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Confirmed AMC has announced that AMC Kips Bay 15 will close by the end of 2026, after the property owner moved to end its lease early.

New NYU Langone has acquired the site. On August 27, 2026, seven elected officials sent a formal letter demanding answers. Read it →

Kips Bay Plaza · 570 Second Avenue

Kips Bay is a
neighborhood.
Not NYU's medical facility.

NYU Langone already dominates huge portions of Kips Bay. Now it has bought the block that holds our only movie theater and our biggest grocery store: AMC Kips Bay 15, with the only IMAX on Manhattan's East Side, and Fairway. Nobody told a single elected official first.

Enough.

We live here. We raise families here. Kips Bay needs restaurants, stores, entertainment and places for residents to actually enjoy their neighborhood, not block after block of institutional medical space.

Replacing AMC Kips Bay and Fairway with another medical facility doesn't improve our neighborhood. It hollows it out.

Add your name → What we know

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September 3, 2026 · Update

The wheels of the community keep turning.

Two things moved this week. Nine neighborhood, tenant, and block associations across Kips Bay, Murray Hill, and the surrounding East Side — separate from the elected officials below — sent their own letter to Dr. Kimmelman, asking NYU Langone for disclosure and a compromise that keeps the AMC and Fairway in place. And Manhattan Community Board 6 has scheduled the first official public hearing on the AMC Kips Bay 15 closure. Neither of these happens if residents stay quiet. Show up, or put it in writing.

CB6 will hold a public hearing on the AMC Kips Bay 15 closure: Wednesday, September 9, 7 PM. Neighbors can register to speak and have their voices heard. Can't attend? Written testimony can be submitted through Friday, September 11 at 5 PM.
CB6 public hearing on the AMC Kips Bay 15 closure
Register to speak → Attend via Zoom
Letter from the Save Kips Bay Coalition, dated August 31, 2026, to Dr. Alec C. Kimmelman of NYU Langone Health, signed by nine neighborhood and tenant associations, asking NYU Langone to preserve local retail businesses including the AMC theater and Fairway supermarket.
Aug. 31, 2026 — Sent by nine neighborhood and tenant associations to NYU Langone Health's CEO.

September 1, 2026 · Update

Fairway is next. Bank of America has announced the closure of its own branch on this block, at 560 Second Avenue, wedged between the theater and the supermarket. That is a second tenant out in the same few weeks NYU Langone's ownership became public, after AMC. Nobody has announced Fairway, because NYU Langone doesn't announce anything until it's already done. That is exactly what happened with AMC: no notice to residents, no notice to elected officials, a 25-year-old theater evicted before anyone outside the deal knew who owned this block. We are not waiting for a press release to tell us what we can already see. NYU Langone did not buy this block to keep running a supermarket in it, and Fairway is the next domino. If you shop there, this is already your fight.

August 27, 2026 · Sent to NYU Langone Health's CEO

7 elected officials have taken up
this cause, and are requesting
answers from NYU.

State Assembly Member Keith Powers, U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Council Member Virginia Maloney, State Assembly Member Micah Lasher, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman‑Sigal, Council Member Harvey Epstein, and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez sent this letter to Dr. Alec C. Kimmelman, Dean and CEO of NYU Langone Health, after learning that NYU Langone had acquired 570 Second Avenue.

Letter dated August 27, 2026 on New York State Assembly, U.S. House of Representatives, and City of New York letterhead, addressed to Dr. Alec C. Kimmelman of NYU Langone Health, signed by seven elected officials. Full text is transcribed below the image.
The full letter, as sent. Transcribed in full below.
“This acquisition took place without any notification of, or engagement with, local elected officials or residents.” Joint letter to NYU Langone Health, August 27, 2026
  • Keith PowersNY State Assembly, District 74
  • Jerrold NadlerU.S. House, New York‑12
  • Virginia MaloneyNYC Council, District 4
  • Micah LasherNY State Assembly, District 69
  • Brad Hoylman‑SigalManhattan Borough President
  • Harvey EpsteinNYC Council, District 2
  • Kristen GonzalezNY State Senate, District 59
Read the full text

Dear Dr Kimmelman:

It has recently come to our attention that NYU Langone Health has acquired the site at 570 Second Avenue in Kips Bay. As local elected officials representing this district, we write to inquire about the future of this property and to request a dialogue with our offices and the community.

We appreciate the critical services NYU Langone provides to the East Side. Given your importance to our community, we have always sought to maintain a strong relationship and an open line of communication. However, we were disappointed to learn that this acquisition took place without any notification of, or engagement with, local elected officials or residents. As you are aware, this property has drawn considerable public attention over the past week. Despite that attention, our offices have received no communication about the future of the development, either before the transaction or in the days since.

Our constituents now face the potential loss of key neighborhood anchors. We are concerned about the pending eviction of the beloved AMC Kips Bay movie theater, as well as any threat to the Fairway supermarket, which provides essential fresh food access to the area.

Above all, we hope to work with you on a plan that allows existing community amenities to coexist with medical uses. We request a meeting with your leadership team to discuss your plans for the site. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and we look forward to hearing from your office.

