In Conversation: Kenn Lowy on the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, future plans
Kenn Lowy took over the Brooklyn Heights Cinema in 2011 after its previous owner was indicted in a financial scandal. Despite a successful three-year stint, the building was recently sold to a new developer, who has no plans to keep the theater intact. The cinema’s infrastructure, including its chairs and new digital projectors, now sits in storage, and the clock is ticking for Lowy to find it a new home. We sat down with Lowy at a cafe in Brooklyn Heights, where he had much to say about his crash course in the film industry, which also served as a primer on fraudulent real estate deals, landmarking, rising rents and local zoning.
Brooklyn Brief: Tell us about yourself and your background.
Kenn Lowy: Well, let’s see. I’m like a man of many things. I’m a musician — a singer/songwriter — and made a living in my 20s and early 30s as a musician, but also as a journalist. I wrote for Rolling Stone Press, doing research, and then writing reviews for the record guide, and then worked at a couple of other magazines, mostly music magazines. There was a magazine called Trouser Press, a fantastic little publication. It was kind of like the punk new wave version of Rolling Stone before Rolling Stone had kind of discovered it. Really small magazine, around the late ’70s to early ’80s. That was a great place.