Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

Maybe Congestion Pricing Will Help After All . . .

The drive-in-a-garage theater is drawing dozens back to the movies:

As he stepped into the small storefront on Norfolk Street, Stephen Kushner, a hairdresser from Long Island, was transported to a youth spent steaming up car windows with his steady at drive-in theaters.

A movie screen hung in front of a single blue 1965 Ford Falcon convertible. A romantic starry sky — actually tiny light clusters peeking through sheer black fabric — stretched across to the side.

“Hey, can we make out?” he asked aloud, eliciting a giggle from Mr. Kushner’s wife and a gag from their 18-year-old daughter.

Stuffed inside the 250-square-foot space is DRV-IN, Manhattan’s only (and quite possibly the world’s smallest) drive-in cinema. The vintage Ford, parked in front of a 102-inch screen, has a shiny red interior that seats up to six cinephiles.

. . .

To see a movie, patrons can visit 139norfolk.com, select a show time and a title, and pay $75. Sometimes the roster of movies is predetermined — in February 102 high school movies from 1950 onward were shown — but any film may be requested as long as there is time to buy it on DVD.