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Film and games: Brooklyn Alamo adding more screens, video arcade

Love the talkies, don’t love the talkers: Seniors cheer new, quiet Alamo Drafthouse movie theater
Photo by Caleb Caldwell

Talk about a coming attraction!

The cinephiles behind Downtown dine-in movie house Alamo Drafthouse Cinema are planning a major expansion of their movie house, which will more than double its space to sling burgers, serve beer, and screen blockbusters.

“If I have one regret about the current Brooklyn theater, it is that we just don’t have enough screens to support all the movies we love,” says Alamo Drafthouse founder and head honcho Tim League. “I can’t wait to share the new expansion and so many more films with the neighborhood!”

The theater’s hefty expansion, set to occupy a space the size of an Olympic hockey rink on the third floor of Downtown shopping center City Point, will result in 400 new seats and nine additional screens above its existing seven cinemas currently on the mall’s fourth floor. Two of those new theaters will be equipped with 3D projectors, and one with a 35mm reel-to-reel machine, when the job — which is set to kick off this fall — wraps as soon as next year.

And Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will continue to operate during construction, according to its spokesman Brad Johnson.

The screening rooms are not the theater’s only new additions, however — the movie house also installed a vintage 1993 NBA Jam arcade game this month, donated by a big-hearted Williamsburger.

The classic arcade cabinet, which in good condition can retail online for up to $4,000, took up too much space in former owner Weston Green’s apartment. So he sought a new home for his beloved video game by scrolling through the Brooklyn page of popular online forum Reddit, where he turned down a couple of “finance bros” before a rep for Alamo Drafthouse reached out, and he realized theater was the perfect place to share his old-school entertainment with local gamers.

“I immediately knew that would be the place,” Green said. “I love the Alamo and am excited to know [the game] has found its home there.”

News of the cinema’s expansion comes amid other additions to the massive City point residential and retail complex, including the opening of a new concert venue within the building’s sprawling, subterranean food hall, and the planned debut of a second borough outpost of independent book retailer McNally Jackson, which is set to open this fall.

Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.
Game on: Weston Green donated his vintage NBA Jam arcade cabine to the Alamo Drafthouse.
Photo by Caroline Ourso