A rich painted still from tonight's film, as it fills the Nickel's one screen.
Nickel Cinema · Tonight on the one screenTHE LAST FERRY
NICKEL THE LAST FERRY 5:30 PM $9 60 SEATS
Route H Six stops to your seat · $9 tonight From the foyer window: doors half an hour before, lights down on the dot.

Nickel Cinema · One screen since 1932

Sixty seats. Six stops.

Booking here works like the night bus home: numbered stops, in order, no shortcuts sold. Choose the night, choose the time, point at your seats, take your ticket. The street outside, just below, keeps up with every choice. $9 standard, $7 members, $6 under 16 and over 60. Doors 30 minutes before. One trailer, then the film. All films, people and prices are invented for our fictional program.

From the usher's log, last Friday · House full by 6:10 PM. Fourteen walk-ins turned away and booked for Sunday on the pavement. 214 households in town hold the $25 member card. One note left on a seat: "Third time seeing the streetcar one. Cried at the same splice." That is the whole advertising department.

1

Choose your night

Departures this week ↓

One film a night, the way it has been since the seats were wooden. Tap a departure. The marquee outside changes first.

2

Pick your seats

Mind the single seat ↓

The plan as the usher draws it: screen at the top, row A close enough to count eyelashes, row F for the tall and the late.

Usher, flashlight in hand: Rows C and D are the locals' rows. The picture fills your eyes and the sound was tuned for the middle.
3

Ticket machine

Exact change adored ↓

Ticket kind

4

Notices at this stop

Read while you wait in line ↓

From the projection box

  • Tonight. The Night Tram print jumps once at the reel change, like a blink. We like it. It has character and so do we.
  • Changeovers. Two projectors, one pencil mark. Count six from the mark and the picture never blinks.
  • Sound. Tuned for row D by a volunteer with perfect pitch and no patience for mumbled dialogue.

At intermission

  • Ice cream tubs from the tray at the front: vanilla bean, salted caramel, whatever the farm stand sent over. $3, spoon in the lid.
  • Tea and coffee from the hatch in real mugs. Mug returned, 20p back, nod given.
  • Ten minutes. Lights half up. The second half starts without you, kindly but firmly.

House rules

  • Phones off, properly off. A lit screen in row B is a second moon nobody asked for.
  • Latecomers sit at the first reel change, so the door light falls once and only once.
  • Children own the Saturday matinee outright. Rustling forgiven in advance.
5

Fares

All fares fictional ↓
At the window, card and cash both fine. Refunds are a conversation before the show, never a form.
FareCoversDue
StandardAny seat, any nightThe film, the trailer, the intermission$9
MemberStop 6 issues the cardAs standard, two dollars kinder$7
Under 16 / over 60Taken on trustAs standard$6
Saturday matinee childGrown-ups standard, mostly asleepFilm plus forgiven rustling$5
Intermission tubSpoon in the lid since before you were bornOne tub, tray service$3
6

Terminus: membership

All change, all change ↓

$25 a year keeps the roof on, takes two dollars off every fare, and gets your name read into the spring meeting minutes, which last nine minutes if the projector behaves. The accounts are pinned in the foyer for anyone tall enough to read them.