Brooklyn’s oldest movie theater gets a facelift for its centennial

By Duncan Freeman

In 1921, Warren Harding was sworn in as president, Charlie Chaplin’s iconic comedy drama “The Kid” was released and the Alpine Cinema opened in Bay Ridge, a new movie theater that boasted the ability to seat 2,200 moviegoers.

Today, the Alpine Cinema has eight screens and is back in business with a long-overdue makeover, just in time to celebrate its centennial anniversary. The oldest movie theater in Brooklyn opened its doors back up last week, months after the state gave theaters the green light to reopen with limited capacity in March. Nick Nicolaou, the theater’s owner, “always wanted to fix it up” and he needed a few extra weeks, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

In order to stay afloat for over a year without any moviegoers, and to fund the renovations, Nicolaou was forced to take out over $3 million in loans, over a million of which went to pay off state and federal taxes. Property taxes alone cost Nicolaou $316,000 dollars.

So far, it’s paying off: Patrons at the June 7 reopening were greeted with higher ceilings, new floors, new countertops, a powerful ventilation system, and a flashy new LCD screen that shows previews.

Nicolaou, who brought Cinema Villiage on East 12th Street in Manhattan back from the brink, bought the 100-year-old movie house 14 years ago, and he knew then it desperately needed repairs—and that it was saddled with disproportionately high property taxes. But he says he didn’t want it to shut down completely. Saving small cinemas, especially historic ones with long tenure, is Nicolaou’s “biggest joy,” he telld the New York Times.

Keeping his cinema’s accessible to all families is important for Nicolaou as well and is why even after taking out millions of dollars in loans, he has never raised his ticket prices higher than $10. Not quite as cheap as a quarter, which is what they were on opening night. But still, some of the cheapest tickets in the entire city.