel 2,
they all came to the theater and it was unbelievable.
The people didn't stop coming there.
This Queens resident has been coming here
since he was a child.
It's a wonderful theater, great neighborhood place to be.
Been coming here since I'm a kid.
Some great memories, wonderful shows with friends.
It's just a great place.
I was just standing in front of the box office,
thanking every customer that came out.
I was standing there from 11, 12 noon to 11 at night.
I'm bringing more people that normally will not come
to the... will not go to the movies.
They'd rather wait and see the movie on TV.
That's the customers that come there,
because that theater has been there for 90 years.
Ninety years, generation upon generation
have been coming to that theater.
They like it, they feel comfortable,
it's their home.
(sinister music)
(drill whirring)
(high-pitched whirring)
(screaming)
Well, in the '70s and 80s, it was more like,
"Let's go to the movies."
Let's get there before, a half hour,
we get tickets before an hour.
Let's wait in line," and things like that.
Now it's like, "Let's get our reserved seat."
I'm going to sit at D5.
I come in five minutes before,” and that's it.
Well, you enjoy the movie.
For example, now you're going to see "Blade Runner."
- Two hours and 43 minutes. - Yeah, two hours and 43 minutes.
So you want to be comfortable.
I love the "Godfather" movies.
I like these type of movies.
I like early Martin Scorsese movies.
"Mean Streets" and...
Business is business for the city.
They still collect the real estate tax
and everything else.
But movie theaters give character
to the neighborhood.
Movie theaters give life, so it's about humans,
it's about people.
We just renovated the theater.
The idea was to make it like the way it was built in 1920s,
because that's what we want.
We want people to come here and feel those years.
And just like it was in the 1920s
with nice solid door.
Right?
As you see, there's no urinals,
but we spend a lot of money here,
so I wanted to show it.
Down the hallway,
you have three theaters and two up here.
Originally the theater was a single screen theater,
about 1,200 seats, but now it's five.
The cafe will be part of the theater,
so people can wait at the cafe,
have a drink, coffee, or maybe nothing,
just sit there.
A movie theater should be a relaxed time
that somebody puts their cell phone away
for a couple of hours and forgets about it,
and they can live without it for two hours
and go in a dark theater and enjoy a movie.
If you don't come out to the theater,
you cannot do that.
Basically, we have good old-fashioned popcorn,
good quality, and at half the price
of what everybody else charges.
You don't need to be greedy,
you don't need to rip people off.
They'll come more often to the theater,
and I want people to come to the movies.
-Yeah, we got people coming... -Movies make people cry,
they make them happy.
Don't shoot me, shoot the crowd.
And I think that's worth something.
There's a crowd, what are you coming to see?
What movie are you going to see?
- Which one? - "Battle of the Sexes."
"Battle of the Sexes"... we got a battle going on right here.
I got a battle at home.
-I don't have to come... -We all have
I don't have to come to the movies!
- Right? - Right.
- How'd you like the movie? - Good, it was good!
Okay, he liked the movie.
You guys know the original?
You guys see the original?
I thought the script was better for the original,
but I think the directing and cinematography was better
- for the more... for the new one. - Oh, really, that's interesting.
I think that this is probably just gonna be the end of it.
I think they closed it pretty well.
I think that if they ended here I'd be fine,
but if they made another one
and explored much more mature themes,
then it'd be great, too.
And I think they could have also explored
a couple of different... More concepts.
Because it could have explored concepts
that this film didn't explore
such as the human psyche
and the human psyche
that this one didn't explore as much.
Are you a filmmaker?
We're two.
Both of us are kind of film nerds.
- I am, yeah. - You guys shoot?
- Yes, we shoot. - Excellent, all right.
Have you made your own movie yet?
I've made small pieces here and there.
- Just like one minute long. - All right.
Got to start somewhere, right?
Vito.
- Where is Vito? - Vito?
Yeah, he don't work here no more?
