Shuttered UES Cinema To Become Even More Self Storage

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A shuttered VIP dinner cinema will now be folded into a surrounding Manhattan Mini Storage, according to an announcement.

Earlier this week, the mini storage behemoth said the former six-floor CMX CineBistro on East 62nd Street near First Avenue will be converted into 65,000 rentable square feet of storage, with 1,200 climate-controlled units.

The additional storage is expected to open by 2024, the company said.

Manhattan Mini Storage already occupies nearly that whole block of East 62th Street between First and York avenues.

In 2018, CMX opened what was billed as a six-screen VIP luxury dinner and movie experience to much fanfare.

Celebrities like Spike Lee, Brooke Sheilds, Katie Couric, Cuba Gooding Jr., Paul Sorvino, Jay McInerney, Anne Hearst, Lizzie Tisch and Rosanna Scotto attended or hosted screenings around its opening, according to the New York Post. Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter, Kiera Chaplin, also screened her famous grandfather's classic, “City Lights,” the paper reported.

The Mexico-based cinema chain took over the space that housed Clearview Cinema for 22 years until it closed in 2013 to bring the growing tradition of movie meals to the Upper East Side, a trend led by other purveyors like Alamo Drafthouse and Nighthawk Cinema.

To bring a sense of luxury, the movie house offered treats like an $18 lobster cannoli, a $49 rib eye steak and a $300 bottle of Dom Perignon, according to Gothamist.

The outlet also noted the theater's "jumbo-sized recliners" and an adults-only movie time after 6 p.m. every night opened to those ages 21 and up.

The Upper East Side has been losing movie houses in recent years due to industry trends as more folks opt to stay home following a major increase of offerings from internet-based streaming services and more affordable large-screen television sets.

In 2019, the Beekman Theatre, which first opened its doors in 1952, finally shut down from its Second Avenue and East 66th Street location.

It had moved there, or rather a theater there was renamed after the Beekman, when the original location across the street on Second Avenue and East 65th Street was purchased by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2005.

The East 86th Street City Cinemas, whose owner operated the Beekman as well, also closed its doors in 2019.

Film buffs in the lower-east 60s can still catch a movie on the silver screen in a "jumbo-sized recliner," but no meals, at the nearby Cinema 123 by Angelika on Third Avenue across from Bloomingdale's.