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Noah Elgart’s first memory of being at the movies was watching every screening of the 1988 re-released “Bambi” in the projector booth at the Cobble Hill Cinemas. 

“It was like daycare watching all the runs,” he said. As a kid, he’d have to watch his step to avoid casting his shadow as the film ran in multiple theaters. 

That’s where he watched the magic happen, he said — the magic that has stayed with him decades later.

His family’s world in cinema began when his dad Harvey Elgart was a traveling projectionist-for-hire around Brooklyn. Then he became a union projectionist and the family bought their first theater in Canarsie. 

They now own four theaters — Cobble Hill, Williamsburg Cinemas, Kew Gardens Cinema and Mamaroneck Cinemas in Westchester — where the younger Elgart serves as general manager. 

He, like other local cinema owners, are trying to keep costs down in an increasingly expensive city so all New Yorkers can experience that movie magic. It’s not just about what’s on screen but the experience in the dark room, he said. 

“There’s all different types of people sitting next to each other in a shared space experiencing something and that is not as common as it used to be,” Elgart, 38, told THE CITY. 

“And it’s at a smaller scale than it used to be. But it’s still a magical experience.”

That’s what drew Nicolas “Nick” Nicolaou to the theaters as a teenager, just a few years after immigrating to Astoria from his native Cyprus. He worked as an usher, and owned 10 theaters by the time he was 30, thanks to the buyer’s market of the 1980s. He picked up small single-screen theaters on the cheap and relied on friends and family to fix them up.

“My university is the movies,” he said. “Education is a good thing, but you tell that to some poor kid who’s barely making it. And watching a movie, it’s a sure way people get educated on top of being entertained.”

Nicolaou’s empire has shrunk since his 10-theater high, but he still operates the Alpine Cinema in Bay Ridge, Cinemart in Forest Hills and Cinema Village in Greenwich Village. 

The Alpine opened in 1921 and is the oldest operating movie theater in New York City. Cinemart first opened in 1927, and Cinema Village in 1964. 

Nicolaou has struggled to keep his movie theaters running, he said. (His fight for local theaters was the subject of the Abel Ferrara documentary “The Projectionist.”)

While everything is more expensive, he’s been especially critical of New York City’s property tax system; for example, he pays more than $330,000 a year for the Alpine, which occupies a storefront on Brooklyn’s Fifth Avenue, he said.

“The electric bills have doubled and other expenses have gone up like everybody else, but I still have affordable prices for the people that need to have affordable prices,” he said.

All senior citizen tickets are $7. Children’s tickets are $8, and the most expensive ticket an adult will pay is $11. On Wednesdays, all tickets are $6.

“I’m doing my best just to continue,” Nicolaou said. There are few places in the city where “200 and 300 people can come together and watch a movie and laugh and cry together,” he added.

“It makes a healthy community.”

Elgart, too, has worked to keep ticket prices low. At Kew Gardens, all showings on Wednesdays are $5, which has been a hit in the neighborhood. (Regular tickets are $13 for adults and $10 for children and seniors. All tickets are $10 before 5 p.m. or on Tuesdays and Thursdays, too.)

The heat brings in people like the rain does, with New Yorkers flocking to the cold, dark theaters as an escape from steamy streets, he added.

Despite challenges, Elgart’s optimistic about the art form of cinema. 

“I get to experience something while watching a movie,” he said. “I get to go all over the world, see the world in someone else’s eyes.”

Here are some of THE CITY’s other favorite movie theaters across New York City: 

Kent Theater, 1170 Coney Island Ave., Brooklyn

Regal UA Kaufman Astoria, 35-30 38th St., Astoria

Film Forum, 209 W. Houston St., Manhattan

Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria

IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave., Manhattan

Atrium Stadium Cinemas, 680 Arthur Kill Rd., Staten Island

Regal UA Sheepshead Bay, 3907 Shore Pkwy, Brooklyn

Syndicated Bar Theater Kitchen, 40 Bogart St., Brooklyn

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Lower Manhattan, 28 Liberty St., Manhattan