Memory becomes folklore, a form of group identity. We are they who remember CBGB or the Brasserie.

Hal Willner, the longtime sketch music producer of “Saturday Night Live,” remembered taking a date to see the sexually explicit Japanese film “In the Realm of the Senses” at the Paris in the late 1970s, having no idea what they were getting into, then walking her out in the middle. The Paris had showtimes later than other theaters, and Mr. Willner said he was often one of the few people in the 581 seats.

“It was one of those great comforting things we thought would never go away,” he said. “But of course it will. New York has always been that way. The ghosts will always be there.” Nearby were the flagship F.A.O. Schwarz toy store and the original Playboy Club, he said. Closed and moved.

He added, “More than thinking, ‘I’m going to miss it.’ I’m thinking, ‘I wish I had gone there more.’”

Mr. Howard said the Paris sold more tickets to “Pavarotti” than any other theater, but that change was inevitable.

“I feel nostalgic for the idea of art house theaters, but viewing patterns are changing,” Mr. Howard said in an interview. “That’s been happening since the last hand-cranked nickelodeon. This is still a young art form.”

New theaters have opened. Jake Perlin, the artistic and programming director at the Metrograph theater downtown, called the Paris an “enormous inspiration” for being “part of a grown-up world,” and “a place that people would always associate as where they saw a particular film.”

You might remember having seen “Avengers: Endgame,” but not where you saw it. You remember having seen Marcel Carné ’s “Children of Paradise” at the Paris.