Filmmakers Cinematheque
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Cinema name : Filmmakers Cinematheque
Building name : Fluxhouse II Address : 80 Wooster Street Neighborhood : SoHo Years of occupancy : 1967 - 1969; 1974 - 1988 (as Anthology) Screens (seats) : 1 (72) Active individuals : Jonas Mekas (director); George Maciunas (Fluxus Co-op founder); Jerome Hill (funder) |
Quotes & Notes
Meekas coordinated with Maciunas and Jerome Hill put down a deposit. 1969. Team established structure of institution dedicates to avant-garde cinema. Film Selection Committee identified the Essential Cinema Repertory
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/about/history
Meekas claims he acquired 80 Wooster St and allowed Maciunas to have Fluxus housed there
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/95
Had trouble renovating the space - with the building department so in 1969 they started screening in the Hartford building and in the Greene St building where Fluxus was
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
"Mekas imbibed the coop spirit there, transferring it in
America to the Film-makers' Cooperative which he founded
in 1962 to help independent filmmakers. It began at the
Charles Theater at Avenue B and East 12th Street and
subsequently moved to the Bleecker Street Cinema and the
Gramercy Arts in 1963. Mekas also created Film-makers'
Cinematheque, which he founded in 1964, and Anthology
Film Archives, established in 1970—both of which thrived
for years at 80 Wooster Street.
...
While other
Cinematheques were mainly concerned with film history,
Mekas wrote, his concern was "the living cinema." Film-
Makers' Cinematheque was to serve "as the center for the
showing and promoting of non-commercial, avant-garde
cinema and the best of the commercial film classics." It was
to publish books and magazines on cinema (including Film
Culture, a quarterly magazine which first appeared in January
1955), assist with grants to filmmakers, and "intervene as
amicus curiae in court and appellate proceedings involving
motion picture censorship and licensing questions." It was
to assist universities, museums, galleries, film societies, and
art theaters in programming films and lectures." From 1958
to 1975 Mekas aired this vision in his provocative "Movie
Journal" column for the Village Voice which frequently ended
with his personal film recommendations.
...
George Maciunas' sister Nijole made the deposit on 80
Wooster, with the rest of the money coming on Mekas'
behalf from Jerome Hill, a wealthy supporter of avantgarde
film. Hill was born in 1905 and was the grandson of
James J. Hill, who established the Great Northern Railway
and was known as the "Empire Builder." An artist, filmmaker
and philanthropist, Jerome Hill used money from his large
trust fund to support emerging artists. Mekas agreed to
pay $8,000 for the ground floor and basement to house
Cinematheque I, the showcase where the public "will have
to take chances with new artists and with new works of
established artists." The Voice ad warned readers, "This will
be our workshop, our testing ground where anything goes.
Because of the low rent," Mekas wrote, "Cinematheque I will
be able to premiere all avant-garde works without fear of
not covering the rent." At the bottom of the ad, Mekas
asked readers for donations. Although he told New York
Times film critic Vincent Canby that he had the $12,000 in
hand to remodel the West 41st space, he estimated that he
would need $32,000 for the new downtown spaces. "To put
all three places in working shape we need your immediate
assistance," he wrote, adding that "the establishment of the
Cinematheque I and Cinematheque II downtown creates a
new borough of New York which from now on will be called
The South Village." This name never took hold and the
acronym SoHo was eventually adopted by the area.
The space for Cinematheque II was to be in 18 Greene
Street, a building that was supposed to become Fluxhouse
I. However, when Hill had an opportunity to get space at the
Public Theatre on Lafayette Street, Mekas went there and
abandoned the plans for 18 Greene Street. Without Mekas,
Maciunas could not realize his plans and Fluxhouse II, at 80
Wooster Street, became the first artists' housing cooperative,
despite its secondary designation. Later, Maciunas was able
to revise the Greene Street project which was then called
Greene Street Precinct.
...
Acutely aware that he would need extensive funding to
achieve his dreams, Mekas wrote an "Unchaining Letter
to All friends of the Avant-garde Cinema," on November 7,
1967. He spoke of 80 Wooster Street as a much cheaper
theater where "for the last three months we have been trying
to raise money to fix up the new place (plumbing, heating,
seats, projectors) but we have been turned down by all
money-giving 'cultural' institutions." The letter was an appeal
to his audience, asking them to make two or more copies
and mail it to friends. "Each receiver of this letter is being
asked to send one dollar to the Film-Makers' Cinematheque,"
he wrote, although larger contributions would be accepted.
At the bottom of the letter, in quintessential Mekas style,
he wrote; "Support the avant-garde film-maker in his quite
lonely work."
...
Journal" columns, Mekas wrote about the expansion
downtown. "We hope that the Cinematheque will become
the core of the South Village," he said. Mekas described
Cinematheque as the "wind's baby." First opening at the New
Yorker Theatre in December, 1964, it subsequently moved to
42nd Street and Tenth Avenue, then, in Spring 1965, down
to the City Hall Cinema; then, up to Fourth Street, where
it never got started, so it opened at the Astor Playhouse,
on Lafayette Street, where it stayed until December 1966,
when it moved to 41st Street.
The reason for its latest move to 80 Wooster Street was
simple, Mekas explained: the 41st Street Theatre was too
expensive. While the "commercial wing of the underground"
drew audiences, the experimental wing did not. "We kept
looking for solutions, running for money to pay the debts,
until we reached a really dead end and, last July, gave up the
41st Street Theatre."
Despite the moves and the financial stress, Mekas had
not given up on his dream of the need for a showcase for
avant-garde film. It was important, Mekas wrote, that avantgarde
filmmakers had freedom to experiment—"without any
distributor or exhibitor telling him what he can or can not do."
Determined to keep Cinematheque alive, Mekas bought
the ground floor of 80 Wooster Street, which he described
as "an artists' cooperative," with the idea of making it into a
low-cost experimental theater. What did he find there? "The
building was just walls, nothing else." Like the other urban
pioneers in the building, Mekas had to start from scratch
with plumbing, electricity, wiring, and flooring. "We thought
that with $20,000 we could have our own theatre."
...
By December, he was ready to open. As luck would have it
the Building Department and the City's cultural offices
granted Cinematheque a temporary license to operate
as a theater, on condition that certain work would still be
completed. By mid-December, Mekas wrote that he still
needed $5,000. His itemized list included: $400 to finish the
lighting, $400 to complete the toilets, $400 to build a wall
separating the elevator from the theatre, $400 to change
the door, $400 for seats, $400 to build the stage and money
for many other little things. His plea was dramatic: "Here I am
again appealing to all the friends of the American film avantarde:
Come to our assistance and come now." Mekas urged
his readers not to let the avant-garde film movement die, as it
had in the 1950s. "Do not," he wrote, "assume that the filmmaker
can do everything by himself."
Bernstein, R., & Shapiro, S. (2010). Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo. Jonas Mekas Foundation.
This dream became a reality in 1969 when Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas drew up plans to create a museum dedicated to the vision of the art of cinema as guided by the avant-garde sensibility. A Film Selection committee – James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas, and P. Adams Sitney – was formed to establish a definitive collection of films (The Essential Cinema Repertory) and to determine the structure of the new institution.
Anthology Film Archives opened on November 30, 1970 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. Jerome Hill was its sponsor. After Jerome Hill’s death, in 1974 it relocated to 80 Wooster Street. Pressed by the need for more adequate space, it acquired Manhattan’s Second Avenue Courthouse building in 1979. Under the guidance of the architects Raimund Abraham and Kevin Bone, and at a cost of $1,450,000, the building was adapted to house two motion picture theaters, a reference library, a film preservation department, offices, and a gallery, opening to the public on October 12, 1988.
