22 East 12th Street was built in 1898 as a firehouse, and since 1963 has been the home of Cinema Village, the oldest continuously operating art house cinema in New York City.

Cinema Village, 1997 According to Cinema Village’s website, it was one of Manhattan's several repertory cinemas for its first three decades of life. Showcasing a canon of vintage classics, cult, and contemporary critical favorites on double bills that would usually change three times a week, this once-essential programming format has now largely died out in commercial cinemas in the city and around the country. Before the video revolution, short of a private film collection, going to a repertory cinema was virtually the only way to see many films after their initial theatrical run. Rep houses like Cinema Village were the autodidacts' film school and favorite haunts of cineastes for decades.

"Eraserhead" film poster, 1977 Undermined by home video, buy-outs by major circuits and real estate development, commercial repertory cinema virtually disappeared in the city by the late 1980's. Cinema Village only escaped closing and survived with a switch to limited engagements of highly alternative first run programming. This included some special midnight shows such as David Lynch’s first film “Eraserhead,” which ran for a year. In the early nineties before Jackie Chan, John Woo, Michele Yeoh and their stunt coordinators went Hollywood, Cinema Village became known, through its annual festivals and other bookings, as the place to see the amazing Hong Kong films of what would soon be acknowledged as a filmmaking golden age. For filmgoers who never ventured to Chinatown or had only seen blurry bootleg videos, these films were a revelation and they would soon have a profound influence on international filmmaking styles.

"The Interview" film poster, 2014 It may seem hard to believe that in New York City, America’s No.1 film market, Cinema Village was the only movie theater that did not bow down to the threats of a 9/11 type of attack on cinemas premiering SONY’s film “The Interview” on Christmas day of 2014. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

70 Fifth Avenue was the home of the National Board of Review of Motion pictures, founded in 1909 to fight government intervention in the film industry and known today simply as the National Board of Review. In its 111-year existence, the Board played a profound role in shaping the motion picture industry in America, single-handedly deciding what content would or would not appear in film by either granting or denying their stamp of approval for movies: “passed by the National Board of Review.”

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures logo In explaining the role and work of the organization in 1926, its Executive Secretary Wilton A. Barrett wrote: “The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York City, is a trained, volunteer, disinterested citizen organization, composed of upwards of three hundred people reviewing films in New York City before they are released for general exhibition to the public, with associate, advisory members and affiliate citizen groups in many localities across the country. The National Board is opposed to legal censorship and in favor of the constructive method of selecting the better pictures, publishing classified lists of, and information about them, and building up audiences and support for them through the work of community groups, in order that the producers may be encouraged to make the finest pictures and exhibitors to show them, and the people in general helped to a response to the best that the screen has to offer. This places the emphasis on making the public conscious of its taste in, and giving it a voice in the selection of its entertainment.”

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures magazine, 1940 According to the New York Public Library, which maintains the Board’s records from 1907 to 1971: “The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (U.S.) was created in 1909 as the New York Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures. The New York Board became the National Board of Censorship when it took the place the local boards in various cities. In 1916 the name was changed to the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures (NBRMP) signifying a fundamental change of policy: the Board would no longer dictate standards of morality in motion pictures. Its primary responsibility became the education of the viewing public; it published reviews and recommended movies which were considered by the reviewers to have achieved distinction. Publications of the Board included the National Board of Review Magazine which was superseded in 1950 by Films in Review.” The National Board of Review was located at 70 Fifth Avenue from the 1910s until at least 1949 – a critical time in the development of the motion pictures industry and in the shaping of its content and regulation by the Board.

"Inherit the Wind" trailer still, 1960 The 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” and its 1960 fictionalized film account Inherit the Wind also had strong roots at 70 Fifth Avenue. The American Union Against Militarism (AUAM), which founded the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) (later known as the ACLU), and the New York City Teachers Union and American Federation of Teachers – all of whom played a key role in the case – were housed here. Located within a neighborhood at the center of the twentieth century’s radical political world, 70 Fifth Avenue fostered an intimate community of like-minded progressive organizations that shared members and leaders, and collaborated with one another to fight for common causes. According to Leo Casey, the Executive Director of the Albert Shanker Institute, the New York City Teachers Union worked with the ACLU to prepare for the “Scopes Monkey Trial.” Henry Linville, the Teachers Union president, recruited public school teacher John Scopes to challenge the law against teaching evolution in Tennessee schools, and invited the ACLU to participate. The ACLU subsequently urged lawyer Clarence Darrow, a founder of the League for Industrial Democracy (also at 70 Fifth Avenue), to defend Scopes in the legal proceedings. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Arguably the first art movie house in America, the Fifth Avenue Playhouse opened at 66 Fifth Avenue on December 16, 1925 showing "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari."