(indistinct talking)
He's my boss.
They are part of the theater sort of.
When was this opened, this place?
1925 with the theater.
So whoever wants to shut down this place is a mistake.
Actually, it's kind of a holiday, I think,
for my neighbors,
so that's why we're not that busy Friday.
Club, too.
(indistinct talking)
You see it? You see it, too?
(laughing)
I could see it.
The other one.
Sal, please pull to the right, okay.
I can't go to the right right now.
- There are the poles. - Not right now.
- It's like when you can. - Come on, don't make me
like I'm an asshole in front of people.
(laughing)
My name is Sal Peretti.
I was born in Union City, New Jersey,
and I've been in Jersey all my life.
I started myself in 1942.
The war started in '41.
All the guys went away.
I was 12 years old and I was an usher,
I sold candy, and I cleaned the theater at night
for an old weak fella that owned the theater.
I always was a manager and Nick worked for me as a kid,
but Nick is very smart.
He told me, "I'm not going to manage theaters all my life.
I'm going to own it,
and you are going to work for me."
And that's exactly what happened.
I'm working for him, but I'm not killing myself,
you know what I mean?
You don't have to say nothing nice.
His assistant hired me
and then, I think I used to go a little late
because after junior high school,
sometimes you go late.
So he called me in to fire me,
because he says, "You come in late."
So I said, "What are you talking about?"
I came from Astoria.
I paid money on the train.
I brought my sandwich with me from home.
"You're going to fire me?"
So being Sal, who he is, where he comes from,
from a poor Italian-American family
in the Depression, that hit a chord.
So he didn't fire me.
So that was the best thing he ever did, then.
(soft music)
Welcome to the Alpine Cinema.
All right.
- This is... - What a beautiful theater.
an old neighborhood theater.
The oldest in the five boroughs of New York.
Has been continuously operating for 97 years.
About 10 years ago,
this theater would have been the victim
of another shutdown,
another theater closing, a historic theater.
There was like five theaters around here
and one by one got shut down,
and some of them within months.
So when it came to these,
both the Republicans and the Democrats
had a big, big outcry in the newspapers all over.
They were calling to find somebody to buy it.
Nobody wanted to buy it.
I found this theater in the newspaper.
I called him in his home in Cyprus,
and he came right away and took it over.
I do it because it combines
two things I like to do: Make money
and keep neighborhood theaters alive.
He's a great movie man.
He loves the movies
and I taught him the business when he was a kid.
He's outsmarted me.
He knows the business inside out.
So we discovered backstage where about a hundred years ago,
they had a 12-piece orchestra
where they played before the movie in 1921.
Then we started building.
We made the best theater out of all these theaters.
For the first time in the history of our country,
a majority of our people believe
that the next five years
will be worse than the past five years.
How about the next 35?
Movies are part of our lives.
And if you don't want to make them available,
how is a kid, 15, 14, 16 going to go
if he can't drive?
So why does everybody need to take a car
and drive three, four, five miles away to see a movie?
What movie you seeing?
I'm going to watch "It."
- Why? - I don't know, it looks good.
- It looks good. - I watched the reviews
and it looks entertaining.
I heard it has a lot of jump scares.
Jump scares. Okay.
You guys like getting scared?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
You didn't even go to school yet, right?
- You didn't even go home yet. - No, not yet.
We come here.
This is like your stop?
- Your stop on the way home? - Yeah, of course.
So what do you tell them at home?
- Doing your homework? - Yeah.
- Studying hard. - Yeah.
And then what, you're watching a horror movie?
Yeah, every time.
Try to watch every movie we can.
- All you guys are same? - Egyptian.
You're Egyptian?
- And this cat? - I'm mixed.
- Mixed what? - Moroccan and Vietnamese.
- And Egyptian. - And Vietnamese.
All right, okay.
-You're mixed from... -Half-Egyptian.
You're getting close shots.
