New Plaza Cinema

Actually, this happened once before and this space came back as a cinema.

Sadly, this cinema was ruined on the morning of January 13, 2020, when a massive water main break in the neighborhood flooded its basement auditorium up to the ceiling, collapsing the walls and wiping out the projection room. It’s very sad to see this labor of love meet its end this way.

Now advertising as the New Plaza Cinema.

Exterior photo from June 2008.

I have been wondering lately why the Lincoln Plaza owners didn’t consider buying the theatre. It would have made for a good seventh screen.

Here is a 2009 photo of the former 62nd & Broadway Cinema.

Or let Clearview’s sibling IFC run it as IFC Center: Uptown. Sure, it’s like bringing back Angelika 57, but this is a pretty nice auditorium and isn’t as awkwardly laid out as Lincoln Plaza Cinemas where going to the bathroom is an adventure. Clearview could never figure out an identity for the place and it seemed like it was completely written off. For a while it couldn’t play day and date with Lincoln Plaza and Lincoln Square, later I think it played some features day and date with Lincoln Square. There are a lot of art theaters in the area including Lincoln Plaza and The Paris, but none do quite what IFC does.

Then again we saw how well Cinema Latino worked out.

This was almost the last single screen cinema in Manhattan. It was a nice cozy theater, but Clearview never knew how to book the right pictures there! It reminded me alot of the now also closed Cineplex Odeons Worldwide Cinemas. Same design and color scheme!

I think it was “The Great Buck Howard” was the last.

Clearview’s website now lists only 3 NYC theaters: Ziegfeld, Chelsea, and First and 62nd Street.

Renewing link.

I suspect Clearview is locked into a long-term lease the landlord won’t allow them to terminate.

This theatre really hasn’t had any sustainable ‘oomph’ to it since the three-year disagreement between Fox and Loews Theatres over Manhattan booking terms ended in 2002, and lost a lot of its strength previously when the Loews Lincoln Square opened in November of 1994. During the Fox-Loews discord, it was the beneficiary of being the sole UWS venue (save for the Metro at Broadway & 99th and the Olympia at Broadway & 107th) for Fox product, but, since then, it’s just kind of hung on (much as the former Clearview 59th Street East Cinema did in its final years).

I went there for the first time in over nine years last December and was struck by its lack of charm; the auditorium itself felt more akin to a medium-sized, uni-leveled lecture hall, with curtainless, mostly white walls, save only for some moderate decor from the venue’s Cineplex Odeon days. The lack of character could have been overlooked when this was a popular theatre, but, at current, it’s obvious and depressing.