Development Large
movie palaces became common in the 1920s between the end of
World War I and the beginning of the
Great Depression. In the New York City area, these movie palaces often had between 2,000 and 6,000 seats. The onset of the Depression forced many theatrical operators in New York City to build smaller theaters with between 500 and 1,000 seats. The A. C. and H. M. Hall Realty Company bought the vacant apartment building in June 1931, with plans to replace it with a two-story commercial structure. By that November, the site had been cleared. J. J. Secoles was the theater's general contractor. Despite its name, the theater was on the Upper West Side and was not near
Midtown Manhattan. Among the films screened at the Midtown were
Goose Step,
The Seventh Veil, and
Moonlight Sonata, and
Catherine the Great. The theater's developer, Hall Realty, owned the theater until the 1940s, after which it was sold several times. The Midtown Theater switched to showing foreign films in December 1948, starting with the French film
Secrets of a Ballerina. During the 1950s, the Midtown hosted foreign films such as
The Blue Angel,
Jofroi, and
A Day In The Country. a use that continued well into the next decade. A
New York Times reporter said that the theater's conversion into a porn theater of one of many "signs for the optimist and for the pessimist" in the immediate surrounding area.
Late 20th century Dan Talbot, an operator of multiple cinemas on the Upper West Side, acquired the Midtown Theater in August 1982 and stopped showing porn movies there. The Midtown was instead renovated for $300,000 The Midtown reopened as the Metro on October 1, 1982; its first foreign films were a
double bill of the films
Aguirre, the Wrath of God and
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. as well as one of the largest theaters in the borough that exclusively showed revivals of old films. After the renovation,
Vincent Canby of
The New York Times wrote: "The seats are comfortable and the long, comparatively narrow auditorium is such that I don't think it will ever be possible for anyone to 'twin it'" (i.e. convert the Metro into a two-screen theater). The theater began to host events such as Perspectives on French Cinema, an annual showcase of ten French films. The Metro's repertory programming was popular, and a
Times article in 1984 said the Metro's audiences were "perhaps, the most serious and best behaved in the city". Talbot began to show first-run films at the Metro in June 1985. The change in format was variously attributed to the closure of the nearby New Yorker Theater, the growing popularity of newer movies, and the fact that the theater re-ran old films too frequently. Despite the increasing prevalence of
videocassette recorders in the 1980s, Talbot was optimistic that "something like video ultimately isn't going to deter people from going to places like the Metro". By that year, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) was considering designating the Metro Theater as a city landmark. The interior was split into two screens around the same time. Cineplex Odeon failed to apply for an operating license for the Metro, leading city officials to close it temporarily in May 1989. The LPC designated the Metro Theater as an individual landmark that July. Albert Bialek bought the theater the same year, After Cineplex Odeon merged with Loews Theaters in 1998 to form
Loews Cineplex Entertainment, the combined firm announced that April that it would sell 14 movie theaters in Manhattan, including the Metro Theater, to comply with
antitrust law.
Cablevision, parent company of
Clearview Cinemas, bought the Metro in August 1998.
Final years By the beginning of the 21st century, the theater building was owned by Broadway Metro Associates, which was headed by Albert Bialek. The Metro was managed by Clearview Cinemas until it closed on January 26, 2003, amid a dispute between Clearview and Bialek. The theater was known for its seats with sharp springs, as well as its extremely dirty screens. There were rumors that the theater would be converted into a
Gristedes supermarket, prompting over 100 local residents to express concerns. Two additional theaters on Broadway in Upper Manhattan had also closed in recent months; according to
The New York Times, this "left a 10-mile swath of Broadway from 84th Street to Yonkers without a first-run movie theater for the first time in decades". Various reasons were cited for its closure, among which (according to
The Real Deal magazine) observers had cited construction noise from two neighboring apartment buildings, as well as the Metro's tendency to screen
limited releases of foreign films. The theater's closure was so little noticed that construction workers at the neighboring buildings were unaware that the theater had closed until a
New York Times reporter told them two months afterward. The Metro's owners Albert and Sheila Bialek had leased the theater for 49 years to John R. Souto, who was supposed to have renovated the theater for retail purposes. The terms of Souto's lease also included an
option to buy the theater outright at a later date. The owners could not construct any more above-ground space because they had sold the theater's
air rights, which would have permitted the construction of additional floor area, to a neighboring landowner. Winick Realty's president Benjamin Fox said Urban Outfitters " fell in love with this place because of its uniqueness",
2010s Souto filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 2010 after
defaulting on his lease. A local political strategist, Michael Oliva, established the Metro Theater Project in late 2010 in an effort to convert the theater building to a community center. Oliva estimated that it would cost $10 million to buy the theater and $2 million to $4 million to renovate it; by December 2010, he had raised $2,000. The proposal would have included expanding the floor area into by excavating below ground. This would have created space for 12 rehearsal rooms, four auditoriums, a cafe, and about of office space. Bialek filed plans with the
New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) in late 2011 to renovate the theater building into a store at a cost of $900,000. Movie theater chain
Alamo Drafthouse announced in April 2012 that it would open its first New York City cinema within the Metro Theater. This announcement followed the passage of a law allowing some cinemas in the state of New York to serve alcohol. The five screens would have contained a combined 378 seats.
Manhattan Community Board 7 supported the plan; its chairman said, "This could very well be a destination kind of attraction both for this neighborhood and elsewhere". Some construction work had taken place by early 2013, and local blog West Side Rag had interviewed Alamo Drafthouse's CEO in advance of the planned conversion. they instead opened a location in
Downtown Brooklyn. After the failure of the Alamo Drafthouse plan, Bialek spent more than a year negotiating to lease the theater to
Planet Fitness. Planet Fitness then announced in October 2015 that it had leased the building for 15 years. By that November, Planet Fitness had withdrawn from the project, and
Blink Fitness had indicated that it would lease the building instead. The Blink Fitness plan also did not proceed. In 2018, a local resident raised $4,000 through
GoFundMe to study a possible restoration of the theater. The resident returned the donors' money the next year, as there was not enough funding to pay for an engineer's appraisal. By then, Bialek said he was prepared to lease the building to a nonprofit. by November 2021, the petition had received 3,000 signatures. At the time, Bialek indicated that he was in the process of leasing the theater building to another tenant. Media sources indicated that the Metro had been sold to a California-based company and would become a dine-in theater. According to Alamo Drafthouse founder Tim League, the renovation would be "largely funded by Alamo, we're trying to establish a little bit higher-end brand. Alamo is pizza and salads, Metro will have some of those, but will also have more full entrees, a really nice wine list, and a small bar." The same month, Alamo Drafthouse applied for a liquor license for the theater. Officials approved renovations to the building in August 2023, and the theater received a liquor license shortly afterward. Manhattan Borough President
Mark Levine cited Alamo Drafthouse's financial troubles, a claim that an Alamo Drafthouse spokesperson denied.
Ira Deutchman and Adeline Monzier established the Upper West Side Cinema Center in July 2024 in an attempt to buy the Metro Theater. The Cinema Center's proposal included a three-story theater with five screens, an education/community center, and a cafe. the purchase was contingent on the group's ability to raise the funds in a timely manner. The Cinema Center finalized its purchase in April 2025 after raising $6.9 million, which included $3.5 million from New York governor
Kathy Hochul's office and $500,000 from the
New York State Senate. That October, Deutchman announced that the theater would be rebranded the
Uptown Film Center and that he would raise $29 million, seeking to begin construction by 2027. The plans included splitting the Metro into five auditoriums and restoring its original appearance. ==Impact==