There's another Egyptian, I can see him from here.
Yep, he's Egyptian.
(mixed chatter)
I'm not a politician.
I'm a survivor.
I'm a kid that grew up in New York
with all sorts of people
that coexisted with those people.
So I know if I survived,
I'm here in this little theater 23 feet wide,
and all around me I have 49 screens
that are built by the biggest stock market companies ever.
My poorest competitor is a billionaire up the street
and I'm still here.
So what I'm saying is, surviving Times Square,
surviving the Mecca of film exhibitors,
which is The Village,
and I'm still open where others closed
and I don't have anybody backing me up
or any film studios like others,
so I have no problem surviving
and coexisting with my mosque next door.
Even I disagree or disagree with their beliefs,
it doesn't matter to me.
I can coexist and survive through all that
because that theater needs to be open,
the people want it, and you don't just walk away
because it may be a losing proposition
or it's too difficult.
People like to go watch movies with people.
That's fun.
That's what we are, social animals.
Watching movies like horror movies, "It,"
you're watching the movie with your peers,
another 300 teenagers, 200 teenagers,
you're all laughing, it's fun.
This is what it is.
The movie may not be the greatest movie,
but it's the whole experience.
(singing in foreign language)
(mellow music)
Ow!
(rapid gunfire)
(yelling)
For example, look at Cinema Village
where we are right now.
Across the street, the apartments are selling
for $10 million each.
I could build eight floors here.
I could get rent for this movie theater,
a restaurant or something that's 10 times more
than what I'm making as a movie theater,
but that means I will have
to shut down the theater for good.
(upbeat piano music)
Built in 1963 from 1800s,
a firehouse, a famous engine, 72.
In 1963, build a little small art theater.
The place shows very independent films
that you don't get to see, they crack through the holes
and they're never seen in theaters.
You'll find them here.
Like now we're playing
executive producer Martin Scorsese,
this wonderful film.
Maybe we get a few people.
Whatever we get, that's fine with us.
It was one small theater to begin with, narrow and long,
but in order to keep up with the economics,
we separated and made two theaters.
This is the original projection booth
that we just took the balcony and made a second theater.
In 1999, we closed the theater.
We were suffering economically,
and we just sit in an empty theater deciding,
and I said, "No, let's do something
to bring in more money,"
and the fact is that only this theater
could survive in New York,
because the New York audience is a kind of people
that are aware of movies.
So this is the projection booth we had to create
in order to make another theater,
because we needed to have two theaters,
so we can have more movies shown,
so the income will justify us staying open.
As you see, it's kind of unorthodox,
but we have to jump on the stage.
When we come up, there's nobody here,
so it's a matter of scheduling so people don't see us.
And the way things operate today,
we can basically operate with a remote control
from downstairs.
Currently showing the digital films.
And in the olden days we used to show the 16 millimeter,
35 millimeter, that we can still show.
And this is a booth we created to have the other theater.
And stay, yeah, stay over there.
Go a little bit by the light, just about there.
Jesse.
Do you think Daddy...
What?
Forget it.
What, Tracy?
I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.
We can move all your stuff back in tomorrow if you want.
So basically about a year, two years ago in this theater,
I decided that, well, we need to make some money.
I can't just show movies that 10 people come and say,
"Well, that was a great film. It should deserve playing."
So basically, I would charge the filmmaker.
I said, "Okay, you need the movie to play in a theater."
I have a great location.
You guys need to pay me some money.
And if you make a great box office hit,
"you get 100 percent of your money."
You remember Daddy kissing you or hugging you?
Do you think that's why I never...
Do you think that's why I'm cold?
I don't think you're cold.
I think I'm cold.
Or maybe just not warm.
You're a good person.
I charge them anywhere from, depends on people,
how long they've been working with us,
could be five to ten thousand dollars a week.
Ten thousand a week to show the movie?
I mean, this guy's spending half a million dollars
to make a movie.
