After hearing that AMC Kips Bay would close at the end of the year after being purchased by NYU Langone last year, I got curious about how many movie theaters New York used to have and how many are still around today.
So I built an interactive map tracing roughly 910 theaters that have operated across the five boroughs, with only 81 active movie theaters left today.
This simple question sent me down a rabbit hole, exploring when was the peak of operating theaters, how long they tended to last for, and what former theaters have become today. And with ZoLa, I mapped out where New York’s zoning allows for new theaters to open today.
I love going to the movies, and how important they are as physical pieces of the city that bring people together, out of their homes, exploring local neighborhoods and businesses, and the emotion they can pull out of people in a room full of strangers.
As Sean Fennessey from The Ringer on The Big Picture once said, “I think people are desperately in search of community right now and of feeling closer to other people and sharing things and not feeling disconnected by technology.”
The project is now live at: https://nycmovietheaters.vercel.app/.
See you at the movies.