Metro Theater Building (New York City, New York)

 theatre, landmarks, commercial building

3-story Art-Deco commercial building completed in 1933. Designed by Boak & Paris, it was originally the Midtown Theater. It later housed an art house cinema, two national movie chains, and a pornography theater. It was sold in 1982 to Daniel Talbot, owner of New Yorker Films, and renovated as a specialized theater that screened vintage and foreign films; it was renamed The Metro, with 535 seats. Soon, however, the theater was renovated by Clearview Cinemas. By 1986 the auditorium had been sliced in half with one 325-seat "twin" theater on the lower section and 200 seats on the upper.

The central three pairs of glass doors are set in a black terra-cotta surround. There are storefront windows and doors to either side. Overhanging the street level is the horizontal metal marquee, supported by eye-bars attached to the facade. Although the marquee is original, it has had some alterations. It has always featured four bands of chrome running along the three sides, but now also has rows of small exposed light bulbs edging the top and bottom, and recessed lights underneath. Full-relief Deco-style "METRO" letters in red neon surmount the marquee, above each of the three sides; these were also added in 1982. To either side of the marquee, against the facade, are black terra-cotta blocks.

The most notable feature of the theater's facade is the tripartite decorative terra-cotta wall above the marquee. The central section is composed of rectangular panels of black terra-cotta, flanked by slightly-projecting black terra-cotta pilasters outlined in maroon terra-cotta, which curve at the top, extending above the wall. At the base of this section, the tops of two windows with fluted lintels are partially seen (the rest obscured by the marquee's placement), while the uppermost edge of this section has maroon terra-cotta coping in a wave pattern. In the center of the black terra-cotta section is a vertical accent consisting of banded aluminum bars, which also extend above the wall in a triangular pattern. This is interrrupted by a large, circular, glazed terra-cotta medallion, set within an aluminum frame, which contains off-white and beige bas-relief stylized figures holding gray and blue theatrical-mask disks which represent comedy and tragedy, symbolic of the building's function; the background is two-toned lavender, with the lower portion a checkered pattern, separated by a yellow floral pattern band. Flanking the central black terra-cotta section are sections of rosy-beige terra-cotta, set on each side in six "L-shaped" rows which are outlined in maroon and recede gradually from top to bottom, and center to side. A stylized cornice is created by a frieze of recessed vertical stripes of blue and yellow terra-cotta and maroon terra-cotta coping.

The Metro closed in 2002, but an independent theater called the Embassy's New Metro Twin screened foreign and independent films until 2005, when the final movie was shown. Texas-based movie theater chain Alamo Draft House announced plans to build a five-screen cinema in the abandoned theater in 2012. But a year later, the company backed out, saying that construction costs had risen too much since they committed to the deal. A renovation into a retail property began in 2016; the 10,260-square-foot building has two main floors and a mezzanine between them. The interior has since been gutted.