It started out in 1933 with great promise in the cinema-crazed Depression.
The auspiciously named Midtown was a gem of a movie house on Broadway and 99th Street that played first-run films (Ann Harding! William Powell!)
By the 1950s and 1960s, it had switched to foreign movies, showing European flicks like Belle de Jour, Breathless, Repulsion, and other non-mainstream fare.
Fast forward to the 1970s. The neighborhood was still rebounding after decades of decline, and the Metro took on second-run films, then porn flicks, according to Cinema Treasures.
After a resurgence as an art house venue in the 1980s (and a name change to the Metro), it served as a first-run theater in the 1990s, only to shut its doors in 2004.
Since then, it’s been abandoned, a shuttered eyesore in a neighborhood of higher-end development.
Over the years, new tenants were announced—including retail outlets and a movie theater chain that serves beer—yet never moved in.
At least the unique facade, with its Art Deco emblem representing comedy and tragedy amid two female figures, scored landmark status back in 1989.
A piece of another era, the theater haunts the upper Upper West Side, a reminder of something lovely that entertained the community.
A word about the theater’s original name, the Midtown: I suppose the owners thought that this corner at 99th Street and Broadway would soon be the city’s new midtown?
[Photos: top, New York Public Library Digital Collection; second: New York Architectural Images]
Ephemeral New York 