Saved: Metro Theater Bought by UWS Cinema Center for $6.9 Million

The Metro Theater is back, after a nonprofit group known as Upper West Side Cinema Center announced that it had finally managed to purchase its long-shuttered building—located at 2626 Broadway—for $6.9 million. They’ve had designs on the space since last year, and intend on expanding it into a “five-screen” arthouse theater, complete with a bistro.

A total of $3.5 million of that money was derived from discretionary grants provided by Gov. Kathy Hochul, while 4,000 local grassroots donors chipped in a substantial amount of funding as well. State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents Manhattan’s West Side, helped finagle $500,000 more. Steven Spielberg’s private foundation provided a donation as well.

The famed cinema first opened its doors in 1933 and managed to stay open until 2005, when its interior was demolished. The space had a stint showing porno flicks in the 1970s, and even earned landmark status for its façade in the 1980s.

The layout will be broken down into two large auditoriums, two small ones, and a fifth room that can be used as either an additional screening room or as an educational space. One screen will be exclusively devoted to “first look” art films, one for festival or repertory bookings, and two more for “move overs” of previously successful releases.

“The goal is not just to reclaim a building, but to revitalize a neighborhood and reconnect a community. We believe that cinema is more than entertainment; it is a portal to understanding different lives, cultures, and perspectives,” the Cinema Center’s website reads. “As legendary film critic Roger Ebert profoundly noted, ‘Movies are empathy machines,’ capable of transporting us into the lives and experiences of others.”

The Cinema Center was created by Ira Deutchman, who is otherwise known for founding the pioneering indie film companies Cinecom and Fine Line Features. He’s also a co-founder of Emerging Pictures, which describes itself as the the first digital projection network in the United States. Deutchman is also an Emeritus Professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, where he served as the chair of the school’s film program between 2011 and 2015.

At a packed April 4 presser held in front of the Metro, Deutchman said that the theater had “stood as a silent reminder of what once was . . . its Art Deco marquee was a faded symbol of cultural vibrancy that illuminated Broadway at West 99th Street. As storefronts around it emptied, and community spaces diminished, the Upper West Side lost not only a theater but a gathering place where stories were shared, perspectives broadened, and neighbors connected through the universal language of film.”

”In a world increasingly defined by digital isolation and societal fragmentation, the continued vacancy of this landmark space represented something larger: the gradual erosion of shared experiences that bind us together as a diverse community,” he added. After further condemning how northern Manhattan became something of a “cultural desert” since the Metro’s closure, he concluded that his organization’s revival of the theater would restore “the transformative power of shared storytelling.”