Academy Forced Out of Longtime Theater Venue in New York
Lighthouse International, which leased the Academy its theater on 59th Street since 2002, has sold the property, meaning hundreds of Gotham-based Oscar voters must now catch films elsewhere.
academy_theater_Lighthouse_International - S 2015
Scott Frances/Courtesy of Lighthouse InternationalThe Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will soon be homeless in New York.
TheOscars-dispensing organization is being forced out of whatit calls its “East Coast home” — the building at 111 East59th Street, in which it has leased a 220-seat, state-of-the-art theater for the last 12 years — because landlord Lighthouse International, a vision-loss advocacy organization, has sold the propertyafter merging with another nonprofit,The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
The Academy’sspectacular section of the building — long referred to as “Academy Theater at Lighthouse Guild” — was designed by noted architect, designer andfilm enthusiastTheodoreKalomirakis and was renovated in 2010 with $1.2 million in funding fromCharles S. Cohen, the film exec who in 2008 establishedthe Cohen Media Group production and distribution company.
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So, with Oscar season right around the corner, where will the Academy’s roughly 750 New York-based members be able to catch weekly membership screenings, voting screenings and special programs? In a June 24 email,Patrick Harrison, the organization’s popular director of New York programs and membership, indicated that these gatherings “will move to other screening venues until a suitable, permanent location can be secured.”
In fact, the first Academy screening at an alternate New York location took place on July 2 at the Dolby 88 Screening Room at 1350 Avenue of the Americas. For the rest of the month of July, a few final screenings will take place at Lighthouse International (Mr. Holmes,Irrational Man andSouthpaw), but the rest will be at the Dolby (Ant-Man,Trainwreck andMission: Impossible Rogue Nation).
According to theNew York Post, whichfirst reported the Lighthouse-Academy split, the Academy is also considering the possibility of holding screenings at theSVATheatre at the School of Visual Arts in Chelsea — a venue employed by theTribeca Film Festival each year — but locations closer to midtown and the Upper West Side, where many members live, seem like a likelier bet until a permanent new home can be located.
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