UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A movie theater that showed both independent and mainstream films and offered dedicated screenings for parents with babies closed suddenly this week on the Upper East Side.

Signs reading "theater closed" and "the end" are posted in the windows of City Cinemas on East 86th Street between Third and Lexington avenues. The marquee that used to display show times is now completely blank.

City Cinemas closed on Monday to the surprise of both neighborhood residents and the theater's employees. An employee who answered the theater's phone Friday, but did not want to give his name, said the staff was not given advance notice of the closing. When asked whether staff will be relocated to other City Cinemas locations in the neighborhood he said: "I don't know any information about that I just know that we're closed."