Lights, Cameras, Williamsburg!

Williamsburg Cinemas will be one of the first places in the neighborhood that people can go to catch a blockbuster flick, filling the void left by the closure of the Commodore Theater in 2002.

I’m not sure the Commodore ever really filled that void, but first-run movies (sans alcohol) are back in Williamsburg.

NYCs TV Production Surges to Record Level

One of New York’s (and Brooklyn’s) thriving industries is film and TV production. Even the LA Times has taken notice of the upsurge in productions happening here instead of there. (Who knew Mildred Pierce was filmed in NY?)

Nitehawk Cinema to Open on Metropolitan (Soon)

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Nitehawk Cinema Building
Photo: via Curbed

Nitehawk Cinema has been in the news a bunch lately. The Journal ($$) had a piece the other day, followed by Curbed (“finally opening soon”) and now the Brooklyn Paper. The project has been development for ages (I think the residential development was originally approved as a variance prior to the 2005 rezoning), and the Brooklyn Paper reports that the most recent delays in finishing it were due to financing problems that arose in (surprise, surprise) 2008. I have also heard that the table-service-at-a-movie-theater concept took a long time to get approved. The model – popular in the south (I first came across it in Tennessee, where you can get a pitcher of beer while you watch a movie) – apparently did not mesh well with NY liquor laws.

But all those problems have apparently been resolved, and now the lights are on (literally – go by at night and check out the light up facade) and the place is ready to open.