The Elgin Theater is the former name of the building now known as the

Joyce Theater The Joyce Theater (“The Joyce") is a 472-seat dance performance venue located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The building opened in 1941 as the Elgin Theater, a movie house, and was gut-renovated and reconfigured in 1981-82 to re ...

, located on the corner of 19th Street and Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. The theater showed films from its opening in 1942 until 1978. Its longtime manager,

Ben Barenholtz Ben Barenholtz (October 5, 1935 – June 27, 2019) was a Polish-born American film exhibitor, distributor and producer, who was a presence in the independent film scene since the late 1960s, when he opened The Elgin Cinema in New York City in 1 ...

, invented midnight movie programming for the theater. Following a full renovation, the building reopened in 1982 as the

, a 472-seat dance theater.

History

Theater programming until 1977

The theater opened in 1942. The architect of the

Art Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

style structure was Simon Zelnik. Winold Reiss was the designer. When it opened, the theater had 600 seats. The Elgin opened as a first-run cinema. In the 1950s through 1965 it presented Spanish-language cinema. In 1968, Ben Barenholtz assumed management of the theater and converted it to a repertory and art film house. The Elgin soon became noted for the innovation and variety of its programming, which ranged from revivals of classic Hollywood films; experimental works by

Jonas Mekas Jonas Mekas (; December 24, 1922 – January 23, 2019) was a Lithuanian-American filmmaker, poet, and artist who has been called "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema". Mekas' work has been exhibited in museums and at festivals worldwi ...

Kenneth Anger Kenneth Anger (born Kenneth Wilbur Anglemyer, February 3, 1927) is an American underground experimental filmmaker, actor, and author. Working exclusively in short films, he has produced almost 40 works since 1937, nine of which have been grouped ...

, and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

; and films by then-emerging directors such as Jonathan Demme and

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...

. Around 1975, Steve Gould and Chuck Zlatkin took over management of the theater in partnership with Barenholtz and continued similar programming. With the midnight screening of

Alejandro Jodorowsky Alejandro Jodorowsky Prullansky (; born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean-French avant-garde filmmaker. Best known for his 1970s films ''El Topo'' and '' The Holy Mountain'', Jodorowsky has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work ...

's surrealist western '' El Topo'' on December 18, 1970, the Elgin became the first theater to show midnight movies. Barenholtz recalled, "I was told by the experts: 'Who's going to come see a film at midnight? You're out of your mind.' But within two years, there wasn't a city in the country that didn't have a midnight movie going." ''El Topo'' premiered at The Elgin on December 17, 1970 and ran continuously seven days a week until the end of June 1971. Author

Gary Lachman Gary Joseph Lachman (born December 24, 1955), also known as Gary Valentine, is an American writer and musician. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s as the bass guitarist for rock band Blondie. Since the 1990s, Lachman has written full-time ...

claims that the film ''

Invocation of My Demon Brother ''Invocation of My Demon Brother'' (1969) is an 11-minute film directed, edited, and photographed by Kenneth Anger. The music was composed by Mick Jagger playing a Moog synthesizer. It was filmed in San Francisco at the Straight Theater on Haight S ...

'' (1969) "inaugurat dthe midnight movie cult at the theater." The theater was part of an efflorescence of revival cinema in New York City during this period. ''

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'' film critic

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

observed, "There is a heaven for movie buffs and it could be here and now thanks to The Elgin, The Thalia, The Symphony and all those other houses that occasionally recall the past." In May 1977, while continuing to present film, the theater began to mount programs of

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...

and allied acts. These two-set evenings were produced by Bleu Ocean. There were local objections to noise from the concerts.

Gay pornography controversy

On March 20, 1977, Roger Euster, the owner of the Elgin, evicted his tenants, Gould and Zlatkin, for non-payment of rent totaling $21,393. He immediately signed a lease with Tel-a-Gay, a producer and exhibitor of gay films, who launched an all-gay-pornography program on March 21. The change inspired immediate protests by local citizens groups and picketing in front of the theater. The theater shut its doors the following day. Later that week, Euster and Tel-a-Gay President William Perry met with the community groups. They agreed to return the theater to its previous programming format on a trial basis to see if the operation could be sustained on the income.

Conversion to a dance theater

By late 1978, the theater had stopped showing films and was for sale. It was purchased in early 1979 by the Eliot Feld Ballet with the intention of converting it to a theater for smaller dance companies. The building reopened in 1982 as the 472-seat

. Philanthropist

LuEsther Mertz LuEsther Turner Mertz (December 30, 1905, Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Oh ...

underwrote the purchase of the theater in 1979, at a cost of $225,000. The renovated facility was named for her daughter, Joyce, to honor this contribution.

References

;Notes {{reflist

External links