Roxy Theatre

As I had the good fortune to work at the Roxy during a peak business period – from June 1956 to Jan 1957 I can attest to the huge crowds, longs lines and major films that played there. “The King and I” opened late in June and played nine weeks. Its attendance rivaled the Music Hall. Grosses were never comparable because the Roxy had children’s admission of .50 (if I remember right). The Music Hall never had a special children’s admission. “Bus Stop” had patrons lining up for a three hour waits all Labor Day and played 6 weeks. “Giant” followed and also played nine weeks followed by “Anastasia,” also nine weeks and an even bigger hit. All I can attest to is the hard week we had every night in crowd control. As we have discussed before, the Roxy rotunda could hold over 1,000 people willing to stand patiently waitng for seats. Unlike the Music Hall that had relatively little space for waiting, a street line at the Roxy meant a long wait. I don’t think the Roxy could say that had any better string of consecutive films in their history. If that could have been maintained, who knows how long the Roxy could have reamained open.

OK then……if its a given that Radio City Music Hall needed to be saved and we had the power to save one other, which other theatre in that area (Roxy, Capitol, Paramount, Loews State, Rivoli etc) should have been kept and why?
My vote would go the Capitol. The glorious excess, size and upkeep of the Roxy would have made it too expensive to keep in any era. The Paramount was in an office building which could not have lasted. But the Capitol was self-standing and could perhaps been renovated and run like the Fox, Detroit and many others.

Usually the answer is money and politics! None the less, it is a crime that the Roxy isn’t with us in 2005!

Why was this fabulous 6,000 seat NYC theatre with such rich and wonderful history allowed to be demolished?

Thanks myrtlleave, I was working at the Staten Island Paramount when White Christmas played there, perhaps it was Dec 20th as well.

Thanks guys, I did not remember White Christmas leaving RCMH before Christmas. Good for the nabes I guess.

To Vito: White Christmas played the Music Hall for seven weeks beginning in October. It was in the nabes for Christmas.

I was not sure were to post this, so I thought why not here.
As all of you know “This is Cinerama” had a wonderfull intro by Lowell Thomas, it was a short 35mm film which played to introduce the movie. I have only the sound portion but I hope this bring back memories. click on free download in Rapidshare. You will need
RealPlayer
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myrtleleave, that was quite a Christmas season in 1954, if I recall we had “No Business like Show Business” at the Roxy and down the street at RCMH you could see “White Christmas”, anyone remember what was at the Paramount and Rivoli?

roxy ad
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Warren—

Thanks for the bookings of ‘48. They recoup my earliest memories of the Roxy.

My first visit there was for “You Were meant for Me” with that great jazz stage show. The billing must have made an impression on my parents, who were by no means jazz afficionados, but who certainly possessed the instinct to seek out a great show. I have a hazy memory of the b&w Dan Dailey film (a scene that took place on a railroad train sticks in mind), but a more colorful memory of the live music, and especially of a whooping face-off among Armstrong, Teagarden, Hines, et al. that concluded the show. I of course didn’t know who they were, and many years passed before I learned how to use libraries and dig out microfilm archives of the NYT to trace these memories. It then bowed me over to rediscover what a show it must have been.

I next remember seeing “Sitting Pretty” there. Evidently my parents found the previous show so good that they figured a return to the Roxy would be worth the trip on the BMT. My memory conjures up a stage-Irish review with shamrocks and midget leprachauns, and the premiere date of March 10 certainly bears out the St. Paddy motif. I don’t recall the puppet act, but that—plus the sadistic appeal of Clifton Webb as a baby sitter—would surely have spurred our trek to Rothaffel’s Cathedral.

Finally Ernst Lubitsch’s last film, “That Lady in Ermine,” brought us there again that summer, this time with the ice show as an evident drawer. The film’s Austrian setting prompted a stage show with Viennese waltzes by Strauss on ice, a novelty that competed not only with the lavish spectacles up the block at RCMH but also with the full-length ice shows at the formerly “New Roxy” Center on 49 Street. Those three shows sketched out the coordinates of a post-WWII world bounded by Bourbon Street, County Cork, and the Tyrolian Alps, expansive enough for a Brooklyn kid to deal with at the time. Thanks for putting it into context with the full list of bookings for ‘48.

and then came CINEMIRAC
i dont think it was a big hit at the roxy
did it every play on local screens
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yet ANOTHER great job Warren. Thanks for the memories and keep em' comin'.