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/about/history
When George Maciunas organised the first Fluxus Cooperative - that was the first Cooperative - that was the beginning of Soho on 80 Wooster Street, I decided to join it and we took ground, basement and ground floor for the Filmmakers Cinematheque, I mean, it did not exist but, you know, we decided that that location, that venue, that for exhibition we will call it the Filmmakers Cinematheque. But we had a lot of problems with the building department, they said, this is wrong and that is wrong and somewhere around 19- that was in 1967. In 1969, we had to discontinue screening there and we moved to the, what was know as Huntington Hartford Building and which was also known as the Swiss Cheese building on 60- 59th Street and 8th Avenue. At the same time, when that was happening, there was a dissatisfaction amongst some of my very close friends about my screening programming policies at the Filmmakers Cinematheque. My policy was very like open, I knew, I mean, that there is no other place, this is the only place at the time, practically, and I have to be very open and permissive and that is, it was the accusation, I was too permissive in my programming and showing, now the irony of all this, of course, later that whatever I showed there later it was, all became classics of avant-garde film. But, so, at the same time since there was this criticism, I thought just exactly the same, around the same time Jerome Hill was called by this friend Martinson of the Martinson Coffee fame, they were in the army together, they became very good friends and when Martinson became the chairman of the Shakespeare Theatre, the Public Theater, on Lafayette Street, and began renovating the building for 25 Lafayette, he said there is some space here, maybe you want to do something, you know, for cinema. So Jerome called me and said, do you want to do something here? I said, why not? Good. But at the same time I was, what I was already planning since George, George, the first two buildings that George had acquired for the Cooperatives was 80 Wooster and there was another building on Greene Street practically on the corner of Canal Street. So I put, Jerome, actually, Hill, put the deposit monies on both buildings on the ground floors and basements. And the idea was since there was a dissatisfaction about my programming that 80 Wooster will remain very open, the way I had, and the Greene Street building will become Cinematheque 2 which will be like an academy of very selected, very selected, it won't be open very much. And it was at that time that Jerome called me and said, we have this space at 425 Lafayette. So, then I abandoned the Greene Street and took it and just went ahead at 425 Lafayette. And since I was too busy and I also was like fed up with all my screening activities, I just wanted to quit and just do my own work and have nothing to do with that anymore so, I called to P. Adams Sitney who was in Europe at that time. I said, come and take over this new situation. So, he came and he became the first director of what became Anthology Film Archives.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
We moved to Wooster Street in 74. During the renovation transitional period, it was transitional period when we lent, made a space available to other activities and that's where Richard Foreman staged, I think, two maybe three of his very, very early productions and some other theatrical and a lot of music- where Phil Glass gave his first concert in New York, when he came back from India and his music changed. And Henry Flynt and Lamont Young, we had a lot of, Ornette Coleman, music going during that period. And then in, since we needed money to renovate the new building that we acquired in 79, in 79 we sold Wooster Street facility, place and used some of that money towards renovation of the new building. So the, the, the programs were discontinued practically by 79 on 80 Wooster Street. Now what 80 Wooster did also was that I had befriended, you know, George Maciunas already in 1952, 1953 and when he, when you know, began working, developing his little Fluxus movement and when in 67 I acquired 80 Wooster space he had no place to live so I gave him the basement to live and work. And that's where he stayed for ten years until he was beaten up by mafia and had to move out of New York - that's another story. But all the activity, ten years of Fluxus activities took place at 80 Wooster Street and that was very of course, was very important for George, was very important for the whole Fluxus movement, that he had a place where he, you know, I allowed him to do whatever he wanted and, of course, he used the street also and Nam June Paik did some of his events there also with Charlotte Morman, it was a place not only of cinema but of Fluxus and some related activities of that period.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/95
One of the reasons why I went looking for the larger and different space was that on 80 Wooster Street, during that period, our collect- film collection grew and our, our, our book and periodicals, the library, paper materials library grew and the space was very, very, very, very minimal, projection space was okay but we had no other space for anything else. So I thought we have to get a larger space. That's when I noticed that the building on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street, the courthouse, old courthouse building was still there and owned by the city and I went after it and then on auction, that's another long story, we purchased it and we moved and transferred all the, because it is a much larger space. Larger, quite large but by now and now when I'm talking were in 2003, in the fall, its too small already for us because since the coming of video film labs began closing, going bankrupt. They had no work and abandoning all the films and materials which most of them were independent productions and we dragged them into our building and we're still dragging them and there is no more space and then, then, then as time goes, various film collectors die and they leave their collections to us. Film scholars die like Louise Jacobs for instance, J. Layder and they leave large amounts of very important paper materials and they're all, I mean, like a history of the last 50, 60 years of American cinema. As it is now they're not available to any scholars. They're in boxes, so we are now you know to accommodate and make them available. We are in the process of building a library like an additional structure next to the current building. And that will take all the paper materials.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/96
Andy Warhol’s Four Stars was projected in its complete length of nearly 25 hours (allowing for projection overlap of the 35-minute reels) only once, at The Film-Makers' Cooperative Cinematheque in the basement of the now-demolished Wurlitzer Building at 125 West 41st Street in New York City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Stars_(film)
On September 28th, 1960, some 23 independent filmmakers, including myself, met in New York and decided to create a self-help organization which became known as the New American Cinema Group. The Group held monthly informal meetings and discussed dreams and problems of independently working filmmakers. Several small committees were created in order to explore the financing, promotion, and distribution of our films. My own assignment, besides that of serving as the President of the Board—was to investigate new methods of distribution.
After looking into the existing film distribution organizations, and seeing how few of them were interested in our work, I came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to create our own cooperative film distribution center, run by ourselves. When Cinema 16, at that time the most advanced avant-garde/independent film distribution organization, rejected Stan Brakhage’s film Anticipation of the Night—an eye-opener and the beginning of a totally new, subjective cinema—this was the signal that something had to be done.
On January 7th, 1962, I invited some 20 avant-garde/independent filmmakers to my Manhattan loft to discuss the creation of our own distribution center. Stan Vanderbeek, Ron Rice, Rudy Burckhardt, Jack Smith, Lloyd Williams, Robert Breer, David Brooks, Ken Jacobs, Gregory Markopoulos, Ray Wisniweski, Doc Humes, and Robert Downey, to mention a few, were among those present.
Announcements were sent to across the United States and abroad. My loft became the Co-op’s temporary home (if one can call five years time temporary!) I slept under my editing table. The rest of the place was taken over by filmmakers, who were almost always there, screening their films to each other and friends. It was a very exciting period, everybody was there, from Salvador Dali to Allen Ginsberg, to Andy Warhol to Jack Smith to Barbara Rubin—everybody!
http://film-makerscoop.com/about/history
Founded in 1962 by a group of experimental filmmakers that included Mr. Mekas, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative now holds a collection of about 5,000 titles made by some 900 artists. Most of the work is by Americans, but the archive also includes some hard-to-find foreign works from periods as early as 1920s Dada and German experimentalism. Directors of noncommercial experimental films typically deposit copies of their work with the cooperative, which then rents them to museums, universities, libraries and galleries in the United States and abroad.
“The co-op set the model for artists’ control over distribution of their own films, and continues to mean a tremendous amount to people working completely outside the commercial system,” said P. Adams Sitney, author of “Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000” (Oxford University Press) and a professor of visual arts at Princeton. “They need space for all those films, especially in this difficult economic environment. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/movies/11coop.html?_r=0
CINEMA TREASURES
Ed Solero on September 24, 2006 at 3:51 am
Thanks Al. I’ve seen an article in the Times from 1970 that reports the same story of folks being able to pay to witness the filming of a live sex act in a 2nd floor space at 120 W. 42nd – as well as a couple of other places around town. Admission was going anywhere from $5 to $25 for this privelege. Anyway, if it was in fact the 2nd floor of the building, it was definitely not the New Cinema Playhouse space, which was in the basement. I’ll bet that when – and if – the landlords of the already condemned Wurlitzer Bldg started using the auditorium for porn, they probably just advertised on the marquee without bothering to place notices in the newspapers. Then again, with the kind of ire that tactic to chase tenants away might have drawn and with police raids still being conducted against such indecency, would the landlords have gone to such drastic measures to clear the building for demolition? The story may be apocryphal.
