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Kips Bay Plaza · Second Avenue at E. 30th–32nd

Save Fairway.
Save AMC.
Save Kips Bay.

Credible reports indicate that Kips Bay Plaza, the block that holds our supermarket and our movie theater, may be targeted for conversion to institutional medical use.

Nothing has been announced. That is exactly why we are organizing now. Once a deal is signed and a rezoning is filed, the neighborhood is negotiating from behind. We are asking NYU Langone, the property owner, and our elected officials one simple question, in public and on the record: what is happening to this block?

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What is actually on this block

Two things a neighborhood cannot replace.

The Fairway Market storefront with its green awnings at the corner of Second Avenue and East 30th Street

The groceries

Fairway Market

Kips Bay's only large-scale, fully wheelchair-accessible source of fresh produce and full-service groceries. For thousands of households without a car, this is the food supply.

~42,000 sq ft · 550 Second Avenue

The AMC Kips Bay 15 entrance lit up at night, with the blue IMAX marquee and the arched window above it

The commons

AMC Kips Bay 15

Twenty-five years a fixture of this neighborhood. The only cinema within a 30-minute walk, and the only IMAX screen on Manhattan's East Side.

It plays everything: arthouse and first-run blockbusters, anniversary re-releases, concert films, special-event screenings. It is one of the very few indoor, family-friendly things to do in this part of Manhattan on a rainy Saturday, and it is widely counted among the best theaters in the city.

It is also, plainly, a good-looking building. The marquee is one of the few things on Second Avenue that makes the street feel like somewhere.

15 screens · IMAX · 570 Second Avenue

A large crowd of moviegoers on the Second Avenue sidewalk outside the AMC Kips Bay 15 in daylight
Twenty-five years of this.
The NYU Langone Medical Center main campus entrance sign and frontage on First Avenue

What replaces it

Institutional frontage

One block east is what a medical campus does to a street: blank walls, security desks, ambulance bays, and nothing open to a person who simply lives here.

Institutional frontage doesn't only close stores. It makes a street worse to walk down, immediately and permanently. It is a fine hospital. It is not a neighborhood.

First Avenue · already the block's largest landholder

Why we're not waiting

We'd rather be early than right.

We are not claiming a deal has been signed. We are telling you exactly what is documented, exactly what isn't, and why the gap between them is the whole reason to organize today.

On the record

  • 01The whole complex was put on the market. A 2024 leasing brochure marketed Kips Bay Plaza, all three levels and roughly 193,000 square feet, to new tenants.
  • 02It was advertised for medical use. That same marketing named medical tenancy alongside retail and entertainment, and described capacity for as many as 3,000 occupants.
  • 03This was built as a grocery-anchored center. The property was developed and financed specifically as neighborhood-serving retail. That is what it is for.
  • 04NYU Langone is already the dominant institution here, one block east, and has been expanding on this side of Manhattan for a decade.
  • 05Community Board 6 has indicated a conversion of this kind would require a rezoning. That means a public process, and a public process is something a neighborhood can win.

Not confirmed

  • •No transaction has been announced between NYU Langone and the owner of Kips Bay Plaza.
  • •No closing date has been announced for Fairway Market or AMC Kips Bay 15.
  • •No rezoning application has been publicly filed that we have been able to identify.
  • •We will correct this page the moment any of that changes, in either direction. If NYU Langone states on the record that it has no plans for this site, we will publish that too.

The point

By the time a supermarket lease ends and a rezoning is filed, the decision has already been made in a room we weren't in. The window to shape what happens to Kips Bay Plaza is now, while the answer is still “no comment.”

What we're asking for

Three demands.

These are ordered deliberately. The first costs nobody anything. The third is the one that actually protects the neighborhood.

  1. 01

    Tell us.

    NYU Langone and the owner of Kips Bay Plaza should state publicly and on the record whether there is any agreement, negotiation, or plan to convert this property to medical or institutional use. Residents should not learn the future of their supermarket from a rumor.

  2. 02

    No quiet rezoning.

    Any change here that requires a rezoning or discretionary approval must go through a full, noticed public process with real Community Board 6 review, not a negotiated deal presented to the neighborhood as a finished fact.

  3. 03

    Keep the groceries. Keep the commons.

    We are not opposed to healthcare. We are opposed to erasure. Any redevelopment of this site must preserve a full-service, accessible supermarket and genuine neighborhood-serving retail and entertainment space at street level. Kips Bay can host a medical use. It cannot survive becoming one.

Where the pressure goes

The people who can actually stop this.

A rezoning is a political act, and political acts have names attached. Kips Bay is split between two City Council districts, which means two members have to answer for this block, and one community board reviews it first.

NYC Council · District 2

Harvey Epstein

District 2 covers Kips Bay, Gramercy, Murray Hill, Rose Hill, and the East Village.

Land use votes run through the Council, and the local member's position on a rezoning is, by long tradition, the one that decides it.

Call(212) 677-1077 EmailHarvey@council.nyc.gov

NYC Council · District 4

Virginia Maloney

District 4 also reaches Kips Bay, along with Murray Hill, NoMad, Tudor City, and Turtle Bay.

Took office in 2026. A new member's first big neighborhood fight sets the expectation for every one after it.

Call(212) 818-0580 EmailDistrict4@council.nyc.gov

Manhattan · Community Board 6

CB6

The first public body to review any land use application on this site.

CB6 has indicated a conversion of this kind would require a rezoning. That is the opening, and the room where showing up in numbers counts most.

Call(212) 319-3750 Emailinfo@cbsix.org

If you only do one thing

Call the district office during business hours and say who you are and where you live. Staffers log constituent calls by issue, and a call counts for far more than an email. One sentence is plenty: I live in the district and I want to know what's planned for Kips Bay Plaza, the block with Fairway and the AMC.

Beyond signing

Four things that take under an hour.

This campaign runs on density, not virality. Nearly everyone who needs to hear about it lives within about 15 blocks of the theater.

  • 01Post a flyer where you're allowed to. Your building's bulletin board with permission, a business that says yes, a table outside the store. Never on private property without asking.
  • 02Bring it to your building. Tenant associations and co-op boards deliver dozens of signups in one email.
  • 03Ask the other businesses on the strip. The banks and the storefronts still hanging on lose their foot traffic too. They are allies, not bystanders.
  • 04Email your Council member. One sentence: “I live in your district. What do you know about the future of Kips Bay Plaza?”