A landmark Art Deco movie theater that closed 20 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York.
The nonprofit, the Upper West Side Cinema Center, used those funds and $500,000 in grants from the State Senate to complete its $6.9 million purchase of the Metro Theater on Friday. It plans to revitalize the building, on Broadway near West 99th Street, with a five-screen theater, a lobby lounge and a public cafe.
Additional fund-raising of $15 million to $25 million is required to construct a new interior, replace the marquee and clean graffiti from the facade, the nonprofit says.
“The Upper West Side community deserves another world-class venue for cinema and art, and that’s why I was proud to step in,” Hochul said in a news release.
Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat who took office in January, grew up going to the Metro Theater and fondly remembers seeing “Ali” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” there with his family.
“Its loss for the last 20 years has been not just an eyesore, but a deeply felt scar for the neighborhood,” he said.
Lasher heard in December that the Upper West Side Cinema Center was not going to meet a Jan. 10 deadline to buy the building from the estate of its previous owner. He then contacted Hochul, who had indicated an interest in neighborhood revitalization.
He was in Disney World with his family on the day after Christmas when his cellphone rang. It was the governor.
“I have some Christmas news for you,” he remembers her saying. “We’re going to save a movie theater.”
The Metro Theater, formerly known as the Midtown Theater, opened in 1933. It showed pornographic films in the 1970s and early 1980s before becoming known for art house and foreign films; its pink terra-cotta facade was named a landmark in 1989.
The building’s previous owner, Albert Bialek, closed the theater in 2005, pointing to the rise of large multiplex theaters and saying that the Metro could not compete. “As a neighborhood theater, the building is obsolete,” he told The New York Times in 2006.
Attempts to reimagine the space, including a 2015 pitch to become a Planet Fitness gym, were unsuccessful. Two plans involving the theater chain Alamo Drafthouse, introduced in 2012 and 2022, also fell through.
Development options were limited thanks to the facade’s landmark status and the sale of the air rights above the building. And Bialek, who died in 2023, wanted to see the theater revived in the right hands.
“He sort of held it as a very special jewel,” said Liza Cooper, the president of the community group New Friends of Metro Theater, who worked with Bialek to find a new life for the building. “He wanted only the best for it, and yet it was sometimes a challenge to get past that protectiveness.”
A lawyer for the Bialek estate, John Simoni, said in an email that the family was “so proud and excited that Mr. Bialek’s long-held dream for a theater is finally being realized.”
The Upper West Side Cinema Center announced its bid in July with support from celebrity advisers including Martin Scorsese, Ethan Hawke, John Turturro, Bob Balaban, Griffin Dunne and Mary Harron, the director of “American Psycho.” Tim Blake Nelson, an Upper West Side resident, later joined the nonprofit’s advisory board.
The state’s support included $500,000 in grant funding that was pushed for by State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal. Both the legislative and executive funding were discretionary grants from the fiscal year that just ended.
Ira Deutchman, an independent film producer who leads the nonprofit with Adeline Monzier, said the government support meant it was able to receive an extension for raising the $6.9 million. Donations from foundations and individuals filled in the rest, including a major grant from Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg’s Hearthland Foundation.
“Kate and Steven believe that seeing films on a big screen is a unique and meaningful experience that can build community and reinforce the power of communal engagement,” a foundation spokesman said. “They support Ira’s mission and look forward to seeing many films at the storied Metro Theater.”
Now comes rebuilding the theater itself.
When Metro Theater closed, the city gave Bialek permission to demolish its interior because only the exterior facade was named a landmark. The nonprofit’s plan is to build two larger auditoriums, two smaller ones and a fifth room with flexible seating for screenings, meetings, classes and receptions.
Looking to raise up to $25 million for the restoration, Deutchman said he was confident that owning the building would prompt support from those who were previously hesitant to give.
“I’m just going to channel the fact that we managed to raise $7 million in less than five months,” he said. “To the extent that everybody says it’s going to take five years, 10 years, whatever, I’m just not going to let it happen.”
