Weeds & garbage cover site of historic theater
A vacant lot once home to a historic Washington Heights movie theater has become a weed-filled, garbage-strewn “eyesore” nearly three years after demolition.
The Coliseum cinema at the corner of 181st St. and Broadway was Manhattan’s oldest operating movie theater before it shuttered in 2011. The theater, along with adjoining retail space, which had included a Bravo supermarket, was demolished in 2020 despite community efforts to preserve it.
The future of the 20,000-plus-square-foot lot, a landscape of rubble overrun with towering plants and scattered garbage, is uncertain.
“I guess the earth is reclaiming the land, but ... they’ve got to put something here, I mean it’s an eyesore,” said teacher Scharisse Sierra, 43. “It’s not good to have something abandoned like this.”
Ever since Bravo closed in 2018, retiree Leo Per said, he and his neighbors have “no choice” but to travel several long blocks north for their groceries. “We don’t have a supermarket close [now],” he told the Daily News.
It was long reported that a shopping mall would replace the theater, but the pandemic made that plan less certain. Renderings for the property on its listing with Zelnik & Co. depict a glassy big-box structure, but agent Cory Zelnik emphasized that such plans are “not etched in stone.”
“Post-COVID conversations have started again about people having interest in the property,” he said.
“At the moment, we don’t have any formal commitments from anybody.”
Owners BLDG Management did not answer multiple inquiries. A representative for the local community board told The News that its land use committee had reached out to the developers for a briefing on proposed plans but “they never got a response.”
The Coliseum first opened in 1920 as the third-largest theater in the city, showing vaudeville acts and silent films. Over the years it hosted big-name performers including Bob Hope and the Marx Brothers.
The ornate building fell into disrepair and changed owners several times over the years. Locals recalled it being rundown — but many still remembered it fondly.
Robin Duignan, 40, grew up in the neighborhood and has happy memories of summertime showtimes, discounted tickets and packed theaters.
“They don’t make ’em like that anymore,” he said.
Anthony Rojas, a filmmaker and Washington Heights native, made a short documentary, “The Last Movie Theater in Washington Heights.”
It tells the story of the Coliseum and the significance it still holds.
“We’ve lost a part of ourselves, a part of our neighborhood and a part of history. That movie theater meant a lot for a lot of people uptown, and that was the only means of escape we had,” he said. “And for that to be gone, that’s a major loss.”
‘I guess the earth is reclaiming the land, but ... they’ve got to put something here, I mean it’s an eyesore.’
SCHARISSE SIERRA