Editor’s Note: Saving the Upper West Side’s Metro Theater is nothing short of a miracle

Closing a movie theater hurts. It’s a communal space for experiencing a filmmaker’s art, or just for fun and escape. The audience interactions at the No. 1 movie currently playing in theaters, “A Minecraft Movie,” certainly illustrate that. That’s why moviegoers have waited two decades for the reopening of the Metro Theater on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Now, there’s a glimmer of hope for the 92-year-old venue.

Last week, the nonprofit Upper West Side Cinema Center, led by independent film producer Ira Deutchman and film consultant Adeline Monzier, announced it bought the venue for $6.9 million, including $3.5 million in grant funding from Gov. Kathy Hochul. State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal also secured $500,000 more in grants. Assembly Member Micah Lasher, whose district includes the venue, blamed past ownership for keeping the theater shuttered. “I would underline how important it was for the community to take back control of the building,” he said. Originally the Midtown Theater which opened in 1933, the venue was showing pornographic films by the 1970s, art house and foreign films in the 1980s and mainstream movies before closing in 2005. At one point, it was set to become a gym. More recently a plan for an Alamo Drafthouse dine-in movie theater fell through. Up to $25 million is needed to add five screens, an arts center and cafe. Its landmarked, pink terra-cotta art deco facade and marquee also will need a facelift. The theater’s fate has become like one of those Hollywood comeback stories, and who can resist those? That might inspire the fundraising needed for a rebirth and return to its community that’s been a long time coming.