"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" film poster (German), 1920 In 1935 the Jewish Telegraph Agency reported that the “little playhouse brings to New York movies of interest to lovers of France and to those familiar with the French language…Beginning Friday night, the Fifth Avenue Playhouse is showing “Criez-le sur les Toits,” or “Shout It from the House Tops,” featuring two of France’s well known stars, Simone Heliard and Saint-Granier.”

"Pather Panchali" film poster, 1955 The theater was renamed the Fifth Avenue Cinema in 1954 when it was operated by Ragoff & Becker. A New York premiere art house for many decades, it was where Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali!” was introduced to New York and Pasolini’s “Accattone” had its first commercial run.

"Accattone" film poster, 1961 It closed its doors in 1973 after the building was acquired by The New School. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Film producers and directors David Berger and Holly Maxson lived at 4 East 12th Street.

Milton Hinton, 1930 Here they maintained a photo archive dedicated to the African American jazz musician and photographer Milton J. Hinton. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Renowned Egyptologist William C. Hayes lived here until his death in 1963. Due to his expertise in ancient Egypt, Hayes worked as a consultant on Cecil B. DeMille’s final film The Ten Commandments, which was the most expensive film ever made up to that time and the eighth most financially successful film of all time adjusted for inflation. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

John Scopes of the landmark 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial” came to the Albert Hotel to meet his lawyer Clarence Darrow, for the first time. Scopes had been recruited by the ACLU to challenge the constitutionality of the Butler Act, a Tennessee law that prohibited the state’s public schools from teaching evolution. Darrow was already a famous defense attorney for leftist and labor issues, and a founder of the League for Industrial Democracy.

"Inherit the Wind" trailer still, 1960 Inherit the Wind was the wildly popular fictionalized film account of this “Trial of the Century,” in which Spencer Tracy played Henry Drummond (based upon Clarence Darrow), and Dick York played Bertram T. Cates, based upon John Scopes. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Dutch filmmaker John Ferno, originally Johannes Fernhout, was born in North Holland in 1913. Residing at 28 East 10th Street, he began his career taking street photography in the early 1930s, before his mentor, the Dutch filmmaker and columnist Joris Ivens, introduced him to filmmaking.

John Ferno, 1940-1945 American documentarist Pare Lorentz invited Ivens to the United States in 1939, and Ferno joined him, changing his name to John Ferno. During World War II, Ferno made a number of films for public agencies, including the documentary And So They Live (1940) for the Educational Film Institute of New York University. According to the book The American Marshall Plan Film Campaign and the Europeans by Maria Fritsche, Ferno was one of the most prolific producers of Marshall Plan films: movies that were developed between 1948 and 1954 to promote the Marshall Plan to European audiences. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

In the 1970s 42 East 12th Street was the home of the Film & Dance Theater. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The current three-story incarnation of this building dates to an alteration from approximately 1894.

"The Evergreen Review" issue, undated According to From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader, in January of 1967 Grove Press announced the acquisition of the prestigious Cinema 16 Film Library, consisting of two hundred shorts and experimental works, including films by Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Peter Weiss, all darlings of the cinematic avant- garde. They opened a small office in 53 East 11th Street, but began operating a theater for both films and live productions here as well. However, only a single film became an actual source of income for the business: Vilgot Sjöman's I Am Curious (Yellow).

Barney Rosset, undated Rosset biographer Loren Glass wrote: “Rosset had read about the film by the Ingmar Bergman protégé in the Manchester Guardian during his annual trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1967. Intrigued by its purported combination of sexual frankness and political critique, Rosset asked the president of the Swedish publisher Bonnier to put him in touch with the film's producer. He went to see it, liked it, and promptly purchased the rights to distribute it in the United States. I Am Curious (Yellow) was seized by US Customs in January 1968 and Grove had to arrange for critics to view it at the United States Appraisers Stores in New York City under an agreement that they would not "publicize the contents." These same critics were expert witnesses at the subsequent trial in May. A jury found the film to be obscene, but the Court of Appeals overturned the decision, and for the rest of the year it was shown to packed houses by reservation only at the Evergreen Theater on East 11th Street...It was widely reviewed and discussed, and Rosset aggressively pursued screenings across the country, going so far as to purchase an entire theater in Minneapolis when he couldn't find an exhibitor willing to show it. By September of 1969, the film had made over $5 million across the country, with Grove remunerating local lawyers who defended against obscenity accusations with a percentage of the box office receipts. Grove's stock soared. According to Herman Graf, "In '68 and '69 we had a stronger bottom line than Bantam; we were making money hand over fist."

