Metro Theater (New York City)

Metro Theater

Midtown Theater
The Metro has been vacant and gutted since 2006.
Address	2626 Broadway Manhattan, New York United States
Coordinates	40°47′48.3″N 73°58′11.5″W / 40.796750°N 73.969861°W / 40.796750; -73.969861
Owner	Broadway Metro Assoc
Type	Former movie theater
Capacity	550 (originally) 292 upper auditorium, 188 lower auditorium (before closure)
Current use	Vacant
Construction
Opened	June 2, 1933
Closed	November 2005
Rebuilt	1986 (as duplex)
Years active	1933–2005
Architect	Boak & Paris
Architectural style(s)	Art Deco
New York City Landmark
Designated	July 11, 1989[1]
Reference no.	1710[1]
Designated entity	Facade

The Metro Theater (formerly the Midtown Theater and Embassy's New Metro Twin) is a defunct movie theater at 2626 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was designed by architecture firm Boak and Paris and built between 1932 and 1933. The theater is designed in the Art Deco style and originally contained 550 seats. Although the theater's interior was demolished after it was closed in 2005, the original facade remains intact as of 2023^[update] and is a New York City designated landmark.

The Metro Theater's facade on Broadway is about three and a half stories tall. The ground story contains an entrance, storefront windows, and ticket windows. Above the theater's main entrance is a marquee, which spans most of the theater's frontage and extends almost to the curb. The upper portion of the facade is made of terracotta and is divided vertically into three sections; the central section includes a decorative polychromed medallion. The main auditorium originally contained a proscenium arch with niches containing statues. Originally a single auditorium, the interior had been split into two auditoriums by the early 2000s before it was demolished.

A.C. and H.M. Hall acquired an apartment building at 2626 Broadway in 1931 and replaced it with the Midtown Theater, which opened on June 2, 1933. The theater presented first-run films until the 1950s, when it began to show art-house films. The Midtown operated as a porn theater from the 1970s and early 1980s. Dan Talbot acquired the lease to the theater in 1982 and began screening films in repertory, splitting the theater into two auditoriums in 1986. Cineplex assumed the theater's lease in 1987 and sold it to Cablevision, parent company of Clearview Cinemas, in 1998. After a 2004 renovation by Peter H. Elson, who operated it for a year, the Metro closed permanently in November 2005 and was gutted the next year. Its owner Albert Bialek unsuccessfully attempted to lease out the theater in the late 2000s and the 2010s to Urban Outfitters, Wingspan Arts, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Planet Fitness, and Blink Fitness. Alamo Drafthouse took over the theater in 2022 with plans to renovate it, but these plans were canceled in 2024.