Big Cinemas Manhattan
239 E. 59th Street,
New York,
NY
10022
239 E. 59th Street,
New York,
NY
10022
7 people
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Eastside playhouse is also closed down
I dont think this was the Pacific East, I am trying to rememeber which eastside house that was. As far as I remember it opned as Cinema Malibu, then the DW Griffith for the longert time, and finally The 59 St East. I was the manager here for a year with the DW Griffith name. The marquee was very classy at the time, the front had an outline of Griffith’s face. Also the post above about the few theatres left on the eastside, there is also City Cinemas Eastside Playhouse.
Except for cinema 1-2-3 and the sutton the eastside has no theatres
The theater is closed and the building is for lease. I’m not sure when (or if) it was the Cine Malibu, but in any case it was also the Pacific East at one time.
Located on East 59th between 2nd and 3rd Avenues… This was known for some time as the DW Griffith Theater. When the fully restored version of the 1933 King Kong was put back together in the mid ‘70’s, it played here for a number of weeks at the 1933 price of 10 cents!!! My grandfather took me along with a friend to see this great flick when I was perhaps 11 or 12 (after years of seeing the edited version only on the Million Dollar Movie on local TV channel 9 WOR — memories anyone?) A cozy little theater, as I recall. Haven’t been there since.
In the 1970’s, my grandfather took me to see the original 1933 King Kong at the DW Griffith (as it was known at the time). This was a newly reconstructed version of the movie that had restored several minutes (Kong stripping Fay Wray on his mountain perch, Kong trampling and chewing on several humans, etc) that had been cut from the film for its post-Hayes Office theatrical re-release. The film ran at this theater for a number of weeks. Admission for the first week or so was 10 cents, in honor of 1933 ticket prices. It is located on East 59th between 2nd and 3rd Aves.
Unless I’m sorely mistaken the theater was originally the Cine Malibu in the early 70s showing a mix of soft and hard core porn (I was there for a softish session). It then became the DW Griffith launched with a season of Griffith films (I was there for Birth of a Nation with a live organ player)…showing a mix of art and second run quality pictures (I had a date my senior year in high school for a double feature of A Touch of Class and Paper Moon so figure 1973/74)…It then folded into the Rugoff/Cinema 5 chain and later was relaunched by the Cineplex Odeon group in 1989 with Field of Dreams as its first feature as the 59th St Playhouse or Cinema…now mostly a second or third run house with Clearview but a miraculous survivor since the nearby Manhattan Twins (theres another story), Gotham and Coronet are all gone
This theatre was originally called the “DW Griffith”