The places I came to for magic: Remembering my childhood movie houses

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I would always cycle through the story of being a weak, skinny little asthmatic kid who often couldn’t go outside. I’d talk about how I found comfort (and something to do)…

In our weekly series, One Special Thing, the Globe arts staff highlights something timeless — movies, books, TV shows, albums, paintings, plays, symphonies, dishes — that we return to in good times and bad. Something we’re just dying to tell you about. The only parameter is passion.

I’m often asked where my love of movies began. I would always cycle through the story of being a weak, skinny little asthmatic kid who often couldn’t go outside. I’d talk about how I found comfort (and something to do) watching movies on the independent New York City channels.

I now realize that this origin story doesn’t fully explain why I’m a cinephile. Rather, these TV memories explain why I love old movies. No, the question every cinephile should be required to answer is: “When did you fall in love with going to the movies?”

So this is a notebook about the childhood theaters that fostered my love of going to the movies. They’re partially responsible for my desire to become a film critic; the endless amount of movie reviews I read growing up were all based on contemporaneous movies I needed to see.

In fact, this job puts me in a movie theater or screening room seat three or four times a week, on average. That’s a helluva lot of Nicole Kidman and her evil AMC ad. (Just kidding — they don’t show it at critic screenings.)

Think about the favorite cinemas of your youth as you travel back in time with me.

I grew up in Jersey City, N.J. — Chilltown JC we called it — just across the river from Manhattan. Though I was occasionally taken to a theater in Times Square — for example, I saw 1976’s “King Kong” and “Car Wash” on “The Deuce” — most of my childhood and early adolescent moviegoing was done in my hometown. Until the mid-1970s, we had five working movie theaters. Two of them still stand today, though neither serves its original purpose.

One of the defunct movie palaces, The Pix in McGinley Square, was where I was introduced to Carrie White, Pam Grier, and Bruce Lee.

Despite the Paramount Decree…

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