AlAlvarez on September 24, 2006 at 12:30 am
Ed, they seem to have moved to the Elgin full time by 1969 and the Anthology Film Archives on Wooster Street by 1970. The last sign of operating at the New Cinema Playhouse was in July 1968.
It appears that in 1970 they were also booking the Elgin, Garrick and Orpheum (Lower East Side) as well as they ran block ads for all three.
By 1970, 120 W. 42nd Street had live sex shows where you could see 8mm porn films being made. I have found no sign of it actually showing porn films.
Ed Solero on September 23, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Al… Can you ascertain when it was that the Filmmakers' Cooperative stopped operating out of this theater? I assume, based on your comments above, that you’ve found no porn listings here, so there’s nothing else to corroborate the mention in the Times article I posted above that the theater was ever used thus.
AlAlvarez on September 22, 2006 at 11:56 pm
The Cinema Playhouse repeated films for some reason. Hence, WINTER KEPT US WARM played for two weeks in February, then came back for four weeks in April. The Warhol films had similar patchwork runs.
PORTRAIT OF JASON ran for over seven weeks, skipped a week, then came back for two more in 1967.
Gerald A. DeLuca on September 22, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Ed, according to my diary and film log, I definitely saw Winter Kept Us Warm there on April 16, 1968.
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Thanks RobertR. The film opened in the U.S. on 2/8/68 per imdb.com and was released by Mekas' Filmmakers' Cooperative. If Gerald’s note’s (posted 6/27/05 above) are correct about seeing the film here in April, that’s a pretty long run for the Cinematheque and would verify they were still in the Wurlitzer Building through Spring of ‘68. Also supports the idea that the New Cinema Playhouse name came with the theater’s new 42nd Street address.
For my next research, I’ll try to figure out why I’ve been so preoccupied with this theater!
RobertR on September 22, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Here is the ad for “Winter Kept Us Warm”
View link
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Finally, there is an article from 11/02/71 regarding a campaign by business owners to drive away “smut” on the 42nd Street block between 6th Ave and Broadway. The organizational force behind the drive was the Wurlitzer Company, whose shop was now located in the Bush Building after the old Wurlitzer Building had been demolished to make room for the plaza and walkway behind the new New York Telephone building that to this day fronts the west side of 6th Ave between 41st and 42nd Streets. While the main target of this clean-up campaign was the Bryant Theater, the article includes the following passage about the former New Cinema Playhouse:
“As opart of the landlord’s ‘pressure’ to vacate the old building… a pornographic movie theater was installed in the basement auditorium – once Wurlitzer’s demonstration room for church organs. During the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, the auditorium had housed off-Broadway theater productions and avant-garde art films.”
So, we know that this space was conceived as a company recital hall for Wurlitzer and first opened to the public as a theater in 1957 as the 41st Street Theater with 169 seats. Filmmaker’s Cinematheque took over in December of 1965 and might have expanded seating to 199. I’m wondering exactly when the theater took on the name New Cinema Playhouse, and I’m guessing that was the new moniker Mekas and Co. came up with when the Cinematheque re-opened the space with the new 42nd Street entrance in late 1967. We also now know that they were kicked out sometime prior to 1969 and that the place went porno before the whole building was demolished circa 1970/71.
And I promise… THAT’S ALL I GOT!!!
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Yet another Times article by Vincent Canby – this one dated 5/18/69 – discusses how the “new morality in conventional movies” has put a dent in the business of underground cinema and includes an interview with Cinematheque co-founder and director Jonas Mekas. Canby writes, “It is no longer necessary to travel to some loft in the Village to see Naked Truth. Today, Naked Truth comes to you, at your friendly neighborhood theater, sometimes starring Charlton Heston and David Janssen.”
The piece mentions that the Cinematheque was kicked out of the Wurlitzer Building basement in 1967 (though Canby has muffed exact dates in other articles) and was, at the time, operating at several different venues on a staggered schedule, including the Gallery of Modern Art, Wednesdays through Sundays, and the Jewish Museum on Tuesday nights. That June, Mekas anticipated screenings at the Elgin Cinema on Sunday mornings and Thursdays at midnight – referring to his organization as a “Flying Cinematheque.” He also hoped to square away several issues with the City pertaining to zoning and building codes and making a permanent home out of the theater at 80 Wooster Street. Money still seemed to be an issue with a $40,000 grant falling short of covering the $50,000 expenditure of remodeling and installing offices at 80 Wooster and other grants being gobbled up by the costs to run screenings at other venues.
It seems that with the more sensational aspects of the undergroung movement being absorbed by mainstream cinema, much of the Cinematheque’s patronage was being siphoned off.
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Several articles appear in the Times' archives that make note of the Filmmaker’s Cinematheque and flesh out details for some of the theater’s history as described in the description and comments above:
An 8/25/67 article looks at the Cinematheque at the apex of it’s existence, having come off what is described as a very successful year that saw $100,000 in revenue generated by showings of Andy Warhol’s “The Chelsea Girls” alone. In addition to a planned $12,000 remodeling of the theater in the Wurlitzer Building, two additional screens in lower Manhattan were to be opened by the Cinematheque’s parent company, the Film Culture Non-Profit Corporation, before year’s end.
The 41st Street facility was to close on September 5th in order to create a new marquee and entrance on 42nd Street and was scheduled to reopen on October 1st under a new – and as yet undecided – name as a first-run house for underground features. The first attraction was slated to be “Portrait of Jason” – Shirley Clarke’s documentary about male prostitution – followed by Adolfa Mekas' “Windflowers.”
The two new facilities were to be the Cinematheque I at 80 Wooster Street, which would continue the sort of “varied programming” featured at the 41st Street house, and the Cinematheque II at 18 Greene Street, which was to be an “underground ‘film academy,’ offering a repertory of avant-garde ‘classics,’ ranging from ‘Zero de Contuit’, ‘Ordet’ and ‘Citizen Kane’ to ‘Scorpio Rising.’
With the monies for the 41st Street renovations already on hand, co-founder Jonas Mekas was still looking for contributions to cover the estimated $32,000 it would take to outfit the new houses on Wooster and Greene Streets, scheduled to open September 30th and late October, respectively. I could not find a listing for either of these theaters on Cinema Treasures, however, the Wooster Street address is noted on the CT page for the [url=/theaters/12436/]Anthology Film Archives{/url] as having been a mid-1970’s facility for that organization. If I can find evidence that either of those theaters did in fact open as planned, I will add them to the site.
Ed Solero on September 21, 2006 at 7:47 am
I found an article on the NY Times website written by Times' film critic Vincent Canby on Jan. 7th, 1966, with the headline “Underground Movies Find Showcase On 41st St.” The article verifies the original address of 125 41st Avenue as indicated in the original description for the theater above. Canby also notes that the 199-seat auditorium had existed in the building’s basement for 7 years, originally designed for Wurlitzer recitals and later housing Off Broadway stage shows under the name 41st Street Theater. I did, however, find another article from Mar. 27th, 1957, announcing that the 41st Street Theater would be opening on April 7th of that year for previews of the biographical drama “Oscar Wilde.” That earlier article also states that the theater (which included a proscenium stage) had a capacity of 169.
Going back to the Canby article of ‘66, here’s an interesting passage:
“Since Dec. 1 the house, under a 12-month lease to the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, has been open to the public six nights a week for the repertory screening of hte works of new directors and those of such underground film ‘names’ as Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos and Stan Brakhage. Showings ar at 8 and 10pm. On the seventh night, usually Monday, the program, for a ‘members only’ film society, is devoted to film classics from above-ground masters like Fritz Lang and D.W. Griffith.”
