The Metro Theater, on Broadway between 99th and 100th Streets, is apparently finally going to be restored and reopened: per Gothamist.
Here it is in 1933, when it had just opened under its original name:
The entire front facade above the marquee is sheathed in terra cotta, in case that’s not obvious. The name “Midtown” was a bit weird for a theater on the Upper West Side, but 1933 was the depths of the Depression and I can’t blame people for dreaming. It was renamed during an upscale rebrand in the 1980s.
I’ve talked before about how the personal connections between people and the built environment matters. I used to live about five blocks from the Metro, including in the winter of 1997-1998, when Titanic was playing there for months. I injured my knee in February, and that was the only movie within crutch-walking distance that I could stand, so I saw it three or four times when the need to get out of the apartment overwhelmed me. I probably saw twenty different movies at the Metro when I lived there, but my memories of the theater focus on going through the lobby and down the aisle to my seat very slowly and carefully on crutches.
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