Why not give Nick another five, $10,000, or $8,000,
and they get to have Q&A, they get New York Times review,
they get a lot of things.
And you know something?
When their movie's played in the movie theater,
this is like the Mecca of movie theaters now in this area.
This is a top-notch area.
(lively music)
Absolutely, yeah.
My son and daughter are continuing,
they just finished colleges in New York,
they graduated,
so both my daughter and son are going to be...
Are working with me.
Then I have another daughter who is coming in,
but she's going to go to college,
so I don't think she'll be involved.
Basically, I'm giving them the responsibility to take over.
- What's going on? - The other side of the world
and we work remotely together.
They're in our office in Cyprus,
and we're on Skype all day, all night.
She's the everything behind this.
She runs the behind it, the behind the scenes.
-This is... -But basically,
my wife controls everything from Cyprus
through her management team.
Anything financial,
what everything
I don't worry about what gets paid,
what doesn't get paid,
or hooked up with the banks.
Everything is overlooked from there, from overseas.
This is another way you cut your operation cost, too,
which we are... I like to think we pass it on to the patron.
That's how we have the most affordable price policy
in movie theaters.
So we got like six, seven show times
after ♪:00 p.m.
You see ♪:00, ♪:15, ♪:20, ♪:30.
Here you can see there's something like a school.
It's a big group, maybe it's 200 people there.
Because it's the morning,
all groups or parties are usually in the morning
because it's usually schools.
Alpine in Brooklyn is doing the best business.
We do very big, very, very big
with the family movies in Brooklyn.
It's... if you go there on the weekends,
it's packed with families and their kids.
For one, it's very reasonable.
We charge a reasonable, the lowest price in New York,
and people just support it.
Like you got "Star Wars" coming in.
We're already selling tickets for Christmas for "Star Wars."
I mean, I care not only about the money,
I'm a businessman,
but I care about what the people get.
It's how you feel afterwards, that's what I care.
To me, to run back and forth and sell another 10 tickets
means nothing to my pocket, basically.
The satisfaction that the guy parked his car
and came there with his wife to see a movie
and I got him in before the movie started,
this makes it for me.
(mellow music)
(speaking foreign language)
He's doing his own operation,
and we're trying to do everything behind
that has to do with financing
and the future of the family to make sure
that we spend time together and enjoy our home.
I want Nick to relax more and enjoy his...
He made me many promises.
He promised that he's going to be five years,
before 15 years, he's going to relax
and enjoy everything.
It's getting worse with his workaholic,
it's getting worse, but now I'm saying no.
There is more things in life
like I'm doing now my sculptures, my dance.
(sizzling)
I'd rather buy an old movie theater.
How do you see the next five years,
10 years of your life?
Just keep doing what I'm doing.
Keep doing what I'm doing.
If something comes up where we find a location,
we'll open another theater.
I love the theater, one,
I'm still not a hundred years old,
and I feel good being part of this business.
I mean, I feel privileged that I was part
of you guys making the movies in my own way
even as an exhibitor or as a businessman,
and I don't like everything to become mass production,
that people have to drive 20 miles,
10 miles to go to only one.
Give the people a choice.
I mean, especially in New York,
there's something nice about seeing some small movie.
Most of the guys we play here
would never get their movie released
in a movie theater.
I think that's wrong.
(laughing)
This is our youngest daughter, Phoebe.
- Phoebe. - Silence.
This is the last...
(indistinct talking)
That's my daughter...
- Okay! - Okay, guys.
Now, now, thank you, thank you.
My daughter also...
(solemn music)
I think movie theaters are always going to be,
and I don't believe in those fancy games needed
to get the people in, like all those tricks,
and I mean, just basically have good projection,
a comfortable place,
a nice dark theater to watch a movie in.
That's what I think people like.
(upbeat music)
(singing in foreign language)
(mellow music)
(dramatic music)