When George Maciunas organised the first Fluxus Cooperative – that was the first Cooperative – that was the beginning of Soho on 80 Wooster Street, I decided to join it and we took ground... basement and ground floor for the Film-Makers' Cinematheque. I mean, it did not exist but, you know, we decided that that location, that venue, that for exhibition – we will call it the Film-Makers' Cinematheque. But we had a lot of problems with the building department, they said, this is wrong and that is wrong and somewhere around... that was in 1967.
In 1969, we had to discontinue screening there and we moved to the... what was know as Huntington Hartford Building and which was also known as the Swiss Cheese building on 60... 59th Street and 8th Avenue. At the same time, when that was happening, there was a dissatisfaction amongst some of my very close friends about my screening programming policies at the Film-Makers' Cinematheque. My policy was very, like, open. I knew... I mean, that there is no other place, this is the only place at the time, practically, and I have to be very open and permissive and that is... it was the accusation, I was too permissive in my programming and showing. Now the irony of all this, of course, later that whatever I showed there later it was... all became classics of avant-garde film. But... so, at the same time since there was this criticism, I thought just exactly the same. Around the same time Jerome Hill was called by this friend Martinson of the Martinson Coffee fame, they were in the army together, they became very good friends and when Martinson became the chairman of the Shakespeare Theatre, the Public Theater, on Lafayette Street, and began renovating the building for 25 Lafayette, he said, 'There is some space here, maybe you want to do something, you know, for cinema'. So Jerome called me and said, 'Do you want to do something here?' I said, 'Why not?' 'Good'.
But at the same time I was... what I was already planning since George, George, the first two buildings that George had acquired for the Cooperatives was 80 Wooster and there was another building on Greene Street practically on the corner of Canal Street. So I put... Jerome, actually, Hill, put the deposit monies on both buildings on the ground floors and basements. And the idea was since there was a dissatisfaction about my programming that 80 Wooster will remain very open, the way I had... and the Greene Street building will become Cinematheque 2 which will be like an academy of very selected, very selected, it won't be open very much. And it was at that time that Jerome called me and said, 'We have this space at 425 Lafayette'. So, then I abandoned the Greene Street and took it and just went ahead at 425 Lafayette. And since I was too busy and I also was like fed up with all my screening activities, I just wanted to quit and just do my own work and have nothing to do with that anymore. So I called to P Adams Sitney who was in Europe at that time. I said, 'Come and take over this new situation'. So, he came and he became the first director of what became Anthology Film Archives.