Sincerely,
Keith Powers, New York State Assembly, District 74 · Jerrold Nadler, United States House, New York‑12 · Virginia Maloney, NYC Council, District 4 · Micah Lasher, NYS Assembly, District 69 · Brad Hoylman‑Sigal, Manhattan Borough President · Harvey Epstein, New York City Council, District 2 · Kristen Gonzalez, New York State Senate, District 59

What we are about to lose

A theater, or another lobby.

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

Closing by the end of 2026

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 keeps replacing 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 Kips Bay's largest landholder

A second tenant in this complex is already gone. See the September 1 update on Fairway →

The record

This part is not a rumor.

The closure is confirmed. Who takes the space, and what happens to the rest of the block, is the question nobody in a position to answer is answering.

Confirmed

  • 01AMC Kips Bay 15 closes by the end of 2026. Announced by AMC on August 24, 2026.
  • 02This was not AMC's decision. The property owner moved to end the lease years before it was due to expire.
  • 03NYU Langone Health has acquired the site. Confirmed in a formal joint letter that seven of the district's elected officials sent to NYU Langone's CEO on August 27, 2026, three days after AMC's announcement.
  • 04NYU Langone already owned part of this same block before this purchase. City property records list NYU Langone Hospitals as the owner of 545 First Avenue, Block 936, Lot 37, the same tax block as the theater. This was not a hospital nearby. It was a hospital on our block, and it has been growing toward Second Avenue for years.
  • 05The complex was marketed for medical use before the sale. A 2024 leasing brochure offered Kips Bay Plaza, roughly 193,000 square feet across three levels, to new tenants, explicitly naming medical tenancy.
  • 06The prior owner of record was Kips Bay Development Limited Partnership, care of M.D. Carlisle Construction Corp. That was the entity on the City's tax roll and on the property's recorded mortgage, Block 936, Lot 1, before this sale.
  • 07A conversion of this kind would require a rezoning. That means a public process, and a public process is something a neighborhood can win.
  • 08A second tenant in the same small complex is also on its way out. Bank of America has announced the closure of its branch at 560 Second Avenue, between AMC and Fairway, in 2026.
The theatre will close following the property owner's decision to exercise its contractual right to terminate the theatre's lease before its scheduled expiration. AMC Theatres, August 24, 2026

What they won't say

  • •NYU Langone has not said, on the record, what it plans to do with the site. Seven elected officials have formally asked. As of this writing, there has been no answer.
  • •No one has said what replaces a 15-screen theater on two blocks of Second Avenue frontage.
  • •No rezoning application has been publicly filed that we have been able to identify.
  • •The City's tax roll had not yet been updated to reflect the sale as of this writing. Deed recordings routinely lag a closing by weeks, so this is not evidence against the letter, but it is one more thing NYU Langone could simply confirm.
  • •We will publish any on-the-record answer we get, including a denial. Silence is a choice, and it is the one being made right now.

Sources

The fact of NYU Langone's acquisition comes from the joint letter seven elected officials sent to NYU Langone's CEO on August 27, 2026. Block and prior-ownership facts above are drawn from the New York City property tax roll (PLUTO) and the City Register's recorded documents (ACRIS) for Block 936, Lots 1 and 37, current as of this writing. Bank of America's closure of its branch on this block was confirmed on September 1, 2026. Anyone can check any of this.

Why this is happening now

Kips Bay did not lose its theater to streaming, or to a bad quarter, or to a landlord who couldn't fill the space. It lost it because someone decided this block is worth more as something other than a neighborhood. That decision is not final until a rezoning is approved, and a rezoning is a vote.

What we're demanding

Three things.

Not anti-healthcare. Anti-hollowing-out. Here's the distinction, in full, below.

  1. 01

    Answer the question.

    NYU Langone should state publicly and on the record what it plans to do with the site it just bought, and meet with the seven elected officials who have formally asked. Residents should not have to learn the future of their own block from a leasing brochure.

  2. 02

    Stop the expansion here.

    Kips Bay has given enough. No further conversion of this neighborhood's street-level retail and entertainment space into institutional medical use. There are other sites. This one is our main street.

  3. 03

    Give the block back to the neighborhood.

    Whatever fills this space must be neighborhood-serving: entertainment, restaurants, stores, things residents actually use. And no rezoning without full, noticed public review at Community Board 6, not a finished deal presented to us after the fact.

We're not opposing healthcare. We're opposing the continued conversion of a dense residential neighborhood into an ever-expanding hospital campus. Kips Bay already contains one of New York City's greatest concentrations of hospitals and medical facilities. First Avenue is literally known as “Hospital Row.”

Residents also need supermarkets, restaurants, entertainment, retail and places to gather. A neighborhood cannot consist solely of apartments and medical facilities.

Save AMC Kips Bay.
Stop NYU's expansion.

Add your name →

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, one community board reviews it first, and the Manhattan Borough President has a formal say in any land use decision. Ask all of them where they stand, on the record, now.

Manhattan Borough President

Brad Hoylman‑Sigal

Sworn in January 2026. His office issues a formal recommendation on any rezoning application in Manhattan before it reaches the City Council.

A Borough President recommendation isn't binding, but City Council members lean on it heavily. It's an early, public place for this fight to be won or lost.

Call(212) 669-8300 Emailinfo@manhattanbp.nyc.gov

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. Will you oppose converting the AMC site to medical use?”