According to the article, even at this early stage in its existence, the Cinematheque was in a $2000 financial hole, finding it difficult to cover the monthly overhead (which included the $850 monthly rental and salaries for a manager, cashier, secretary and “one non-union projectionist”) with ticket sales, though co-founder Jonas Mekas was anticipating some help in the form of donations from friends. The theater had been averaging about 70-80 patrons per performance at $1.50 a pop, with the most popular titles being those associated with Andy Warhol’s name. Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” also had been a big draw as had Mr. Mekas' own “The Brig”.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/12992/comments
According to the Jonas Mekas filmography, the full version of **** (Four Stars) was shown on December 15-16, 1967 at the New Cinema Playhouse in New York. Mekas gives the address of the New Cinema as 125 West 41st Street but the handbill for the cinema, reproduced above, lists the address as 120 West 42nd Street. Note also that the handbill says "continuous showings from 1 p.m." According to David Bourdon, the full-length version began at 8:30 pm on the 15th and continued until 9:30 pm on the 16th. (DB265)
The New Cinema Playhouse was one of the venues used by Jonas Mekas' Film-makers' Cooperative as a "cinematheque" after his organization had been kicked out of the Grammercy Arts Theatre for showing unlicensed and obscene films in 1964. Mekas had started showing underground films in approximately 1960 at the Charles Theater on Avenue B in New York. He moved to the Bleecker Street Cinema in 1963 and then to the Grammercy Arts Theater. It was at the Grammercy Arts Theater that Warhol's first film, Sleep, premiered on January 17, 1964. From 1965-1968, the Film-makers' Cooperative used different venues for short periods of time for their screenings, including the New Cinema Playhouse. (NL114-5)
http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/warhol1f/stars.html
Mekas founded the Anthology Film Archives in 1964, then known as Filmmakers’ Cinémathèque. Today the museum and theater house one of the world’s largest collections of avant-garde films.
Mekas’ founding partners were Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, and Peter Kubelka,. In the 1960s, Hill, an artist from a wealthy railroad family, developed an interest in filmmaking. He befriended Mekas, who introduced him to the others.
Hill financed the renovation of an empty wing at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater to create the first home of Anthology, at 425 Lafayette St.
The unorthodox theater was called “The Invisible Cinema” by Kubelka, who designed the space in a manner that he thought would maximize individual viewing concentration. Everything was black: the walls, the seats, the ceiling, and the floor. The headrests were high, and there were flaps on the sides of each seat to prevent distractions from other viewers.
In 1974, after the death of Hill, Anthology’s financial supporter, the museum was forced to move to 80 Wooster St, and the Invisible Cinema set-up had to be abandoned. With its finances still shaky, Anthology moved yet again to 491 Broadway. In 1979, it finally settled into Manhattan’s Second Avenue Courthouse building, bought from the city for $50,000. They spent $1.7 million to renovate the gutted structure, which now houses two theaters (one with 66 seats and another with 200), a library, a film preservation department, and a gallery.
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_41/pioneerofamerican.html
JM: There are several reasons that Anthology was possible. The first one – of course, the
most important – was that Jerome Hill, who was very supportive of the avant-garde, was
offered a space at 425 Lafayette Street in the Shakespeare Theater, or the Public Theater.
There was one end on the building that was still not completed. It was just an empty gutted
out area. They said, "Well you want to do something with it?" The chairman of the Public
Theater was his Army friend, Martinson of Martinson Coffee. So then Jerome called me
and said, "Do you want to do something with that space?" And I said, "Why not?" Jerome
said that he would sponsor construction of a movie theater in there. So at that point I
contacted P. Adams Sitney and Kubelka, and we began making plans for a very special
theater for that space. That was around late '67, early '68, when we began working. We
opened to the public on December 1, 1970.
But there were other reasons. One was that some of my colleagues like Kubelka, Brakhage
– less P. Adams – thought that the policy I followed in when I ran the Filmmakers'
Cinémathèque was too open, too permissive. That I was showing, you know, some good
work, but too much work that should never have been shown. Of course, as we look back
now through the schedules of the Filmmakers Cinémathèque, I see that time was on my
side. History was on my side, as people now recognize many of those films as important.
But I thought, OK, if you think I am too permissive, why don't we... At that point George
Maciunas was already starting the SoHo cooperative movement. 80 Wooster Street was the
first co-operative building. Actually, he started with two buildings: one at 80 Wooster
Street, and another on Greene Street next to Canal Street. So I took the ground floors of
both of them, and Jerome Hill again helped with money. Actually that is what started
SoHo. George's sister gave him some money, and then the Filmmakers' Cinémathèque,
through Jerome Hill, put the first monies on the 80 Wooster Street building. Not on Greene
Street yet. And that is what really started Soho.
JM: That was in the summer of '67. So I said, "Well, the Filmmakers' Cinémathèque will
have two theaters. One will be totally open and permissive. The other one will be very
selective, it will be like the Academy." And while I was working on this, Jerome came to
me with a new idea: "I've got space over there [at the Public Theater]." So I abandoned
Greene Street. I just kept 80 Wooster and continued screenings there while we were
building at 425 Lafayette.
So that was the beginning of the
Essential Cinema collection. And we thought that that would be the main function of
Anthology Film Archives, to just keep showing that repertory, and that's it. While at the
Cinémathèque, on Wooster Street, we would show anything. And that is more or less how
it was until '72 or '73.
At the very beginning I sort of expected, hoped, that P. Adams Sitney would run
Anthology. But he could not cope with it. He resigned very early and I got stuck with it.
And it became too much to run both the Cinémathèque and Anthology. So eventually I
gave up the Cinémathèque.
https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/DaVega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFilm_Interviews/Interview%20with%20Jonas%20Mekas.pdf
In 1962, '63, '64, Film Makers' Cooperative was located at 414 Park Avenue South. It was much, much going, those years. It was a very busy period in New York in the independent film area, and the Cooperative was the meeting ground for, ah, during that period, where the filmmakers stopped by during the day. During the evening, I was living there in the back of the Co-op space. I gave the front of my space to the Co-op - the front part was the Co-op proper during the day. In the evening, it was a sort of night Co-op, and during the evenings or afternoons, whenever a filmmaker felt that he wanted to show films to a friend of some[one], he could come in and screen. There was always projectors set up. And in the evenings, practically every evening, there was some little screenings... It was only that filmmakers knew and friends knew that, and this increased when we seemed to have at some films problems, censorship-wise, with public screenings…
nd sometime in '63, late '63. And, then, of course, he used to come to the Gramercy Arts [Theatre] on 62nd [Street], it is. And in '63, actually, he was already projecting, bringing, his films to Gramercy Arts Theatre... And he brought in his early Kiss - reels of of Kiss films." (PS415)
In addition to the informal screenings in his front room, Mekas used venues like the Gramercy Arts Theatre for official screenings. Prior to the Gramercy Arts he used the Charles Theatre. According to Tessa Hughes-Freeland in Naked Lens: Beat Cinema (London: Creation Books, 1997), Mekas used the Charles Theatre on Avenue until 1963 for screenings and "then organized midnight screenings on Saturdays at the Bleeker Street Street Cinema before moving to the Gramercy Arts Theatre. (NL114)
In March 1964, the Gramercy Arts Theatre was closed by the License Department and the Film-Makers' Cooperative moved to the New Bowery Theatre. In his yearly round-up of notable underground cinema events during 1964 (published in the 7 January 1965 issue of The Village Voice) Mekas wrote that in April 1964, "A dark period in the New York film underground begins. No screenings for seven months. With no place to meet, film-makers' spirits go low. Clandestine screenings continue at the Co-op late into the summer, until the Co-op is raided and cops are placed nightly across the street." In November 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque started using the New Yorker Theatre for screenings. The opening bill included Naomi Levine's film, Yes. (JM174-75)
By 5 May 1965 Mekas was holding screenings at the City Hall Cinema on 170 Nassau Street. A Film-makers' Cinematheque ad in the 27 May 1965 issue ofThe Village Voice announced that the "Film Makers' Cinematheque is moving from City Hall Cinema to an interim location which is the ASTOR PLACE PLAYHOUSE, 434 Lafayette Street New York... Our first program at the ASTOR PLACE will be in honor of Kenneth Anger's visit to New York." The Anger films were shown on 28, 29 and 30 May. (Village Voice, 7 May 1965, p. 19). On 1 December 1965 the Cinematheque moved to the 41st St. Theater at "125 West 41st St. or 120 West 42nd St. - in between 6th Avenue and Broadway." (Village Voice, 25 Nov 1965, p. 20).
http://www.warholstars.org/naomi_levine.html
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/about/history
Meekas claims he acquired 80 Wooster St and allowed Maciunas to have Fluxus housed there
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/95
Had trouble renovating the space - with the building department so in 1969 they started screening in the Hartford building and in the Greene St building where Fluxus was
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
"Mekas imbibed the coop spirit there, transferring it in
America to the Film-makers' Cooperative which he founded
in 1962 to help independent filmmakers. It began at the
Charles Theater at Avenue B and East 12th Street and
subsequently moved to the Bleecker Street Cinema and the
Gramercy Arts in 1963. Mekas also created Film-makers'
Cinematheque, which he founded in 1964, and Anthology
Film Archives, established in 1970—both of which thrived
for years at 80 Wooster Street.
