uptown film center
Uptown Film Center is a nonprofit organization that is in the process of transforming the 20-year abandoned Metro Theater on Broadway at 99th Street into a five-screen independent arthouse cinema.Please note their program specific locations on their website.
-
Housed in the former Metro Theater—a 20-year abandoned and gutted movie theater at 2626 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Designed in 1932-33 by architecture firm Boak and Paris and originally called The Midtown, the theater presented first-run studio films. The theater went through several different reimaginings—showing art house films in the '50s and then porn in the '70s.
In 1982, Dan Talbot took over the theater, changed the name to the Metro, renovated and started showing foreign films in repertory format. Many more incarnations of the theater came after Talbot—including Clearview Cinemas and Cineplex Odeon. In 2005 the theater was shut down and, several years later, the interior was demolished. But the facade was saved, thanks to landmarked status conferred in 1989 due to the Art Deco facade.