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One of Brooklyn’s best movie theaters is about to cross the East River.
The popular Austin-based movie theater chain Alamo Drafthouse, which serves cocktails, food and boozy shakes during flicks, is set to open its first ever Manhattan location in 2019. The 14-screen multiplex will be coming to 28 Liberty in the Financial District (The same building that houses Danny Meyer’s 60th-floor showstopper, Manhatta) and feature 4K laser projection, recliner seating, immersive surround sound and 35mm changeover projection. They’ll be screening a mix of indie films, blockbusters, documentaries, foreign language films and repertory classics.
This will be Alamo Drafthouse’s second location in New York City following their uber-popular City Point location in Downtown Brooklyn (another location is also coming to Staten Island next year). That outpost often houses special events and screenings and contains tons of special touches meant for film lovers like a carpet replica from The Shining and an interactive King Kong installation. An on-site bar called House of Wax draws inspiration from genre films and is chock-full of fascinating artifacts like death masks and monkey skeletons.
The chain's upcoming Manhattan outpost will have a bar of its own called Video Vortex, a combination bar and video store meant to invoke a sense of nostalgia for cinephiles. In addition to local beers, the Vortex will be offering free video rentals to customers, with up to two videos allowed to rent at a time. (No word on whether, like the Blockbusters of our youth, there will never, ever be any available copies of Clueless.)
The new Lower Manhattan location is the second luxury theater to open in the area after the similarly fabulous iPic Theaters at Fulton Market arrived in 2016. It's a good time to be a downtown film lover who prefers watching films with cocktails and a blanket!