1956 Bronx, New York

Sherry Alperstein
Born in 1946
Bronx, New York
Interviewed on February 8th, 2023
By Henry Demarest

You know, going to the movies was more of an experience of being with one’s friends and there was so much going on in the movies rather than the exact movie that you were seeing, like there were two movies, there were serials, there were cartoons, there was so much going on. It was like you spent a day at the movies. It was an interesting thing, not like it is today. And you never went in at the beginning of a movie. You would go in, you would sit down, and then you would wait for the movie to come around again and try to figure out what was going on. See like nowadays, you go in, the movie ends, they shoo you out of the theater, they clean up, and the next group comes in. But it wasn’t that way when I was a kid: you went in, you saw a movie, maybe half a movie, maybe a quarter of a movie, then you saw another movie, then you saw serials, then a newsreel, then it came around again. Like, you could spend a whole day in the movie theater.

Most of my childhood was spent outside, so let’s say, we would go to the movies when it was raining, or when it was a bad weather day. And you would go with a group of friends. I don’t ever remember going with my parents. And you would just go with a group of friends and spend like 3-4 hours in the movies. The movies weren’t as long as they are today, maybe they were like an hour and a half, but you would have serials each week. Serials were like an adventure, whether it was like Spiderman or whether it was a western, and they would be like 15 minute or 10 minute long episodes every week. And some of them would have like 15 episodes, some of them would have less. And every time you went, you would see another episode of a serial. Or you would see a current events short, or you would see something else. It was a very different experience than it is today.

First of all, we had balconies. You don’t have balconies any more in movie theaters. And even though the seats are kind of graduated up, we would go and sit in the first row of the balcony. And movie theaters don’t have balconies anymore. And you know, they had no X rated movies or R rated movies, they were all G’s. So you could go any time to the movies. I’m sure there were movie theaters that had X rated and R rated movies, but they weren’t movies that I went to or knew where they were.

We walked – we had local theaters. We had a lot of theaters around us so maybe a theater was a block and a half away. This was in the Bronx. And, I also had a grandmother and grandfather who worked in the movie theater. My grandmother would work at the concession stand and my grandfather was an usher. If they were playing a movie we really liked, then we would go. Our parents would drop us off and we would go and they would be there and we would watch the movies. So that’s just when I went with my brother or with my friends there. And this was right where my grandparents lived in the Bronx on Macombs Road.

I never went behind the scenes with my grandparents. I just got special treatment because they were there. I got a free candy. Ushers had a flashlight. They would shine the light down the aisle, they would break up fights. You know, if people were really loud or noisy or making a fuss, that’s what the usher was there for. And my grandparents were older so it wasn’t like they were these energetic people. You know my grandmother just sat behind the candy stand and my grandfather was like this rotund kind of older man who just sort of held the flashlight for you. It was just a gig they had because they lived nearby so they worked there.

Oh yes, I liked Bonbons. And Bonbons were these little chocolate ice cream snacks – little pieces of ice cream covered with chocolate, and I liked those. I liked good and plenty. I liked Goobers. Goobers were like chocolate covered peanuts. That’s basically it. That and popcorn.

The local theater was called the Luxor. And there was another theater called the Zenith which was also nearby. And then, the big big theater in my neighborhood was called the Paradise and this was a really really fancy theater. It had sparkling stars on the ceiling. And it was very very fancy. As a matter of fact, many of the schools would have their graduations in the Paradise Movie theater because it was such a fancy theater. It was a really big, fancy theater. Now, I don’t know if it’s still in existence, but later on, they partitioned it so that it was 4 different theaters. But at the time, it was like a tremendous theater and it was on the concourse in the Bronx. Then there was another theater called The Ascot and they had more artsy kinds of films and those were probably not for kids, more for grown-ups.

When I was younger, I went to the Luxor or the Zenith – they were close to me. And then when I was a little bit older, I would go to the Paradise with my friends. We would take the train or the bus there. And kids would go to the theater at like 10 years old, 11 years old – it wasn’t like it is today. So you could be kind of young and just go to the movies on your own.

I liked the Walt Disney Movies. I wasn’t a big fan of animated movies, but I liked movies with a lot of love in them or kid kind of movies like a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or something like that. I wasn’t big into westerns. There were a lot of westerns and my brother really liked westerns, but they were not for me.

One strange thing that I remember about the movies, which I think changed about 10 years ago, is that I never remember commercials. There were no commercials during the movies. Now they have commercials for phone companies, for beverages, or candy. There were never any commercials, you know, there was a newsreel, a serial, a coming attraction, or a movie. They did not have any commercials, which is kind of a recent thing.

Ever since I knew you were going to interview me, I have been thinking about this, and I do find the movies now are longer, there’s only one movie, you have to vacate the theater, there are no balconies, you know there is all this different kind of stuff, but it was very strange in a different time. Now you have to come in at the beginning of the movie. Well, you don’t have to, but you will never find out what the beginning was because they kick you out at the end. It was less of an isolated individual experience, and more of a community experience. And there were lots of kids in the movies. You know, when I went, I went during the day, so during the day, there were not so many adults in the movies, and there were a lot of kids. And, one movie at the Luxor was about 20 cents or 25 cents. The Paradise was more expensive because it was a very grand and wonderful place, but I do remember the 20 or 25 cents. A whole different time right?