NEW PLAZA CINEMA INC

In June 2018, we started an independent and foreign film arts cinema in Manhattan’s upper west side to serve the cultural needs of upper Manhattan (population 750,000). Operating as a not-for-profit cinema, we intend to offer the best of independent and foreign films with an accompanying film education center.

The upper west side had for decades been a center for independent and foreign art films, with a dozen cinemas lining its streets. Then one by one, these cinemas left the market. In January 2018, that decline became a torrent when the property owner of the premier and highest grossing for-profit art cinema in the U.S. -- the six screen, 25,000 sq. ft. Lincoln Plaza Cinema -- refused to renew Lincoln Plaza’s lease and remains empty. The result: more than 750,000 residents in upper Manhattan, many of them devoted cinephiles, were deprived of a large, multi-screen art theater that consistently shows a variety of excellent independent films.

Since the pandemic, New Plaza transformed itself into a virtual cinema, offering both current films and educational lectures and talk back discussions on classic cinema led by our curator, Gary Palmucci, and a noted film historian, Max Alvarez. Our virtual cinema has done well, showing more than 100 films to our 12,000 person mailing list and having more than 8000 followers sign up for our virtual lectures and talkbacks. We plan to continue our virtual cinema as we pursue the possibility of obtaining a big screen cinema in the upper west side of Manhattan.