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End of an Era: The Pioneer Theater Closes |
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It opened nine years ago on the corner of Avenue A on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was the last single screen theater on the east coast. It only had 99 seats, making it a shoe box type theater. It was the last bastion of Indy & grindhouse style films on the east coast.
Many an indy film had it’s premiere there. Many retro grindhouse films were screened there including Cannibal Holocaust, Zombie, The Corpse Grinders etc. I had said that if someone tried to bring the grindhouse films back, people would get out from in front of their computers and come out.
Enter Lee Peterson, a programmer who actually “got it”. Teaming up with upstart company, Wild Eye Releasing, Lee Joined forces with Rob Hauschild & Keith Crocker. Keith directed a new Naziploitation film, Blitzkreig: Escape from Stalag 69 which played to a SRO crowd in the |
spring. I attended the premiere and was approached by Lee about having a 42nd Street Pete Night.
Usually a “42nd Street Pete Night “usually ends up with someone being arrested or me winding up in the ER. I was curious to what he had in mind. He wanted to show porn on the big screen. I was down with it, but the first show was a shot in the dark. We had trailers, a loop and the feature, Vicious Virgin. We also had porn icon, Jamie Gillis, in the crowd. I was going to do a trivia contest, which I did, but wound up doing an inpromtu Q & A for the crowd before I introduced Jamie, who also did a Q & A.
We planned a 42nd Street Pete’s Night of Perverted Pleasures in association with After Hours Cinema. But there were at least three SRO Grindouse shows. Before that. The first show had 40 minutes of trailers and the feature film Curtains. They had to turn away about 20 people as the place was packed. Next up was another sell out with trailers & Burial Ground. Lee came up with a plan for the month of October called Shlocktober Sleaze Fest with horror and Grindhouse films every night. |
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We did The 42nd Street Pete’s Night of Perverted Pleasures with Trailers, loops, the NYC lensed feature film “Dear Pam“ with John Holmes. That was the night we got the bad news. Due to a ridiculous rent hike, the Pioneer was closing November 1st. We hoped that someone would step up and take it over, but it didn’t happen. We kept the festival going and didn’t tell anyone as we didn’t want to kill the great mood that the fans were in.
Next up was Ted V Mikels film The Corpse Grinders. Ted called in on speaker phone and, not only introduced the film, but did a Q & A as well. Wildeye’s last show was a double feature of The Craving & Zombie with trailers in between. I also caught the excellent creature feature 50 Years of the Gillman and Frank Henenlotter’s new film, Bad Biology, during the festival. |
The night before Halloween Lee had Joel Reed’s twisted classic, Bloodsucking Freaks on 35mm. Joel made an appearance and did a Q & A. On Halloween what a better way to close down with Night of the Living Dead at midnight. Yours truly did a Cheech & Chong on the way home the previous night and got pulled over. Thank God for a can of Fabreeze & a PBA card or I would have spent Halloween in lock up.
Halloween night in the Village is always a show onto itself. The owner of The Pioneer kicked in free beer and pizza for the last show. It was great to see NOTLD on the big screen again and the fans reaction was great. After the show, we just hung out until dawn in the lobby and just wished it wasn’t going to close, but it did. |
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It is really sad that this venue couldn’t be saved. It did prove one thing that I had said a couple of years ago. Give the fans a good show and they will come out. Thanks to Rob, Lee, and Keith for letting me get involved in this madness for the last six months. Thanks to the fans , who came out and saw something special. Thanks to Nick from Pennyblood Magazine, Screem Magazine, Scars, and all the rest who supported these shows. It couldn’t have been done with out your support. All of the pics are from the last two nights of the Pioneer.
42nd Street Pete
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