"I am Curious (Yellow)" film poster, 1967 I Am Curious (Yellow) brought a who’s who of New York’s social elite to the theater, including Jackie Kennedy. According to Glass, the film ultimately brought in $14 million for Grove and Evergreen, but ironically led them into a financial downward spiral. Flush from the success of I Am Curious (Yellow), Grove Press’ Barney Rosset began acquiring films left and right, none of which would make the company any money. In fact, they would ultimately lead to its precipitous decline. I Am Curious (Yellow) was not the Theatre’s only brush with notoriety. In June of 1968 the theater was showing Andy Warhol’s I, A Man, the pop-artist’s experimental and equally blue take on the erotic Swedish film I, A Woman. Appearing in the film was writer Valerie Solanas, who would try to kill Warhol at his factory just a few blocks away at Union Square West on June 3rd, during the film’s run at the theater. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This 1893-94 loft building housed the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, founded by William Kennedy Dickson, from 1896-1906.

William Kennedy Dickson, 1891 Later renamed the Biograph Company, it was notable for its early advances in filmmaking technology and was one of the first and most widely-recognized American film studios. To accommodate the company's presence in the building, brick piers supporting a track were installed on the roof, allowing the early cameras to follow the sun and optimize natural light for filming. In addition to early cameras, the business developed the Biograph projector, allowing the film industry to shift from solitary viewers to a group audience. This projector was the beginning of the commercial motion-picture industry. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

U-P Film Group and O-P Screening Room Cinema were located here. Founded in the late 1960s by Palestinian Egyptian immigrant Rafic Azzouny, whom Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman called “an exuberant fixture of the downtown film and video scene for over three decades,” they played a key role in the development of the Downtown underground and avant garde film and video scene. U-P was a filmmaking collective which allowed many more daring or not commercially viable artists to create their works, while O-P was a venue for showing these audacious or unconventional films.

“Christmas at the Other Side, Boston” by Nan Goldin, 1972 It was the first venue to show photographer Nan Goldin’s slideshows and played a significant role in developing the career of pioneering underground filmmaker, performance artist, and photographer Jack Smith. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Grove Press, called “the era’s most explosive and influential publishing house” and “the most innovative publisher of the postwar era,” produced incredibly important pieces of 20th century literature while working aggressively and effectively to transform American culture in relation to issues of censorship, sexuality, race, and class. Founded in 1947 on Grove Street in the West Village, Grove Press fully rose to prominence after it was purchased by Barney Rossett in 1951. Over the next decades, an astonishing five extant buildings in the area south of Union Square were home to the Press, its literary magazine the Evergreen Review, and the Press’ Evergreen Theater. A sixth building in the area, 61 Fourth Avenue, served as Rosset’s home from at least 1981 until Rosset’s passing in 2012. For a time, Grove Press’ offices were also located here.

"Evergreen Review" issue, undated Rosset’s affiliation with Grove Press ended shortly after he came to 61 Fourth Avenue. However, his role as cultural instigator continued. He revived the Evergreen Review as an online publication in 1998, and worked on several documentaries and films about his life and accomplishments while living here. These included Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship and the film Obscene.

Barney Rosset, undated Rosset also began and created a decades-long art project at 61 Fourth Avenue: a 12 feet high and 22 feet long mural which became the consuming passion of his life. As described by Bedford+Bowery, “Rosset would stay up all night working on the mural, often painting for four hours at a time without taking a break to eat or drink or do anything but focus on the wall. It was never finished — he would repaint it over and over, using different colors until eventually it became a completely different painting.” The mural eventually became the subject of its own documentary, Barney’s Wall. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Author Bret Easton Ellis (b. March 7, 1964), who wrote the 1991 bestseller American Psycho, owned an apartment at 114-118 East 13th Street as of 2016.

“American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis, 1991 According to Ellis’ statement in a 6sqft article, he lived here during the 1980s, and wrote American Psycho while at this address.

