Four years after first trying to enter the New York City market, the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, the Austin, Tex.-based chain known for dine-in theaters with creative programming and a strict policy of notalking or texting, will open its first multiplex in the city this month.
The company, which also has a film distribution arm, announced on Tuesday that a seven-theater complex in Downtown Brooklyn would start showing films on Oct. 28.
Alamo has been steadily expanding nationwide since opening its first theater in 1997, and while it has operated in Yonkers for three years, its efforts in New York City faced setbacks. In 2012, it announced plans to convert a long-dormant theater on the Upper West Side. But those plans were scrapped in 2013.
![Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn](https://therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1200-alamo-drafthouse-650x405.jpg)
Alamo is one of the best cinema experiences in Brooklyn. Originally a theater concept from Austin, so it's a little taste of home for me. Highly recommend the fried pickles ? Upvoted 2 weeks ago. Oct 26, 2016 - Even though many of New York's independent movie theaters have disappeared in the past several years—we'll miss you, Ziegfeld—the city is.
The Brooklyn theater is part of City Point, a new residential-retail complex. Alamo was going to open the theater in August — ads were even posted in subway stations to that effect — but construction delays occurred.
“We’ve been ready for a while,” Tim League, the founder and chief executive officer of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, said in a phone interview last week. “But we can’t get people from the street to our space without the fire department signoff.”
Now that signoff is in hand, and the opening comes at a time when movie theaters with similar programming or dine-in service are popping up around town, including the Metrograph on the Lower East Side, the new luxury iPic dine-in theater at South Street Seaport, the forthcoming refurbished Quad theater in Greenwich Village and planned expansions of the IFC Center in the Village and the Nitehawk in Brooklyn.
But Mr. League said that there was room for everyone. And he is happy with the Downtown Brooklyn location, which can be reached by several subway lines. “New York is still, in my opinion, underscreened for the population,” he said. “There’s nothing like what we’re doing in that neighborhood and we thought it would be a great home.”
The Drafthouse space is divided between two floors and includes seven theaters, all with dine-in service and reserved seating. Every theater has 4K digital projectors and one has 35-millimeter projection capabilities. A stand-alone bar, called the House of Wax, is also part of the multiplex.
The programming will include new releases and repertory showings. Its first series, timed to the Halloween weekend, will be “In the Mood for Gore,” 35-millimeter prints of Asian horror films from the 1980s and ’90s. A “Monster Squad” Halloween party will be held on Oct. 31 with an actor from that film, Andre Gower, in attendance.
Other planned series include “New in Town,” with films about moving in (like “The Muppets Take Manhattan” and “The Coca-Cola Kid”), and “Shouting at the Screen,” with the hosts Wyatt Cenac and Donwill offering live commentary on blaxploitation films.
And first-run films this fall will include studio fare like “Doctor Strange” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” as well as specialty titles like “The Handmaiden” and the rock documentary “We Are X.”
Ticketing will be available for the theater at 8 a.m. on Wednesday on the Alamo Drafthouse website, drafthouse.com/nyc.
The chef Fernando Marulanda, formerly of Tavern on the Green and Bouchon, will run the kitchen.
When asked whether there were lessons to be learned on his multiyear journey to get Alamo Drafthouse off the ground in New York City, Mr. League said, “It’s a lot more expensive and takes a lot longer than you think to do a construction project in New York.”
He added, “I’ve also learned, never put an opening date on a subway advertisement.”
The company, which also has a film distribution arm, announced on Tuesday that a seven-theater complex in Downtown Brooklyn would start showing films on Oct. 28.
![Alamo drafthouse brooklyn showtimes Alamo drafthouse brooklyn showtimes](http://www.brooklynvegan.com/files/2016/10/Theater-Interior-Photo-by-Victoria-Stevens.jpg?w=1200&h=0&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89)
Alamo has been steadily expanding nationwide since opening its first theater in 1997, and while it has operated in Yonkers for three years, its efforts in New York City faced setbacks. In 2012, it announced plans to convert a long-dormant theater on the Upper West Side. But those plans were scrapped in 2013.
The Brooklyn theater is part of City Point, a new residential-retail complex. Alamo was going to open the theater in August — ads were even posted in subway stations to that effect — but construction delays occurred.
“We’ve been ready for a while,” Tim League, the founder and chief executive officer of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, said in a phone interview last week. “But we can’t get people from the street to our space without the fire department signoff.”
Now that signoff is in hand, and the opening comes at a time when movie theaters with similar programming or dine-in service are popping up around town, including the Metrograph on the Lower East Side, the new luxury iPic dine-in theater at South Street Seaport, the forthcoming refurbished Quad theater in Greenwich Village and planned expansions of the IFC Center in the Village and the Nitehawk in Brooklyn.
But Mr. League said that there was room for everyone. And he is happy with the Downtown Brooklyn location, which can be reached by several subway lines. “New York is still, in my opinion, underscreened for the population,” he said. “There’s nothing like what we’re doing in that neighborhood and we thought it would be a great home.”
The Drafthouse space is divided between two floors and includes seven theaters, all with dine-in service and reserved seating. Every theater has 4K digital projectors and one has 35-millimeter projection capabilities. A stand-alone bar, called the House of Wax, is also part of the multiplex.
The programming will include new releases and repertory showings. Its first series, timed to the Halloween weekend, will be “In the Mood for Gore,” 35-millimeter prints of Asian horror films from the 1980s and ’90s. A “Monster Squad” Halloween party will be held on Oct. 31 with an actor from that film, Andre Gower, in attendance.
Other planned series include “New in Town,” with films about moving in (like “The Muppets Take Manhattan” and “The Coca-Cola Kid”), and “Shouting at the Screen,” with the hosts Wyatt Cenac and Donwill offering live commentary on blaxploitation films.
And first-run films this fall will include studio fare like “Doctor Strange” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” as well as specialty titles like “The Handmaiden” and the rock documentary “We Are X.”
Ticketing will be available for the theater at 8 a.m. on Wednesday on the Alamo Drafthouse website, drafthouse.com/nyc.
The chef Fernando Marulanda, formerly of Tavern on the Green and Bouchon, will run the kitchen.
When asked whether there were lessons to be learned on his multiyear journey to get Alamo Drafthouse off the ground in New York City, Mr. League said, “It’s a lot more expensive and takes a lot longer than you think to do a construction project in New York.”
He added, “I’ve also learned, never put an opening date on a subway advertisement.”