HERE’S A FIRST PEEK AT THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE OLD METRO THEATER
Posted on April 8, 2013 at 1:46 pm by West Sider
The Alamo Drafthouse movie theater is finally beginning to take shape on Broadway between 99th and 100th streets in the former Metro Theater, and founder Tim League recently stopped by the site and took some photos of the early work. It’s quite an undertaking: They’re taking a cavernous 80-year-old theater and turning it into a five-screen cineplex with a full kitchen. Check out a gallery of the photos below.
The theater is expected to open sometime next year. Check out the menu at the new spot here, and an interview with the founder here.
Image via Alamo Drafthouse facebook page.
I remember when this theater was actually the “Midtown” and it was a beautiful art deco style theater. I’m glad to see that the theater will return in some similar form and not become a bank or some mall store.
Breaks my heart to see these photos because I remember the INTACT Metro theater with those two GLORIOUS statues of Art Deco ladies on either side of the proscenium staring down into basins held in their hands and light shining back up into their eyes. The wonderful frieze of deco flowers running in a band along the ceiling and the rest was all such a treat before the movie started. And the re-done lobby with the illuminated glass brick and the popcorn counter (see “Annie Hall” for a scene in the lobby) didn’t disappoint either.
I happened to walk by on the very day the ba%%^ds gutted the interior. The doors were wide open and you could see everything being destroyed. I couldn’t walk by for months afterward without feeling sick. And then the “theater” sat vacant for YEARS.
Still – I’m glad Landmarks prevented the facade from being lost, too. I plan to spend a lot of money on Alamo just to thank them for saving a piece of the UWS.
so excited about the new theater!!!
Re: the above “so excited about the new theater!!!”
Personally, I’m more excited about the establishment one block north, east side of Broadway at 100th St. It’s a very-well reviewed long-time pizza place calling itself ….(wait for it!)……………
CHEESY PIZZA (!!!)
To paraphrase (i.e. ‘steal from’)the old Perdue Chicken commercials, ‘it takes a tough man to call his place Cheesy’
So they gutted the original theater and spent 5 years searching for a tenant and finally found a new tenant… a theater.
From the exterior marquee the interior was Art Deco. Pitty none of the original lamps & theater plasterworks is left. What happened to all the detail work?…just in the dump?
Unfortunately only the exterior was landmarked, not the interior. And I agree, seeing the beautiful original tin ’tile’ on the underside of the marquee being left to rust over these past several years has been really heart wrenching. Btw, Cheesy pizza on 100th cannot seem to keep the restaurant inspectors happy, just so you know. Everything from a ‘C’ grade to closure…if you see how an ‘A’ grade can still have cleanliness issues maybe you would like to rethink that place!