Back when I was a student in the city, one of my favorite things to do was steal away for a few hours and watch whatever was playing at the small, ramshackle movie palace a few blocks from my school. There was something about it—an impossible grandeur—that kept me coming back to sit in the dark, looking at my surroundings as much as the movie, even when the heat broke down in the middle of winter and no one could see what was happening onscreen through their foggy breath. My favorite theater closed for good soon after that crazy heatless winter, which is why I was so excited when I heard about the Fall of the American Movie Palace event hosted by Matt Lambros at Observatory this week. Lambros, whose work has been featured everywhere from Gawker to The New York Times, was originally inspired to start his mission documenting and fighting to preserve these bygone treasures by the Loews Kings Theater right here in Brooklyn. Advance tickets are recommended and worth the $12 since his original photos are almost as hard to come by as the movie palaces they capture. –VR
