NYC Is Home To One Of The World's Most Beautiful Movie Theaters Brimming With Elegance And Historic Charm
Cinema and New York City have always gone hand in hand. Manhattan's Central Park is the most filmed location in the world, and travelers can make a whole NYC itinerary out of iconic spots from their favorite movies around the city. Aside from being a stellar backdrop for the silver screen, NYC is also a great place to consume movies, from tiny, independent cinemas to the sprawling Lincoln Center venues. And there's one movie theater in the bohemian East Village neighborhood that was named the most beautiful in the United States (and the third-most beautiful in the world) by Time Out magazine.
New York's Village East Cinema (also known as Village East by Angelika) sits between dive bars and fast food joints yet stands out for its grand arched facade. Of the building's seven screens, it's theater 1, the Jaffe Art Theater, that steals the spotlight. This is the largest of the auditoriums, with 440 seats, and before it was a movie theater, it was a stage theater in what was formerly NYC's Yiddish Theatre District.
The theater was built in 1925 and commissioned by Louis N. Jaffe, for whom it took its original name. Its design originally had over 1,200 seats and incorporated Moorish, Islamic, and Alhambresque influences, evident in the intricate floral patterns, mashrabiya-style grilles, and pointed arches you can see today. Over the years, the theater presented everything from vaudeville acts to concerts, and even hosted the original productions of "Grease" before it went to Broadway. In 1991, the building reopened as a movie theater. The huge auditorium was partitioned off, with four screens added in the former orchestra seating area and two in the stage area. The Jaffe Art Theater showcases the original, ornate design the best, though, located in the former balcony area.
See a film at Village East Cinema
If you're going to see something at Village East Cinema, try to book a screening in the Jaffe Art Theater, which is the only way to see its glorious architecture and decor. Screenings that take place in the Jaffe Art Theater are labeled as such on the theater's online program, and the seats are all first-come, first-serve. The cinema plays a mix of new and older movies, but it still distinctly favors cinema outside the mainstream. It was actually the first cinema in New York to screen anime. If you're planning New York City activities on a budget, you can get discounted tickets at the theater for screenings that start before noon. Village East Cinema is also well known for housing the cult tradition where costumed performers act out "Rocky Horror Picture Show" live in front of the screen.
Upon climbing the carpeted stairway up to the Jaffe Art Theater, you might be surprised at how well the original design has been preserved. The theater went through extensive restoration and reinforcement in 2015, which focused primarily on the ceiling. Make sure to look up and notice how detailed the ceiling design is, with its polychromatic, radiating pattern around a dome. You might also notice that at the center of the dome is a gilded Star of David with a chandelier, a Judaic symbol from its origins as a Yiddish theater.
The Village East Cinema is pretty easy to get to, located a 10-minute walk from the Union Square subway station and about 20 minutes by subway from Times Square. If you're flying in, the East Village is about an hour by public transit from LaGuardia Airport and slightly over an hour from the John F. Kennedy International Airport.