42nd Street had a large amount of theaters on either side of the block. Their opulence faded after the Great Depression. Six were purchased outright by the Brandt Brothers. They were The Lyric, The Selwyn, The Liberty, The Apollo, The Times Square and The Victory. Other theaters on the block were The Empire, The Harris, The Rialto 1 & 2, and the New Amsterdam. Other mini cinemas, such as Cine 42, Avon 42, and the Roxy were squeezed in between the larger theaters.
These became “grindhouses. The term could go back to the burlesque era where it was called bump & grind. The better explanation came from the god of exploitation himself, David F. Friedman , as he said those theaters ground out films 24/7. Actually the theaters opened around 1am and stayed open until 4am. Why? Simple, New York City never slept. Guys would get off from the late shift and would grab breakfast , then go see a movie.
The only theater open 24/7 was The Harem, a creepy upstairs narrow porn theater with very little ambient light. Other porn theaters were on 8th Avenue like the Cameo, The Capri, and the Venus. The Venus was open at 10am and closed at 7am. In it’s later stages, it was know as the Hobo Hilton. Homeless guys would pay the $3 to get it before it rose to $5 in the evening. It ran three films continuously until dawn.
All these wonderful place are long gone, but they live on though the films that were the life blood of these places. So what happened to the word “Grindhouse”? Due to some chicanery, it is now mistakenly used as a term for pornography. Let me explain. A couple of years ago, Ebay banned all Adults Only items from the site. Guys started listing films and tapes as “grindhouse” films. Well, it did work for awhile.
What happened was guys got caught because they showed too much of the product. I am guilty of this myself. But the damage was done. Grindhouse is now a trigger word. This wonderful AI crap picks it up and kicks you off sites. Grindhouse Resurrection was banned from Amazon, so the trickle down effect was it got banned from every internet retailer. So for us to continue using that name is creative suicide. There will be a Grindhouse Resurrection # 3. After that issue, we will rebrand it and keep giving you what we always have: Obscure films, pro wrestling before it was commercialized and all of the stuff that made the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s the best decades for film viewing. I have included an article as a preview of issue # 3 so you get a little taste .