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Sigh. The Post's Steve Cuozzo reveals that the former Metro Theater, on the Upper West Side at Broadway and 99th Street, will become a 15,000 square foot Urban Outfitters over three-and-a-half floors: "It will be the seventh Manhattan location for the teen-oriented clothing chain, which bucked prevailing trends and enjoyed a 31 percent earnings increase last year." The 20-year lease is "worth $1 million a year to start with 12 percent increases every five years."
Winick Realty Group president Benjamin Fox tells the NY Times reports, "It’s a testament to Urban’s strength in the marketplace and to their design approach. There were other spaces of similar size available, but the way they build their interiors is such that they fell in love with this place because of its uniqueness.” The exterior of the building—Times reporter David Dunlap calls it an "Art Deco jewel box"—is landmarked but its interior was gutted and its ornate grille work and other detailing were lost.
Cinema Treasures notes that the Metro originally had first-run movie, before showing adult films in the 1970s and 1980s (the economy), and a CT commenter reminds that the Metro was also a revival house. It was immortalized in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters in this scene:
The new Urban Outfitters is expected to open in 12 months or so. And the Beekman Theater (also seen in an Allen film) was demolished a few years ago to make way for a Memorial Sloan-Kettering cancer center.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
dumb movie on UO's part. who the hell shops at 99th street? the people who live there shop at jimmy jazz and conway.
soon to be renamed ghetto outfitters
That was very cool old fashioned movie theater. That whole area has been demolished by fucking developers-hellbent on turning the whole area into a shitty strip mall. Fuck Urban Outfitters
"dumb movie on UO's part."
not so dumb really, columbia is only ten blocks north. FUCK. I was hoping a movie theater would re-open there. This is really horrible news. I'm going to have to make it a habit of pooping in their dressing rooms on a regular basis.
nobody in columbia sticks around after class. They get the hell out of there like Will Smith's character in I AM LEGEND when it gets dark.
It used to be the Midtown way back when. There were also two movie theaters on the west side of Broadway between 96th and 97th Street. The New Yorker was on Broadway and 88th Street. It's now a supermarket.
Peter Norton Symphony Space was the Symphony and the Leonard Nimoy Thalia was the Thalia.
There were six movie theaters on Broadway between 86th and 106th Streets. Oh, yes, there was also the Olympia on Broadway between 106th and 107th Streets.
Except for Symphony Space and the Thalia, they're all gone without a trace.
It's sad.
That theater has been closed for a long time. At least something is going to open. Movies suck anyway so they could open another Duane Reade for all I care. What are we missing, another place to watch Tom Cruise pretend to be a nazi?
i enjoyed watching general zod, maverick & dr. frankenstein pretend to be nazis
I like watching the actual governor of California pretend to be a killer robot from the future.
the urban outfitters in ann arbor is in an old theater (the state theater). the state theater still operates in the upper portion of the theater - the balcony was split into 2 theaters, the urban outfitters is below. i wonder if a similar approach will be considered here.
Gentrifuckation.
Sub-Urban Outfitters.
Does the UWS really need a second Urban Outfitters?
What's with the implications that 99th and Broadway is a war zone? Are you kidding me? Please stay in your sterile neighborhood in the East 70s.
oh I don't know, maybe it's the rash of beatings of columbian students and robberies.
Sad to see an old theater go, and because I hate Urban Outfitters and we don't need another one, but obviously it wasn't going to be a theater again so I'm glad to see it become something. It's good for the other businesses on the block...the dark, pigeon/bum-infested marquee and entrance is pretty gross and likely made a good number of people walk on the opposite side of Broadway.
"likely made a good number of people walk on the opposite side of Broadway."
Are you fucking kidding???
Okay, maybe an exaggeration. But still, the theater is nasty.
I LOVE URBAN OUTFITTERS YAAAAAAY!!!!!111!!
What a relief. I was wondering where I was going to buy my racist, fake-vintage, over-priced T-shirts.
Aw, jeez. I grew up a few blocks away from the Metro, and I can remember when it was a porn theater. After that it became a revival house - I recall going there for a school friend's birthday party to see "National Velvet", which, though it sounds like a porno, is actually an insipid horse-and-girl movie. Gee, that still sounds like a porn movie. Anyway. The theater interiors were really beautiful. I also remember that after the revival era, it became a Cineplex Odeon theater. I guess it stopped showing movies after that?
The Olympia was pretty beat down by the time I went there as a kid. You could pretty much guarantee sticking to the floor if you let your feet rest for too long in one place. But I bet it used to be more majestic. There was also a Spanish-language theater, I think on 103rd, that had fantastic, bright posters all over the exterior.
It's funny, that first image in the video clip - that street looks mostly the same, unlike the rest of the neighborhood, which has changed.
Don't know where anyone gets the idea that the area is some kind of Mad Max-like badlands. It's a pretty quiet part of town. Even back when there were more crackheads, it was pretty quiet, at least on Broadway and west of that.
Oh, COME ON, people.
In this economy and with so many empty mega blocks of retail sitting empty on upper Broadway, I'm excited that someone is actually going to preserve and use the space. I'd much rather see this space signed to a nice long-term lease than sitting empty.
It's also a nice F-YOU to the greedy landlords who actively pushed-out numerous long-time small businesses (Ivy's Books, Liberty House, etc.) in order to combine their spaces into mega blocks -- most of which are still empty.
I'd suggest to anyone who rails against chain stores to go out and do something about it -- by starting their own businesses.
FUCK YOU. I grew up on that block and still live there. I don't want an Urban Outfitters. Greedy landlords are the problem, not the solution. That space has been empty for years, not for want of potential businesses but because the landlord was holding out for more money. It's disgusting.
" . . . they fell in love with this place because of its uniqueness."
That was said, no doubt, without an iota of ironical awareness.
That chunk of the UWS needs a Buffalo Exchange not another goddamned Urban Outfitters. Does the whole city have to become a crappy mall?
Yes, the whole city does have to become a crappy mall. Rent is too high for most mom n pop shops to open up. There have been quite a few shops/restaurants to open in Brooklyn before opening a second location in Manhattan. And lots of places that have been in Manhattan for years are getting pushed permanently out. Thems the breaks these days. We have only ourselves and Giuliani to blame.
A mom and pop store would be significantly handicapped opening up in that space because of the massive renovations required to convert it from a movie theater.
"Rent is too high"
and why is that? Rent is not some sort of divine law ordained form on high. Landlords have chosen to jack up their prices out of greed, not necessity.