...
While other
Cinematheques were mainly concerned with film history,
Mekas wrote, his concern was "the living cinema." Film-
Makers' Cinematheque was to serve "as the center for the
showing and promoting of non-commercial, avant-garde
cinema and the best of the commercial film classics." It was
to publish books and magazines on cinema (including Film
Culture, a quarterly magazine which first appeared in January
1955), assist with grants to filmmakers, and "intervene as
amicus curiae in court and appellate proceedings involving
motion picture censorship and licensing questions." It was
to assist universities, museums, galleries, film societies, and
art theaters in programming films and lectures." From 1958
to 1975 Mekas aired this vision in his provocative "Movie
Journal" column for the Village Voice which frequently ended
with his personal film recommendations.
...
George Maciunas' sister Nijole made the deposit on 80
Wooster, with the rest of the money coming on Mekas'
behalf from Jerome Hill, a wealthy supporter of avantgarde
film. Hill was born in 1905 and was the grandson of
James J. Hill, who established the Great Northern Railway
and was known as the "Empire Builder." An artist, filmmaker
and philanthropist, Jerome Hill used money from his large
trust fund to support emerging artists. Mekas agreed to
pay $8,000 for the ground floor and basement to house
Cinematheque I, the showcase where the public "will have
to take chances with new artists and with new works of
established artists." The Voice ad warned readers, "This will
be our workshop, our testing ground where anything goes.
Because of the low rent," Mekas wrote, "Cinematheque I will
be able to premiere all avant-garde works without fear of
not covering the rent." At the bottom of the ad, Mekas
asked readers for donations. Although he told New York
Times film critic Vincent Canby that he had the $12,000 in
hand to remodel the West 41st space, he estimated that he
would need $32,000 for the new downtown spaces. "To put
all three places in working shape we need your immediate
assistance," he wrote, adding that "the establishment of the
Cinematheque I and Cinematheque II downtown creates a
new borough of New York which from now on will be called
The South Village." This name never took hold and the
acronym SoHo was eventually adopted by the area.
The space for Cinematheque II was to be in 18 Greene
Street, a building that was supposed to become Fluxhouse
I. However, when Hill had an opportunity to get space at the
Public Theatre on Lafayette Street, Mekas went there and
abandoned the plans for 18 Greene Street. Without Mekas,
Maciunas could not realize his plans and Fluxhouse II, at 80
Wooster Street, became the first artists' housing cooperative,
despite its secondary designation. Later, Maciunas was able
to revise the Greene Street project which was then called
Greene Street Precinct.
...
Acutely aware that he would need extensive funding to
achieve his dreams, Mekas wrote an "Unchaining Letter
to All friends of the Avant-garde Cinema," on November 7,
1967. He spoke of 80 Wooster Street as a much cheaper
theater where "for the last three months we have been trying
to raise money to fix up the new place (plumbing, heating,
seats, projectors) but we have been turned down by all
money-giving 'cultural' institutions." The letter was an appeal
to his audience, asking them to make two or more copies
and mail it to friends. "Each receiver of this letter is being
asked to send one dollar to the Film-Makers' Cinematheque,"
he wrote, although larger contributions would be accepted.
At the bottom of the letter, in quintessential Mekas style,
he wrote; "Support the avant-garde film-maker in his quite
lonely work."
...
Journal" columns, Mekas wrote about the expansion
downtown. "We hope that the Cinematheque will become
the core of the South Village," he said. Mekas described
Cinematheque as the "wind's baby." First opening at the New
Yorker Theatre in December, 1964, it subsequently moved to
42nd Street and Tenth Avenue, then, in Spring 1965, down
to the City Hall Cinema; then, up to Fourth Street, where
it never got started, so it opened at the Astor Playhouse,
on Lafayette Street, where it stayed until December 1966,
when it moved to 41st Street.
The reason for its latest move to 80 Wooster Street was
simple, Mekas explained: the 41st Street Theatre was too
expensive. While the "commercial wing of the underground"
drew audiences, the experimental wing did not. "We kept
looking for solutions, running for money to pay the debts,
until we reached a really dead end and, last July, gave up the
41st Street Theatre."
Despite the moves and the financial stress, Mekas had
not given up on his dream of the need for a showcase for
avant-garde film. It was important, Mekas wrote, that avantgarde
filmmakers had freedom to experiment—"without any
distributor or exhibitor telling him what he can or can not do."
Determined to keep Cinematheque alive, Mekas bought
the ground floor of 80 Wooster Street, which he described
as "an artists' cooperative," with the idea of making it into a
low-cost experimental theater. What did he find there? "The
building was just walls, nothing else." Like the other urban
pioneers in the building, Mekas had to start from scratch
with plumbing, electricity, wiring, and flooring. "We thought
that with $20,000 we could have our own theatre."
...
By December, he was ready to open. As luck would have it
the Building Department and the City's cultural offices
granted Cinematheque a temporary license to operate
as a theater, on condition that certain work would still be
completed. By mid-December, Mekas wrote that he still
needed $5,000. His itemized list included: $400 to finish the
lighting, $400 to complete the toilets, $400 to build a wall
separating the elevator from the theatre, $400 to change
the door, $400 for seats, $400 to build the stage and money
for many other little things. His plea was dramatic: "Here I am
again appealing to all the friends of the American film avantarde:
Come to our assistance and come now." Mekas urged
his readers not to let the avant-garde film movement die, as it
had in the 1950s. "Do not," he wrote, "assume that the filmmaker
can do everything by himself."
Bernstein, R., & Shapiro, S. (2010). Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo. Jonas Mekas Foundation.
This dream became a reality in 1969 when Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas drew up plans to create a museum dedicated to the vision of the art of cinema as guided by the avant-garde sensibility. A Film Selection committee – James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas, and P. Adams Sitney – was formed to establish a definitive collection of films (The Essential Cinema Repertory) and to determine the structure of the new institution.
Anthology Film Archives opened on November 30, 1970 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. Jerome Hill was its sponsor. After Jerome Hill’s death, in 1974 it relocated to 80 Wooster Street. Pressed by the need for more adequate space, it acquired Manhattan’s Second Avenue Courthouse building in 1979. Under the guidance of the architects Raimund Abraham and Kevin Bone, and at a cost of $1,450,000, the building was adapted to house two motion picture theaters, a reference library, a film preservation department, offices, and a gallery, opening to the public on October 12, 1988.
