The Uptown Film Center is in the historic 1933 Metro theater. The property was closed in 2005 and gutted years later by the previous owner. The current owner is Upper West Side Cinema Center, a 501(c)(3) corporate entity d/b/a Uptown Film Center.
The vision for the Uptown Film Center is a five-screen, state-of-the-art film and education facility with two large auditoriums, two smaller ones, and a fifth room that has flexible seating and can be used for screening too, classroom, meeting room or as a small reception space. A lobby lounge/cafe is planned to be open to the street and used for events.
"The goal is not just to reclaim a building after sitting dark for 20 years, but to revitalize a neighborhood and connect a community. Our vision extends beyond film screenings to creating a cultural hub where dialogue flourishes, education thrives, and community bonds strengthen." The Uptown Film Center website states.
The target opening date is in 2028. Construction has the theater doing pop-up screenings to help raise funds to bring the vision to be. The next pop-up will take place March 20, 2026 and the special screening is IN AMERICA with special guest Colum McCann. The event will take place at the New York Historical located at 170 Central Park West, New York, NY.
IN AMERICA. Jim Sheridan, 2002, 105-minute film with Paddy Considine, Samatha Morton, Sarah Bolder, and Djimon Hounsou. "Set in early 1980s New York, In America follows an Irish immigrant family arriving illegally in Hell's Kitchen, carry grief, hope and the fragile promise of a new beginning. Through the eyes of two young daughters, Jim Sheridan's deeply personal film captures the exhilaration and hardship of starting over, the intimacy of immigrant communities, and the quiet acts of solidarity that make survival possible in an unfamiliar city."
This movie will be presented with special guest speaker, Colum McCann. Colum McCann is a NYC-based Irish novelist. He won the National Book Award for Let The Great World Spin. Writing fiction and non-fiction, he captures the immigrant individual's displacement, loss, belonging, and uses New York City as a crossroads in some stories.