After serving the residents of the South Bronx for over 30 years, Concourse Plaza Multiplex has announced that it will close its doors for good next month on May 28th.
The closure will leave The Bronx—a borough of 1.4 million residents—with just one movie theater, the AMC Bay Plaza Cinema in Co-op City.
Once upon a time, you could walk or take a short trip within The Bronx to go to the movies. Growing up in the late 70s and 80s, I recall taking trips to Teatro Puerto Rico on 138th Street to watch He-Man with friends when it came out in 1987.
Moviegoing was an easy form of entertainment for kids and families alike.
When we wanted to get fancy, we’d take a drive to the now since demolished, Whitestone Cinemas which was torn down five years ago to make way for a futuristic last-mile warehouse.
Around the same time that the Whitestone closed, so did the American Theater in Parkchester leaving The Bronx with just two movie theaters: Concourse Plaza Multiplex in Melrose and AMC at Bay Plaza.
Now, with the coming closure of Concourse Plaza, a borough with a population of 1.4 million people that would make it the 7th largest city in the country if it were its own city, will only have one theater to serve its entire population.
Getting to Bay Plaza from the South Bronx isn’t an easy commute so residents will just go to Manhattan movie theaters that they can get to in less than 20 minutes versus the long trek to Co-op City.
If The Bronx is where it’s at and is booming as many politicians would like you to believe, then why, can’t a borough of 1.4 million residents, keep a movie theater? It’s not like we don’t go to the movies.
This is just another insult in a long line of insults to Bronxites being snubbed much like when Barnes and Noble abandoned the borough and left us without a bookstore.
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