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Kew Gardens Cinemas may be eight decades old, but the theater is at the forefront of the latest environmental trend.
The art deco indie flick venue, at 81-05 Lefferts Blvd., near Austin Street, is currently installing several solar panels on its rooftop.
The solar panels will cover about 6,000 square feet of the building's roof, owner Harvey Elgart said in an email Friday.
Energy produced by the panels will be used to power lights and movie projectors at the six-screen theater, according to its representative. It was not clear how many of the projectors would be powered by the panels.
15 comments:
Can the Lefferts Blvd bridge over the LIRR below take all of the added weight from this solar panel structure?
So they'll only have matinees now? Given how dark the neighborhood gets at night that's probably a good idea.
It was never a gorgeous building to begin with, but that rooftop crap just makes it look downright awful.
No parking in the area...very hard to get to.
It hardly looks awful. I think it is down very well. At first glance I thought it was a rooftop garden
Cheaper electric bill,sounds good to me. But I do suspect the Gov't will find a way to tax the sun.
Wish it weren't so ugly, but good for them.
I love all this talk about a few hundred bikes and a building here or there with a green roof
while the city brings in people by the 100,000s.
Can someone explain what is wrong with this picture?
Art Deco with a solar roof. You put this in a desert in New Mexico and the critics will rave over it no end.
I love this small, friendly theatre. One of the few left in Queens that shows independent movies. I admire them even more now that they've done this to help our environment. Kudos to them for being such an all-around good neighbor!
First thing you're complaining about is parking? It's not hard to get to at all by LIRR or by bus and subway. Good luck driving into the city and finding parking by one of those independent movie theaters.
"One of the few left in Queens that shows independent movies."
They opened up just to show independent movies. There weren't a bunch of independent movie theaters that shut down leaving this as a lone survivor. Actually, this place used to show porno flicks, then closed down and reopened many years later to show independent movies.
Quaint theatre in a quaint town, which is in danger of being over populated .Too many new buildings going up
"So they'll only have matinees now"
I assume you couldn't run many at night once for long because the DPI projectors still need to use lamps to keep the lumins and contrast ratios up. The average small TITAN digital projector sucks 950 watts to operate at full brightness.
However they run at 12 volts DC @ 8 amps so battery power storage could be more simple and in expensive compared to 24volt and 48volt DC battery systems with large lossy 240v AC up inverting for old film projector's would need.
A good estimate is four 250 Watt hour panels (around 4X8 in size each) in full 4 hour of sunlight could store about a kilowatt or 1.5 hours movie with the projectors back lamp screaming at full brightness. Do the math for more.
It cost around $6000 of Con Ed to power a projectors seven year Xenon lamps lifespan.
The lamps for DPI theatre projectors cost around $2000 for the single chip projector $4000 for the brighter larger 3 chip models like at Jones Beach.
No large boxes of film and shipping, you can download movies via the internet or play blue ray CDs
There are also 3 color solid state LASER projection system but they are near a 1/2 million dollars each and require all kinds of FDA certification and laser class licensing to operate.
Okay good news! Lately have been seeing some good things happening in Queens! Let's keep the ball rolling, get involved, voice our opinions and lead by action!
Thanks Joe! Great input.
See folks. This site is s-o-o-o educational and gemütlich . . . all with your morning coffee and bagel.
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