Since 1981, an escalator at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on Broadway has taken New Yorkers to another world: Art house movies that often are not shown anywhere else.

"I'm not into the big blockbusters," one patron said. "This is where I love to see cinema."

But on Sunday night, the theaters inside the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas will empty out for the last time.

The projectors will go dark and the popcorn machine will go silent. Then, the destination for movie-goers for 37 years will disappear.

"It's like a death," one woman in the theater said. "I love movies. It shouldn't happen."

Many of the employees have worked at the theater for decades, making the movie-house unique in a city overrun with corporate multiplexes.

Ewnetu Admassu has been the general manager at the theater since the late-1980s.

"I thought, probably, somebody will change their mind and will keep it going. But that seems like it's not the case," Admassu said.

Lincoln Plaza is being forced out by the landlord, Milstein Properties, which reportedly plans to renovate the worn space and replace it with a new theater complex.

But it won't be one owned and operated by Dan and Toby Talbot, a legendary couple credited with introducing New Yorkers to many independent and foreign films.

"It was always a kind of discovery," Toby Talbot said. "Would we see something? Would we find a new Turkish director?"

Dan Talbot died last month, as word spread that his theater would close.

The closure has hit longtime patrons pretty hard; they have said it is yet another sign that the city's personality is being destroyed. 

"Old New York seems to be leaving us," said one moviegoer.

"The Upper West Side is lost to greedy landlords," said another. "Greedy landlords, and I hate them."

Last week, another art movie house, Sunshine Cinema on Houston Street, closed to make way for an office building.

Sky-high real estate values and streaming entertainment are squeezing movie theaters.

There will still be theaters in the city showing independent films, but, for the fans of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, none will replace this one.