\_“American Psycho” film poster, 2000 American Psycho was adapted into a film in 2000, and features the once-trendy Cajun restaurant Texarkana in Greenwich Village, which opened in 1982 at 64 West 10th Street. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Variety Theatre, 1960. Photo © Estate of Fred W. McDarrah The Variety Photoplays Theater on Third Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets was one of New York’s few surviving nickelodeon houses from the earliest stages of moving pictures. It was demolished in 2005 in spite of a campaign by Village Preservation to seek landmark status for the building. Though its earliest history is somewhat unclear, it seems that the original building that housed the Variety Theater at 110 Third Avenue was constructed as early as 1897. Only 25 feet wide and just under 100 feet deep, it was most likely a store or residence that was altered to convert the space into a two-story theater in 1914. As the moving picture craze swept the city in the early twentieth century, nickelodeon theaters sprung up all around the city to cash in on and bring the new medium to the masses.

The Variety Theatre, c. 2000 While the Union Square area had served as home to the center of legitimate theater in New York in the late nineteenth century, as the twentieth century progressed that center moved north, and the neighboring East Village area became a center of ethnic theater and popular theater, movie houses, nickelodeons, and dance halls. The uses of other nearby sites such as Webster Hall, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Academy of Music/Palladium on 14th Street all reflect this. The Variety seated 450 and as the Times notes, “first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films were generally considered low-culture — “photo plays or not.” In 1930 a balcony, new lobby, and art deco renovations to the original 1923 marquee sign were made by architects Boak and Paris.

Because of its limited size, the Variety never attracted the best first-run films, and by the late 1960s, the Variety — like many other struggling theaters in New York — turned to blue movies to help keep it afloat. By the 1970s and 1980s, the theater screened a somewhat unpredictable mélange of B and/or C-grade films as well as soft and hardcore pornography. The theater space also became a meeting place for gay men.

A writer for the Bright Lights Film Journal described the scene when he visited the Variety in 1984: "Upon entering the auditorium, I saw the movie was playing upside-down. This lasted a good fifteen minutes. Nobody complained or perhaps even noticed… It was like stepping into a time capsule. I noticed four large globe-like lighting fixtures that had somehow survived the decades. The walls were an unremarkable (patched) plaster, but the ceiling was special, composed of patterned pressed tin. There was a single modest balcony. My main memory was of patrons moving about the theater in a constant bustle and streaming into and out of the toilets oddly situated down front below the screen and surely a distraction for anyone trying to watch the film. The room was filled with the continual rustlings and creakings of people on the move. It was more like a mass happening than a movie screening, and in fact I have no recollection of the film at all."

"Taxi Driver" film poster, 1976 As the cinematic quality of the films shown at the Variety declined during the 1970s and 80s, so did the reputation of the surrounding East Village neighborhood. The Variety Theater was even featured in the film Taxi Driver. The Variety ended its run as a movie theater in 1989 when it was closed by the city’s health department, but later reopened in 1991 as a live off-Broadway theater.

It ran for more than a decade as the Variety Arts Theater until 2004 when it was closed and demolished in 2005 to make room for a 21-story condominium tower. Village Preservation campaigned to get the historic theater landmarked, but the City refused to act, in spite of the building being one of the few remaining structures in New York which served as a nickelodeon. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

By 1899, this building was converted into lofts and a concert hall on the ground floor. Starting in this era, a saloon and concert hall called Blank’s Winter Garden showcased vaudeville performers and attracted Tin Pan Alley songwriters as a venue to present their works.

During the 1900s, different theater companies occupied the space: first the Comet, and then the Lyric Theater in 1936. In the 1960s-70s, it was called the Jewel Theater, known for playing all-male films. In the 1980s it was the Bijou, which played XXX fares until city officials closed it in 1989. For many years it went back and forth between showing classic repertory films and all-male pornographic fare, until the theater was closed entirely in the early 2010s when the building underwent a renovation with a huge addition added. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Brothers John and Nicholas Krushenick opened the Brata Gallery at 89 East 10th Street in 1957. One of many artist-run cooperative “Tenth Street Galleries” in the neighborhood, the Brata Gallery showcased work by a diverse group of artists, including African-American painter Ed Clark and the Japanese-American artists Robert Kobayashi and Nanae Momiyama. Yayoi Kusama had a solo show here in 1959, which is credited with launching her career. Artists Ronald Bladen, Ed Clarke, Al Held, and George Sugarman all displayed at the Brata Gallery as well.