http://anthologyfilmarchives.org/about/history
When George Maciunas organised the first Fluxus Cooperative - that was the first Cooperative - that was the beginning of Soho on 80 Wooster Street, I decided to join it and we took ground, basement and ground floor for the Filmmakers Cinematheque, I mean, it did not exist but, you know, we decided that that location, that venue, that for exhibition we will call it the Filmmakers Cinematheque. But we had a lot of problems with the building department, they said, this is wrong and that is wrong and somewhere around 19- that was in 1967. In 1969, we had to discontinue screening there and we moved to the, what was know as Huntington Hartford Building and which was also known as the Swiss Cheese building on 60- 59th Street and 8th Avenue. At the same time, when that was happening, there was a dissatisfaction amongst some of my very close friends about my screening programming policies at the Filmmakers Cinematheque. My policy was very like open, I knew, I mean, that there is no other place, this is the only place at the time, practically, and I have to be very open and permissive and that is, it was the accusation, I was too permissive in my programming and showing, now the irony of all this, of course, later that whatever I showed there later it was, all became classics of avant-garde film. But, so, at the same time since there was this criticism, I thought just exactly the same, around the same time Jerome Hill was called by this friend Martinson of the Martinson Coffee fame, they were in the army together, they became very good friends and when Martinson became the chairman of the Shakespeare Theatre, the Public Theater, on Lafayette Street, and began renovating the building for 25 Lafayette, he said there is some space here, maybe you want to do something, you know, for cinema. So Jerome called me and said, do you want to do something here? I said, why not? Good. But at the same time I was, what I was already planning since George, George, the first two buildings that George had acquired for the Cooperatives was 80 Wooster and there was another building on Greene Street practically on the corner of Canal Street. So I put, Jerome, actually, Hill, put the deposit monies on both buildings on the ground floors and basements. And the idea was since there was a dissatisfaction about my programming that 80 Wooster will remain very open, the way I had, and the Greene Street building will become Cinematheque 2 which will be like an academy of very selected, very selected, it won't be open very much. And it was at that time that Jerome called me and said, we have this space at 425 Lafayette. So, then I abandoned the Greene Street and took it and just went ahead at 425 Lafayette. And since I was too busy and I also was like fed up with all my screening activities, I just wanted to quit and just do my own work and have nothing to do with that anymore so, I called to P. Adams Sitney who was in Europe at that time. I said, come and take over this new situation. So, he came and he became the first director of what became Anthology Film Archives.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/91;jsessionid=4A96872F16CC8581E79620BF45ADB415
We moved to Wooster Street in 74. During the renovation transitional period, it was transitional period when we lent, made a space available to other activities and that's where Richard Foreman staged, I think, two maybe three of his very, very early productions and some other theatrical and a lot of music- where Phil Glass gave his first concert in New York, when he came back from India and his music changed. And Henry Flynt and Lamont Young, we had a lot of, Ornette Coleman, music going during that period. And then in, since we needed money to renovate the new building that we acquired in 79, in 79 we sold Wooster Street facility, place and used some of that money towards renovation of the new building. So the, the, the programs were discontinued practically by 79 on 80 Wooster Street. Now what 80 Wooster did also was that I had befriended, you know, George Maciunas already in 1952, 1953 and when he, when you know, began working, developing his little Fluxus movement and when in 67 I acquired 80 Wooster space he had no place to live so I gave him the basement to live and work. And that's where he stayed for ten years until he was beaten up by mafia and had to move out of New York - that's another story. But all the activity, ten years of Fluxus activities took place at 80 Wooster Street and that was very of course, was very important for George, was very important for the whole Fluxus movement, that he had a place where he, you know, I allowed him to do whatever he wanted and, of course, he used the street also and Nam June Paik did some of his events there also with Charlotte Morman, it was a place not only of cinema but of Fluxus and some related activities of that period.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/95
One of the reasons why I went looking for the larger and different space was that on 80 Wooster Street, during that period, our collect- film collection grew and our, our, our book and periodicals, the library, paper materials library grew and the space was very, very, very, very minimal, projection space was okay but we had no other space for anything else. So I thought we have to get a larger space. That's when I noticed that the building on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street, the courthouse, old courthouse building was still there and owned by the city and I went after it and then on auction, that's another long story, we purchased it and we moved and transferred all the, because it is a much larger space. Larger, quite large but by now and now when I'm talking were in 2003, in the fall, its too small already for us because since the coming of video film labs began closing, going bankrupt. They had no work and abandoning all the films and materials which most of them were independent productions and we dragged them into our building and we're still dragging them and there is no more space and then, then, then as time goes, various film collectors die and they leave their collections to us. Film scholars die like Louise Jacobs for instance, J. Layder and they leave large amounts of very important paper materials and they're all, I mean, like a history of the last 50, 60 years of American cinema. As it is now they're not available to any scholars. They're in boxes, so we are now you know to accommodate and make them available. We are in the process of building a library like an additional structure next to the current building. And that will take all the paper materials.
http://www.webofstories.com/play/jonas.mekas/96
Andy Warhol’s Four Stars was projected in its complete length of nearly 25 hours (allowing for projection overlap of the 35-minute reels) only once, at The Film-Makers' Cooperative Cinematheque in the basement of the now-demolished Wurlitzer Building at 125 West 41st Street in New York City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Stars_(film)
On September 28th, 1960, some 23 independent filmmakers, including myself, met in New York and decided to create a self-help organization which became known as the New American Cinema Group. The Group held monthly informal meetings and discussed dreams and problems of independently working filmmakers. Several small committees were created in order to explore the financing, promotion, and distribution of our films. My own assignment, besides that of serving as the President of the Board—was to investigate new methods of distribution.
After looking into the existing film distribution organizations, and seeing how few of them were interested in our work, I came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to create our own cooperative film distribution center, run by ourselves. When Cinema 16, at that time the most advanced avant-garde/independent film distribution organization, rejected Stan Brakhage’s film Anticipation of the Night—an eye-opener and the beginning of a totally new, subjective cinema—this was the signal that something had to be done.
On January 7th, 1962, I invited some 20 avant-garde/independent filmmakers to my Manhattan loft to discuss the creation of our own distribution center. Stan Vanderbeek, Ron Rice, Rudy Burckhardt, Jack Smith, Lloyd Williams, Robert Breer, David Brooks, Ken Jacobs, Gregory Markopoulos, Ray Wisniweski, Doc Humes, and Robert Downey, to mention a few, were among those present.
Announcements were sent to across the United States and abroad. My loft became the Co-op’s temporary home (if one can call five years time temporary!) I slept under my editing table. The rest of the place was taken over by filmmakers, who were almost always there, screening their films to each other and friends. It was a very exciting period, everybody was there, from Salvador Dali to Allen Ginsberg, to Andy Warhol to Jack Smith to Barbara Rubin—everybody!
http://film-makerscoop.com/about/history
Founded in 1962 by a group of experimental filmmakers that included Mr. Mekas, the Film-Makers’ Cooperative now holds a collection of about 5,000 titles made by some 900 artists. Most of the work is by Americans, but the archive also includes some hard-to-find foreign works from periods as early as 1920s Dada and German experimentalism. Directors of noncommercial experimental films typically deposit copies of their work with the cooperative, which then rents them to museums, universities, libraries and galleries in the United States and abroad.
“The co-op set the model for artists’ control over distribution of their own films, and continues to mean a tremendous amount to people working completely outside the commercial system,” said P. Adams Sitney, author of “Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000” (Oxford University Press) and a professor of visual arts at Princeton. “They need space for all those films, especially in this difficult economic environment. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/movies/11coop.html?_r=0
CINEMA TREASURES
Ed Solero on September 24, 2006 at 3:51 am
Thanks Al. I’ve seen an article in the Times from 1970 that reports the same story of folks being able to pay to witness the filming of a live sex act in a 2nd floor space at 120 W. 42nd – as well as a couple of other places around town. Admission was going anywhere from $5 to $25 for this privelege. Anyway, if it was in fact the 2nd floor of the building, it was definitely not the New Cinema Playhouse space, which was in the basement. I’ll bet that when – and if – the landlords of the already condemned Wurlitzer Bldg started using the auditorium for porn, they probably just advertised on the marquee without bothering to place notices in the newspapers. Then again, with the kind of ire that tactic to chase tenants away might have drawn and with police raids still being conducted against such indecency, would the landlords have gone to such drastic measures to clear the building for demolition? The story may be apocryphal.
AlAlvarez on September 24, 2006 at 12:30 am
Ed, they seem to have moved to the Elgin full time by 1969 and the Anthology Film Archives on Wooster Street by 1970. The last sign of operating at the New Cinema Playhouse was in July 1968.
It appears that in 1970 they were also booking the Elgin, Garrick and Orpheum (Lower East Side) as well as they ran block ads for all three.
By 1970, 120 W. 42nd Street had live sex shows where you could see 8mm porn films being made. I have found no sign of it actually showing porn films.
Ed Solero on September 23, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Al… Can you ascertain when it was that the Filmmakers' Cooperative stopped operating out of this theater? I assume, based on your comments above, that you’ve found no porn listings here, so there’s nothing else to corroborate the mention in the Times article I posted above that the theater was ever used thus.
AlAlvarez on September 22, 2006 at 11:56 pm
The Cinema Playhouse repeated films for some reason. Hence, WINTER KEPT US WARM played for two weeks in February, then came back for four weeks in April. The Warhol films had similar patchwork runs.
PORTRAIT OF JASON ran for over seven weeks, skipped a week, then came back for two more in 1967.
Gerald A. DeLuca on September 22, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Ed, according to my diary and film log, I definitely saw Winter Kept Us Warm there on April 16, 1968.
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 4:28 pm
Thanks RobertR. The film opened in the U.S. on 2/8/68 per imdb.com and was released by Mekas' Filmmakers' Cooperative. If Gerald’s note’s (posted 6/27/05 above) are correct about seeing the film here in April, that’s a pretty long run for the Cinematheque and would verify they were still in the Wurlitzer Building through Spring of ‘68. Also supports the idea that the New Cinema Playhouse name came with the theater’s new 42nd Street address.
For my next research, I’ll try to figure out why I’ve been so preoccupied with this theater!
RobertR on September 22, 2006 at 3:12 pm
Here is the ad for “Winter Kept Us Warm”
View link
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Finally, there is an article from 11/02/71 regarding a campaign by business owners to drive away “smut” on the 42nd Street block between 6th Ave and Broadway. The organizational force behind the drive was the Wurlitzer Company, whose shop was now located in the Bush Building after the old Wurlitzer Building had been demolished to make room for the plaza and walkway behind the new New York Telephone building that to this day fronts the west side of 6th Ave between 41st and 42nd Streets. While the main target of this clean-up campaign was the Bryant Theater, the article includes the following passage about the former New Cinema Playhouse:
“As opart of the landlord’s ‘pressure’ to vacate the old building… a pornographic movie theater was installed in the basement auditorium – once Wurlitzer’s demonstration room for church organs. During the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, the auditorium had housed off-Broadway theater productions and avant-garde art films.”
So, we know that this space was conceived as a company recital hall for Wurlitzer and first opened to the public as a theater in 1957 as the 41st Street Theater with 169 seats. Filmmaker’s Cinematheque took over in December of 1965 and might have expanded seating to 199. I’m wondering exactly when the theater took on the name New Cinema Playhouse, and I’m guessing that was the new moniker Mekas and Co. came up with when the Cinematheque re-opened the space with the new 42nd Street entrance in late 1967. We also now know that they were kicked out sometime prior to 1969 and that the place went porno before the whole building was demolished circa 1970/71.
And I promise… THAT’S ALL I GOT!!!
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Yet another Times article by Vincent Canby – this one dated 5/18/69 – discusses how the “new morality in conventional movies” has put a dent in the business of underground cinema and includes an interview with Cinematheque co-founder and director Jonas Mekas. Canby writes, “It is no longer necessary to travel to some loft in the Village to see Naked Truth. Today, Naked Truth comes to you, at your friendly neighborhood theater, sometimes starring Charlton Heston and David Janssen.”
The piece mentions that the Cinematheque was kicked out of the Wurlitzer Building basement in 1967 (though Canby has muffed exact dates in other articles) and was, at the time, operating at several different venues on a staggered schedule, including the Gallery of Modern Art, Wednesdays through Sundays, and the Jewish Museum on Tuesday nights. That June, Mekas anticipated screenings at the Elgin Cinema on Sunday mornings and Thursdays at midnight – referring to his organization as a “Flying Cinematheque.” He also hoped to square away several issues with the City pertaining to zoning and building codes and making a permanent home out of the theater at 80 Wooster Street. Money still seemed to be an issue with a $40,000 grant falling short of covering the $50,000 expenditure of remodeling and installing offices at 80 Wooster and other grants being gobbled up by the costs to run screenings at other venues.
It seems that with the more sensational aspects of the undergroung movement being absorbed by mainstream cinema, much of the Cinematheque’s patronage was being siphoned off.
Ed Solero on September 22, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Several articles appear in the Times' archives that make note of the Filmmaker’s Cinematheque and flesh out details for some of the theater’s history as described in the description and comments above:
An 8/25/67 article looks at the Cinematheque at the apex of it’s existence, having come off what is described as a very successful year that saw $100,000 in revenue generated by showings of Andy Warhol’s “The Chelsea Girls” alone. In addition to a planned $12,000 remodeling of the theater in the Wurlitzer Building, two additional screens in lower Manhattan were to be opened by the Cinematheque’s parent company, the Film Culture Non-Profit Corporation, before year’s end.
The 41st Street facility was to close on September 5th in order to create a new marquee and entrance on 42nd Street and was scheduled to reopen on October 1st under a new – and as yet undecided – name as a first-run house for underground features. The first attraction was slated to be “Portrait of Jason” – Shirley Clarke’s documentary about male prostitution – followed by Adolfa Mekas' “Windflowers.”
The two new facilities were to be the Cinematheque I at 80 Wooster Street, which would continue the sort of “varied programming” featured at the 41st Street house, and the Cinematheque II at 18 Greene Street, which was to be an “underground ‘film academy,’ offering a repertory of avant-garde ‘classics,’ ranging from ‘Zero de Contuit’, ‘Ordet’ and ‘Citizen Kane’ to ‘Scorpio Rising.’
With the monies for the 41st Street renovations already on hand, co-founder Jonas Mekas was still looking for contributions to cover the estimated $32,000 it would take to outfit the new houses on Wooster and Greene Streets, scheduled to open September 30th and late October, respectively. I could not find a listing for either of these theaters on Cinema Treasures, however, the Wooster Street address is noted on the CT page for the [url=/theaters/12436/]Anthology Film Archives{/url] as having been a mid-1970’s facility for that organization. If I can find evidence that either of those theaters did in fact open as planned, I will add them to the site.
Ed Solero on September 21, 2006 at 7:47 am
I found an article on the NY Times website written by Times' film critic Vincent Canby on Jan. 7th, 1966, with the headline “Underground Movies Find Showcase On 41st St.” The article verifies the original address of 125 41st Avenue as indicated in the original description for the theater above. Canby also notes that the 199-seat auditorium had existed in the building’s basement for 7 years, originally designed for Wurlitzer recitals and later housing Off Broadway stage shows under the name 41st Street Theater. I did, however, find another article from Mar. 27th, 1957, announcing that the 41st Street Theater would be opening on April 7th of that year for previews of the biographical drama “Oscar Wilde.” That earlier article also states that the theater (which included a proscenium stage) had a capacity of 169.
Going back to the Canby article of ‘66, here’s an interesting passage:
“Since Dec. 1 the house, under a 12-month lease to the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, has been open to the public six nights a week for the repertory screening of hte works of new directors and those of such underground film ‘names’ as Andy Warhol, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos and Stan Brakhage. Showings ar at 8 and 10pm. On the seventh night, usually Monday, the program, for a ‘members only’ film society, is devoted to film classics from above-ground masters like Fritz Lang and D.W. Griffith.”
