What art house theater Kew Gardens Cinemas can teach us about film history

You don’t have to go into Manhattan to see the latest art house cinema.  Kew Gardens, here in Queens, has a theater that rivals the best – the Angelika, Sunshine Theater, Lincoln Center Cinemas – appropriately called Kew Gardens Cinemas.  With 1935 art deco interiors and a storied past that includes a stint as a porn theater, Kew Gardens Cinemas is a gem.

Even before the theater was built, Kew Gardens had a history in cinema – it’s where many stars of the film industry used to live when filming took place in Astoria, prior to the move to Hollywood.  Will Rogers, Charlie Chaplin (this is sometimes disputed), his manager, “Hop” Hadley, and George Gershwin all had homes in Kew Gardens.  Not surprisingly, it’s a leafy, established neighborhood with big houses situated on hilly streets and elegant but affordable apartment buildings conveniently located by the subway (E or F to Union Turnpike) and Long Island Railroad (Kew Gardens stop) stations.

Kew Gardens Cinemas shows everything you would expect an art house to show – the Woody Allen oeuvre, foreign language movies, period pieces, independent films, juicy and informative documentaries, features that took the Palm D’Or at Cannes, and pretty much anything from Focus Features.  It’s a place you go to learn something or be challenged or simply transported and not have your intelligence insulted.  Congruent with the neighborhood, the audience is largely cultivated and mature.

It’s been a long and winding – and somewhat wild – ride for the theater on Lefferts Boulevard.  Erected in 1935 as Austin Theatre, the building is situated in the middle of the village of Kew Gardens where Lefferts passes over the Long Island Railroad, and it originally had one theater that showed double features, equipped with a stage, grand curtains and a loge.  By the early 1960s Rugoff Theatres had taken it over to feature art films, but then ownership passed to United Artists, which played commercial movies with added midnight showings.  At some point along the way, the theater became a pornography house, which apparently was profitable, because it stayed thus well into the 1980s.

After being dark for a handful of years, the current owners, Harvey Elgart and his son, Andrew Elgart, who also own Cobble Hill Cinemas and are soon opening Williamsburg Cinemas, expanded the complex from one to six screens, restored the interiors to their former art deco glory and started showing art films again.  All of the beautiful wood paneling on the walls and the blue-and-pink stork mural on the ceiling had been covered in sheet rock.  They managed to bring back much of the original design and, arranging a multitude of vintage movie posters throughout the theater and hanging the original neon Austin Theatres sign in the lobby, they’ve only enhanced the place’s charm.

If you go on a Friday or Saturday night, buy your tickets ahead of time and get there a little early, because just like any other good theater in the City, it’s busy.  While you’re waiting, enjoy light pub fare at nearby Austin’s Ale House.  But save room for the better-than-average concessions such as just-right popcorn, Chock Full O’Nuts coffee, frozen Snickers bars and cookies baked fresh on site.

Anne Shisler-Hughes has lived in Forest Hills for 10 years and loves Queens for the great treasures to be found in its diverse neighborhoods.  She covers arts and culture, history and real estate for QueensNYC. You can find more of Anne’s writing on Edible Queens and her blog, The Global Grocery.