Kew Gardens, in Queens
Kew Gardens Cinemas
Arthouse Cinema · 81-05 Lefferts Blvd
A 1935 neighborhood theater on Lefferts Boulevard, reopened in 1999 to play independent and foreign films after years as a pornographic house.
It opened as the Austin Theatre with 600 seats and a stage, and spent years running second-run double features before Rugoff & Becker took it over in the early 1940s. Art films had a run here then too.
Harvey Elgart brought it back and renamed it, choosing this building because of the neighborhood around it. The point was a theater in Queens playing the kind of films that otherwise meant a trip to Manhattan or Long Island.
The building sits in the middle of Kew Gardens, where Lefferts Boulevard crosses over the Long Island Rail Road, which puts it a short walk from the station.
