All movie lovers have experienced it: a favorite movie theater closes
and is usually replaced by some nondescript cookie-cutter store, usually
part of a big chain..or worse, the place suffers the indignity of the
wrecking ball. Writing in the New Yorker, author Thomas Beller provides a
poignant personal view of the recent closing of a landmark New York
movie theater, the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, that served the community for decades. The landlord
declined to renew the lease despite the fact that the place was
profitable and there was broad community support to keep it open. I
guess that's the price of "progress"...the same "progress" that in
recent years has seen a virtual war declared on Gotham landmarks, the
very establishments that define neighborhoods and give them their
inimitable flavor. You don't have to be a New Yorker to appreciate Beller's sentiments, so read it and weep. - Lee Pfeiffer