End-of-Days Watch: Two Boots Pioneer Theater Shuttering

Downtown art-house cinema to close by month's end

Hey, remember why you left Ohio? All the New York art, all that culture crackling among downtownies who'd rather brave sleet and snow to see a documentary about early Russian stag films than stay home with a night of Mad About You reruns and Chinese food? Time to get a binder for your take-out menus, kiddies - yet another downtown fixture, the East Village art house Two Boots Pioneer Theater, will close this month, says New York Magazine.

Owner Phil Hartman (really?) tells the mag the theater was always "a labor of love and never commercially viable," and cites the usual culprit: rent increases. (Give it time -- Curbed has stats on something we never thought we'd see in this lifetime: Manhattan rents dropping.) Ah well -- until Two Boots relocates (may we suggest Bushwick? Sorry -- East Williamsburg?), guess we'll just head over to CW.com and stream the latest Gossip Girl.

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