According to the article, even at this early stage in its existence, the Cinematheque was in a $2000 financial hole, finding it difficult to cover the monthly overhead (which included the $850 monthly rental and salaries for a manager, cashier, secretary and “one non-union projectionist”) with ticket sales, though co-founder Jonas Mekas was anticipating some help in the form of donations from friends. The theater had been averaging about 70-80 patrons per performance at $1.50 a pop, with the most popular titles being those associated with Andy Warhol’s name. Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” also had been a big draw as had Mr. Mekas' own “The Brig”.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/12992/comments
According to the Jonas Mekas filmography, the full version of **** (Four Stars) was shown on December 15-16, 1967 at the New Cinema Playhouse in New York. Mekas gives the address of the New Cinema as 125 West 41st Street but the handbill for the cinema, reproduced above, lists the address as 120 West 42nd Street. Note also that the handbill says "continuous showings from 1 p.m." According to David Bourdon, the full-length version began at 8:30 pm on the 15th and continued until 9:30 pm on the 16th. (DB265)
The New Cinema Playhouse was one of the venues used by Jonas Mekas' Film-makers' Cooperative as a "cinematheque" after his organization had been kicked out of the Grammercy Arts Theatre for showing unlicensed and obscene films in 1964. Mekas had started showing underground films in approximately 1960 at the Charles Theater on Avenue B in New York. He moved to the Bleecker Street Cinema in 1963 and then to the Grammercy Arts Theater. It was at the Grammercy Arts Theater that Warhol's first film, Sleep, premiered on January 17, 1964. From 1965-1968, the Film-makers' Cooperative used different venues for short periods of time for their screenings, including the New Cinema Playhouse. (NL114-5)
http://www.warholstars.org/warhol/warhol1/warhol1f/stars.html
Mekas founded the Anthology Film Archives in 1964, then known as Filmmakers’ Cinémathèque. Today the museum and theater house one of the world’s largest collections of avant-garde films.
Mekas’ founding partners were Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, and Peter Kubelka,. In the 1960s, Hill, an artist from a wealthy railroad family, developed an interest in filmmaking. He befriended Mekas, who introduced him to the others.
Hill financed the renovation of an empty wing at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater to create the first home of Anthology, at 425 Lafayette St.
The unorthodox theater was called “The Invisible Cinema” by Kubelka, who designed the space in a manner that he thought would maximize individual viewing concentration. Everything was black: the walls, the seats, the ceiling, and the floor. The headrests were high, and there were flaps on the sides of each seat to prevent distractions from other viewers.
In 1974, after the death of Hill, Anthology’s financial supporter, the museum was forced to move to 80 Wooster St, and the Invisible Cinema set-up had to be abandoned. With its finances still shaky, Anthology moved yet again to 491 Broadway. In 1979, it finally settled into Manhattan’s Second Avenue Courthouse building, bought from the city for $50,000. They spent $1.7 million to renovate the gutted structure, which now houses two theaters (one with 66 seats and another with 200), a library, a film preservation department, and a gallery.
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_41/pioneerofamerican.html
JM: There are several reasons that Anthology was possible. The first one – of course, the
most important – was that Jerome Hill, who was very supportive of the avant-garde, was
offered a space at 425 Lafayette Street in the Shakespeare Theater, or the Public Theater.
There was one end on the building that was still not completed. It was just an empty gutted
out area. They said, "Well you want to do something with it?" The chairman of the Public
Theater was his Army friend, Martinson of Martinson Coffee. So then Jerome called me
and said, "Do you want to do something with that space?" And I said, "Why not?" Jerome
said that he would sponsor construction of a movie theater in there. So at that point I
contacted P. Adams Sitney and Kubelka, and we began making plans for a very special
theater for that space. That was around late '67, early '68, when we began working. We
opened to the public on December 1, 1970.
But there were other reasons. One was that some of my colleagues like Kubelka, Brakhage
– less P. Adams – thought that the policy I followed in when I ran the Filmmakers'
Cinémathèque was too open, too permissive. That I was showing, you know, some good
work, but too much work that should never have been shown. Of course, as we look back
now through the schedules of the Filmmakers Cinémathèque, I see that time was on my
side. History was on my side, as people now recognize many of those films as important.
But I thought, OK, if you think I am too permissive, why don't we... At that point George
Maciunas was already starting the SoHo cooperative movement. 80 Wooster Street was the
first co-operative building. Actually, he started with two buildings: one at 80 Wooster
Street, and another on Greene Street next to Canal Street. So I took the ground floors of
both of them, and Jerome Hill again helped with money. Actually that is what started
SoHo. George's sister gave him some money, and then the Filmmakers' Cinémathèque,
through Jerome Hill, put the first monies on the 80 Wooster Street building. Not on Greene
Street yet. And that is what really started Soho.
JM: That was in the summer of '67. So I said, "Well, the Filmmakers' Cinémathèque will
have two theaters. One will be totally open and permissive. The other one will be very
selective, it will be like the Academy." And while I was working on this, Jerome came to
me with a new idea: "I've got space over there [at the Public Theater]." So I abandoned
Greene Street. I just kept 80 Wooster and continued screenings there while we were
building at 425 Lafayette.
So that was the beginning of the
Essential Cinema collection. And we thought that that would be the main function of
Anthology Film Archives, to just keep showing that repertory, and that's it. While at the
Cinémathèque, on Wooster Street, we would show anything. And that is more or less how
it was until '72 or '73.
At the very beginning I sort of expected, hoped, that P. Adams Sitney would run
Anthology. But he could not cope with it. He resigned very early and I got stuck with it.
And it became too much to run both the Cinémathèque and Anthology. So eventually I
gave up the Cinémathèque.
https://soma.sbcc.edu/users/DaVega/FILMST_113/Filmst113_ExFilm_Interviews/Interview%20with%20Jonas%20Mekas.pdf
In 1962, '63, '64, Film Makers' Cooperative was located at 414 Park Avenue South. It was much, much going, those years. It was a very busy period in New York in the independent film area, and the Cooperative was the meeting ground for, ah, during that period, where the filmmakers stopped by during the day. During the evening, I was living there in the back of the Co-op space. I gave the front of my space to the Co-op - the front part was the Co-op proper during the day. In the evening, it was a sort of night Co-op, and during the evenings or afternoons, whenever a filmmaker felt that he wanted to show films to a friend of some[one], he could come in and screen. There was always projectors set up. And in the evenings, practically every evening, there was some little screenings... It was only that filmmakers knew and friends knew that, and this increased when we seemed to have at some films problems, censorship-wise, with public screenings…
nd sometime in '63, late '63. And, then, of course, he used to come to the Gramercy Arts [Theatre] on 62nd [Street], it is. And in '63, actually, he was already projecting, bringing, his films to Gramercy Arts Theatre... And he brought in his early Kiss - reels of of Kiss films." (PS415)
In addition to the informal screenings in his front room, Mekas used venues like the Gramercy Arts Theatre for official screenings. Prior to the Gramercy Arts he used the Charles Theatre. According to Tessa Hughes-Freeland in Naked Lens: Beat Cinema (London: Creation Books, 1997), Mekas used the Charles Theatre on Avenue until 1963 for screenings and "then organized midnight screenings on Saturdays at the Bleeker Street Street Cinema before moving to the Gramercy Arts Theatre. (NL114)
In March 1964, the Gramercy Arts Theatre was closed by the License Department and the Film-Makers' Cooperative moved to the New Bowery Theatre. In his yearly round-up of notable underground cinema events during 1964 (published in the 7 January 1965 issue of The Village Voice) Mekas wrote that in April 1964, "A dark period in the New York film underground begins. No screenings for seven months. With no place to meet, film-makers' spirits go low. Clandestine screenings continue at the Co-op late into the summer, until the Co-op is raided and cops are placed nightly across the street." In November 1964 the Film-Makers' Cinematheque started using the New Yorker Theatre for screenings. The opening bill included Naomi Levine's film, Yes. (JM174-75)
By 5 May 1965 Mekas was holding screenings at the City Hall Cinema on 170 Nassau Street. A Film-makers' Cinematheque ad in the 27 May 1965 issue ofThe Village Voice announced that the "Film Makers' Cinematheque is moving from City Hall Cinema to an interim location which is the ASTOR PLACE PLAYHOUSE, 434 Lafayette Street New York... Our first program at the ASTOR PLACE will be in honor of Kenneth Anger's visit to New York." The Anger films were shown on 28, 29 and 30 May. (Village Voice, 7 May 1965, p. 19). On 1 December 1965 the Cinematheque moved to the 41st St. Theater at "125 West 41st St. or 120 West 42nd St. - in between 6th Avenue and Broadway." (Village Voice, 25 Nov 1965, p. 20).
http://www.warholstars.org/naomi_levine.html
