New York City is about to lose another neighborhood institution—and this time, it isn’t because everyone suddenly decided Netflix was more fun than leaving the apartment.
The AMC Kips Bay 15, the 15-screen movie theater at 570 Second Avenue, is set to close by the end of 2026 after nearly three decades in Kips Bay. The theater opened in 1999, with AMC taking over operations in 2006.
But here’s the important part: AMC isn’t actually choosing to leave.
According to AMC, the property’s owner is exercising its contractual right to terminate the theater’s lease before it was scheduled to expire. In other words, this wasn’t exactly a breakup initiated by the movie theater. It was more of a landlord saying, thanks for the memories, now pack your popcorn.
So What’s Replacing It?
That’s where things get interesting.
There are growing reports that NYU Langone Health could eventually expand onto the site, although neither NYU Langone nor the property owner has publicly confirmed that the medical giant will take over the theater space.
And that uncertainty is fueling the outrage.
The neighborhood’s Save Kips Bay campaign argues that residents could be losing a 15-screen cinema—including the only IMAX theater on Manhattan’s East Side—in favor of more institutional medical space.
So while it would be easy to blame streaming, expensive movie tickets or the general decline of movie theaters, the immediate reason for the AMC Kips Bay closing is much simpler: the landlord wants the space back.
AMC has also acknowledged a broader strategy of closing underperforming locations, but the company specifically says the Kips Bay closure is happening because of the property owner’s decision.
For Kips Bay residents, that’s the real plot twist. The final showing isn’t necessarily about the death of movie theaters.
It may be about the increasingly valuable real estate underneath them.
And in Manhattan, that’s usually where the sequel gets expensive.
