“ New York always had wonderful small independent theaters, and we went to them all the time,” Patti Smith, the writer, performer and 1970s icon, said at the Metrograph cinema on Ludlow Street on Thursday night.

“The first independent cinemas were, like, 42nd Street theaters where you paid 50 cents,” she added. “You could watch Fellini and Bergman movies all day long, but without subtitles.”

Ms. Smith was among the dozens of creative luminaries who celebrated Metrograph’s third anniversary and its new distribution arm.

Founded by Alexander Olch, a designer with a boutique nearby, it is a symbol of both the gentrification and creative regeneration of the Lower East Side, a neighborhood that has the been the crucible of artistic movements as diverse as Yiddish theater and punk rock.