Hey, long time reader, first time poster (I finally made an account too), but I came to Brooklynian to pose a question. I live in Lefferts Gardens near Empire/Rogers and recently I've noticed several commercial units coming up for rent near my apartment and have been thinking of possibly taking the dive and launching a cinema space in the south Crown Heights/PLG area, west of Nostrand between President and Sterling. The 2/3/4/5 aren't all that far of a walk and the B/Q isn't objectionably far either.
I'm currently splitting my time between a day job and working for another independent art-house type theater in Williamsburg so I have a feel for the financial aspects of it and the nitty-gritty, but I wanted the input of some others in the neighborhood on whether you'd think the area is "ready" to support a less-than-mainstream theater.
Personally, I'm tired of taking the 30 minute trip to Williamsburg or Manhattan for a late show only to truck it back at midnight on the local bus. Any thoughts?
Comments
I'd reach out to Five Myles. They run an annual Crown Heights Film Festival.
...you may also want to learn why Global Square failed. Global Square was to be a theater and performance space on Dean St, and failed before it opened despite getting some city $upport.
On FiveMiles or partnering with another arts institute, I've been to FiveMiles a few times and would be really interested in being a hosting venue for the film festival, but in my experience with the Wburg cinema it's been a little bit of a love/hate relationship with the established film society based on being more upstart and incidentals like not having the money to project every single film on 35mm. So I'm not sure I'd want to open that can of worms so early.
On family oriented screenings, I'm not opposed, it totally slipped my mind that kid days are a regular thing at normal theaters. Probably because I'm not a parent.
It isn't clear to me why Global Square failed: http://www.brooklynian.com/discussion/37947/893-dean-st-to-become-arts-performance-space-located-btwn-grand-and-classon
However, it struck me as a really ambitious project from the beginning, and it wasn't clear to me that the funder had created similar venues.
The good news is that the project might not lose tons of money. The land has appreciated while the project floundered and failed.
In terms of kids, I don't have any either. ...but the neighborhood is presently creating hundreds of kids under 4, and the providers of daycare, puppet theaters, music together, maternity wear, fancy toys and clothing etc are only now arriving.
I'd see if any large bars or events spaces were willing to have indie films on an occasional basis, that way you could build up a following before taking the large risk of signing a lease.
PLG has a lot of families, so I agree with comments above about catering to them for at least one night.
In the coming month we're looking at putting together a curated short films/documentaries feature, live theatre performance, live musical performance accompanying a video art installation, and a few other things as we talk with other people and they express interest in coming into the space.
Any truth to that? Anything left of the prior theater, like stadium seating ?