clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Midtown’s Paris Theater appears to have officially closed

This would be the second NYC historic movie theater closing this summer

Ajay Suresh/Wikimedia Commons

It’s been a shattering summer for NYC historic movie theaters. Earlier this month, the Lower East Side’s Sunshine Cinema was demolished as it makes way for a nine-story office tower. Now, Vanishing New York reports that Midtown’s Paris Theater has officially closed for good.

City Cinemas, the company that most recently operated the theater, has deleted the Paris Theater from its website, and an Instagram user posted a photo of a notice of closure at the entrance of the movie house.

The 71-year-old theater—one of the oldest art houses in the country, according to the New York Timesopened by Pathé Cinema in 1948 and started showing French films like La Symphonie Pastorale. The building where the theater was located, at 4 West 58th Street, is owned by developer Sheldon Solow, whose headquarters are nearby and who is currently building a 19-story condo tower at 7 West 57th Street.

A representative for Reading International, City Cinemas’s parent company, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Back in 2008, the Times wrote that due to its “enviable location” (right in front of the Plaza Hotel) “the theater’s ability to survive is one of the great mysteries of New York life.” It had survived a closure back in the 90s, when Pathé Cinema was replaced by Loews and there was fear that the landlord would convert the theater into retail space. Then, in 1994, Sheldon Solow bought the building and the theater remained in place. We’ll see what happens now.