Just about everyone agrees that good ventilation and a safety-minded catchphrase are essential to reopening a movie theatre. But the specifics remain up for debate: How many hand-sanitizer stations? Lysol Concentrate, Purell Surface Sanitizer, or PureBright Germicidal Ultra Bleach? AMC Theatres (catchphrase: “Safe & Clean”) partnered with Harvard’s School of Public Health (and Clorox) to decide. The Alamo Drafthouse theatres (“Safer than a supermarket”) released an animated video detailing their new protocols. (Preorder food online, exit by row.) Last Wednesday, Showcase Cinema’s College Point Multiplex (“Be showcase safe”), in Queens, welcomed fourteen furloughed employees—janitors and ushers, ticket scanners and ice-cream scoopers, all dressed in black polo shirts—for their first time back to the theatre in at least three hundred and fifty-one days.
At 9:45 A.M., Gloria Rivera, who wore black Crocs, was already cranky. “They haven’t told us anything yet,” she said. “We’re just standing here waiting.” On March 17, 2020, after a showing of “Sonic the Hedgehog,” the multiplex closed, and Rivera lost her job. She started working a bakery shift at Food Bazaar, from 5 A.M. to 3 P.M., in addition to a job she already had, with Con Edison. She said that she was too busy to keep up with the movies.
A few women chatted by a “Jurassic Park” arcade game, which was cordoned off by a “TEMPORARILY CLOSED” sign. Near the self-serve soda machines (“THIS AREA CLOSED”), Michael Quintana, a young bearded man in a lime-green mask, and his work friend Louis Mojica, who has a ponytail, caught up. “It’s kind of emotional being back,” Quintana said. “It feels surreal.” He remembered how, when the new “Lion King” was showing, a little girl had given him a drawing of Simba. “It was honestly the cutest fucking thing ever,” he said.
“It’s nice. It’s kind of a sense of bliss,” Mojica said. “I remember thinking, It’s gonna be, like, a month, maybe two. And then the whole year goes by?”
“I’ve been through a couple of different jobs,” Quintana said.
Mojica nodded. “I tried working odd jobs. Nothing really stuck.”
“I worked for Home Depot,” Quintana said. “That was a weird stint. And Chipotle. That sucked terribly. I know how to make the rice, though, if you ever need the recipe.” He continued, “I worked for a warehouse for about a month. Shit, technically, I haven’t quit yet. I’m still waiting to hear about what the pay is gonna be like here.” He sighed. “As much as I consider this place family, you gotta make your own way.”
At the concession stand, Aboubaker Hamida, who had finished up a bachelor’s degree in economics while on furlough, described his coronavirus side hustle. “I was selling stuff online. Like, selling junk from my house—just to keep myself busy,” he said. “I live with my parents, and they’re kind of hoarders.” Someone asked what he sold. “Lampshades, helmets, a lot of art, photographs, weights.” He paused. “I kind of regret selling those, because I could have used the exercise.”
By ten-thirty, Kenny Cao, the theatre’s managing director, had assembled the employees—plus a half-dozen theatre executives from the New York region—in the upstairs lobby for a daylong training session. Rivera said, “I just hope everything goes well, so we can stay open.” In two days, “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Tom & Jerry,” and “Chaos Walking” would begin showing.
“Good morning, everyone!” Cao shouted. “I hope you guys still remember who I am.” A few people laughed. “It’s been almost a year! Thank you guys very much for coming back!” An employee with long green and blue fingernails yawned into her elbow.
“Don’t be nervous, everything is going to be just fine,” another manager said. “The doors will open, the popcorn smell will fill the air, and it’s like riding a bike. You never forget how to ride a bike. You get back on, and you do just swell.”
The innovations making things just swell: new MERV-13 air-conditioner filters, iWave-C bipolar ionization generators, temperature-screening kiosks, touchless employee time clocks, and new cleaning carts loaded with a two-part Viking Pure disinfectant solution. An area manager held up a plastic face shield and an extra-large safety-yellow T-shirt for employees on the cleaning crew. A manager from Yonkers demonstrated how to use the new eMist cordless electrostatic disinfectant gun, which sprays cleaning mist and resembles a Cheese Ray from “Jimmy Neutron.”
“I’m real excited about it,” he said. “I want you guys to also get excited about this. All right?”
After the meeting, Erick Mejia, an employee in a purple mask, grabbed a yellow T-shirt from a cleaning cart. “Look at this shirt!” he said. “It’s a bad color. Yellow!”
Quintana, a five-year veteran of the concession stand, wandered behind the candy counter. He found a thirty-five-pound bag of popcorn kernels in a storage closet. “At one point during the pandemic, I bought popcorn, just to try to relive the experience,” he said, as he poured buttery salt powder along with the kernels into a popcorn machine. “It wasn’t the same.” A minute later: pop-pop-pop. “Yeah, this is it,” he said. Pop-pop-pop. “This is movie-theatre popcorn!” ♦
More on the Coronavirus
- There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the pandemic when events might have turned out differently.
- Citizens around the world, from Brazil to Rwanda, share their experiences of the pandemic.
- In countries where the rate of infection threatens to outstrip the capacity of the health system, doctors are confronting ethical quandaries.
- Surviving a severe coronavirus infection is hard. So is recovering.
- Can the COVID-19 vaccine beat the proliferation of new virus mutations?
- The pandemic has presented companies with an unprecedented opportunity to rethink the fundamentals of the physical workplace.
