Nitehawk Then And Now: How The New Theater Preserved History

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — It isn't hard to tell walking into Nitehawk Cinema's new Propsect Park outpost that it was the history of this theater that inspired the company to begin with.

Once the Pavilion Theater, and before that the Sanders, the 1928-building's history is still on display even though its interior has been transformed for Nitehawk's trendy dine-in experience.

Facts about the theater's history and original footage from its past lives are featured on each of the theater's seven screens during the previews. Many of its "architectural quirks," from a restored mezzanine to plaster details over the doors, have been preserved.

The homages make sense, too, considering the Pavilion Theater was Nitehawk Founder Matthew Viragh's original inspiration for creating the company.

Viragh moved to Williamsburg in 2011, just around the time he opened Nitehawk's first location there, but before that, he grew up in Prospect Heights, he said at an opening event Tuesday.

"(The Pavilion) was our neighborhood theater," Viragh said, pointing out the stairwell that now leads to Nitehawk's second-largest theater where he and his friends hung out and — yes — even snuck in booze. "The Pavilion was cool even when it was going downhill."

Preserving that history wasn't always an easy task, though, he added.

The anxiously-anticipated opening this week comes two years after Viragh and his team first took over the spot in 2016. The wait was largely due to the complicated $15 million renovation that followed, he said.

"It's been a long two years of a lot of ups and downs," Viraugh said. "It was really daunting (when we first started)...It was like a hoarder had lived here."

It took a week and a half just to clear out the building's junk, Viraugh said. Crews also had to deal with "rats the size of dogs that weren't afraid of anything" and brought in bed-bug sniffing dogs to clean the place out.

But soon the building's potential began to come through.

"Once we got it down and demoed it, it was like 'Oh, this is a really cool building,'" Viragh said. "It has really good bones."

The finished product includes seven theaters, each with Nitehawk's full menu options, and two bars, one in the lobby and one upstairs under a mezzanine with classic Ms. Pacman games. At 194 seats, the biggest of the seven theaters is larger than all three theaters in Nitehawk's original Williamsburg location combined.

The new spot also differs from the original outpost in that it offers a new age policy — those 13 and older can visit the theater for showings until 6 p.m. — to preserve the Pavilion's history as a hang-out spot and first-date option for younger viewers.

Homages to a more general movie history can also be found throughout the theater.

A collection of VHS's from Director of Programming John Wood's now-closed video store in Williamsburg line the walls outside the upstairs restrooms, and will occasionally be projected at the downstairs bar. Movie posters including everything from "Homicidal" to "Casino Royale" and art installations of lit-up film strips also decorate the walls.

Those in the second-largest theater, that comes complete with a stage for live music, will enjoy their movies through projectors that once belonged to Martin Scorsese and Rupert Murdoch.

The theater officially opens to the public Wednesday afternoon.

Historical photos courtesy of Nitehawk Cinema; First and second new photo taken by Sakeenah Saleem; Remaining photos by Anna Quinn/Patch.