The Film Guild Cinema was a movie house designed by notable

architectural theoretician Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

and

De Stijl ''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body ...

member, Frederick Kiesler (earlier designs by

Eugene De Rosa Eugene De Rosa (1894 – ''c.'' 1945) was an Italian American architect, called at birth Eugenio. He worked in New York City and specialized in the design of theatres. De Rosa's business flourished from 1918 to 1929 and was at its height during ...

).https://historictheatres.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/MM-Manhattan-Index-Cards.pdf It was located at 52 W. 8th St. in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

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 ...

. It was built in 1929. It was renamed the 8th Street Playhouse a year later. The first stage performance was of ''Life & Love-Ballet of Hands'' & first film shown was ''The Frog Princess''. Kiesler, in writing about the new design for the cinema, billed it as "The first 100% cinema". By the end of World War II, the original exterior designed by Kiesler had been stripped away. The theater eventually became known for its quirky film festivals and for its nightly midnight movies, most famously,

The Rocky Horror Picture Show ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' is a 1975 musical comedy horror film by 20th Century Fox, produced by Lou Adler and Michael White and directed by Jim Sharman. The screenplay was written by Sharman and actor Richard O'Brien, who is also ...

with the world-famous 8th Street Playhouse Floorshow.Cinema Treasures , 8th Street Playhouse
/ref> After owner Steve Hirsch died in 1986, the theater was taken over by BS Moss, then

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

, and finally by City Cinemas. It was closed in 1991. The building was used as the New York location of the

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

TLA Video TLA Releasing is a US film distribution and production company owned by TLA Entertainment Group. In March 2011, a new LLC was formed for the operation. Its primary output is LGBT-related films from all over the world under the "TLA Releasing" lab ...

chain, a video rental store specializing in non-mainstream film until 2004. It currently houses the offices of urgent care physicians associated with Mount Sinai Hospital.

References

Cinemas and movie theaters in Manhattan Greenwich Village Repertory cinemas Theatres completed in 1929 Former theatres in Manhattan 1939 establishments in New York City 1991 disestablishments in New York (state) {{Manhattan-struct-stub