Jonas Mekas, undated By 1963, the gallery had moved to 56 Third Avenue, where it participated in the growing underground film scene. That year, avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas organized and wrote about screenings that took place here, programmed by his Film-Makers’ Co-op. The Brata Gallery stayed at this address until at least 1974. Listen to Jonas Mekas’ Oral History here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) was headquartered at 80 Fifth Avenue, in the area South of Union Square which was the center the film industry, from 1909 until its dissolution in 1917. The MPPC was a trust of all the major American film companies and local foreign-branches, the country’s leading film distributor and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, thus thoroughly dominating the American film industry at its dawn in the early 20th century as it grew to become the worlds largest. The MPPC ended the reliance upon of foreign films on American screens, standardized the manner in which films were distributed and exhibited in this country, and improved the quality of motion pictures by internal competition. The MPPC restricted films to one to two reels at 10 minutes each. It didn’t allow for the acknowledgement of actors’ names in the films, as the MPPC believed that notoriety would encourage actors to ask for more money. It refused equipment to uncooperative companies and sought to drive out small or indie film companies. It’s tight grip on the industry led to its utter transformation, including its eventual shift to the West Coast.

The MPPC was preceded by the Edison licensing system, which operated between 1907-1908. The licensing system came by way of Edison’s control over nearly all major U.S. patent for film production and projection in the early 20th Century. Edison was a driving force behind the birth of the United States' film industry in the late 19th Century and he immediately began to enforce limitations on the use of what he invented. The notable film companies of the early 20th Century (Essanay, Kalem, Pathé Frères, Selig, or Vitagraph) enterted into a contract with Edison but excluded the Biograph Company. This was until Edison learned Biograph purchased the rights to the Latham loop, a crucial piece of film technology. Then, Edison restructured, formed the MPPC and included Biograph. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Playwright, screenwriter, author, and librettist Terrence McNally (Nov. 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) lived at 41-43 University Pl (also known as 29 East 9th Street.)

One of the most successful, prolific, and critically acclaimed American playwrights of the last half-century, several of his plays were made into successful movies, including The Ritz (1976, based on the 1975 play of the same name), Frankie and Johnny (1991, based upon the 1982 play Frankie and Johnny and the Clair de Lune), and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997, based upon the 1994 play of the same name). McNally also successfully translated several films into Broadway musical productions, including Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ragtime, The Full Monty, and Catch Me If You Can. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Built ca. 1850, the Federal style row houses found at 119-121 University Place are mixed-use buildings that once housed the original offices of influential independent film studio New Line Cinema. After major renovations to the building in 1950, Robert Shaye moved into 121 University Place, founding the film company here in 1972. Initially starting as a film distributor of foreign and art films for college campuses in the United States, Shaye and New Line Cinema’s first success was through the timely redistribution of the cult classic Reefer Madness (1936).

Recently graduated from Columbia Law School, Robert Shaye’s newly acquired knowledge of copyright law helped him identify the public domain status of Reefer Madness in 1972. From there, he began redistributing the 1936 film, primarily on college campuses. With the success of Reefer Madness, New Line Cinema, originally founded at 121 University Place, had the funds to continue distributing indie films until 1977, when the company produced its first movie, “Stunts.”

After completing various New Line Cinema productions, Robert Shaye partnered with director John Waters. Waters was known for his provocative films with outrageous plotlines and characters. Some of his characters derived from his experiences in New York, as a habitue of the Mud Club and Max’s Kansas City, among other well-known spots. Eventually, New Line Cinema would produce Water’s films Pope of Trash, Pink Flamingos, and Female Trouble, featuring notorious drag performer Divine. Later, Divine would play the role of Edna Turnbland in Waters’ Hairspray, released in 1988.

As New Line Cinema began to take on larger productions, they released A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). While still an indie film studio, the horror film resulted in mainstream popularity and profits for New Line Cinema. The popularity of Elm Street made New Line among the most impactful studios in Hollywood, on par with long-established major corporate outfits.

By 1993, New Line Cinema had been acquired by Turner Studio, but Robert Shaye remained with the company he had started at 121 University Place as the co-chairman and CEO. Following the acquisition, New Line Cinema came out with box office successes like The Mask (1994) and Dumb & Dumber (1994) starring Jim Carrey. By 1996, Ted Turner’s media company merged with Time Warner Incorporated, and New Line Cinema was added to their docket of film studios.

Under the ownership of Time Warner Inc., New Line Cinema was acquired once more through the eventual AOL Time Warner merger of 2001. During this year, the studio completed its production of the first Lord of the Rings film. Robert Shaye, who founded the studio at 121 University Place, was later removed from the company in 2008. Shaye went on to establish his own production company, Unique Studios, that same year. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .