Roxy Theatre

chconnol on January 12, 2005 at 5:19 pm

Fascinating discussion above. Loved reading it.

With regards to whether The Roxy or RCMH was “better”, let’s just leave it that one (The Roxy) is sadly gone and will be missed and the other (RCMH) is still with us and we should be grateful.

BUT….I will always go with what my Mother, born and raised in Manhattan in 1925, felt. The Roxy was better. She loved RCMH but had a soft spot for this great place. The Roxy and her vivid memories and descriptions of the place is what brought me to this great site in the first place.

Benjamin on January 9, 2005 at 10:15 pm

More on Roxy and the Roxy Theater from Ben Hall (“Best Remaining Seats,” 1961), David Loth (“The City Within a City,” 1966) and Carol Krinsky (“Rockefeller Center,” 1978). (As you will see, each writer has a different focus and a different “take.” I don’t necessarily agree with all the details of any of the versions — I just thought Cinema Treasure readers would be interested in seeing this info.)

Re: Roxy abandoning the Roxy for the Radio City Theaters (I didn’t find any mention in any of the three books about Roxy being forced out of the management of the original Roxy Theater.)

Hall (pg. 252): “What happened to Roxy? In 1930 he had another vision, one that led him another block eastward … . The Rockefellers were building their Center, and it in the largest theatre in the world, the International Music Hall.”

Loth (pg. 81): “RKO was generally considered to have brought off an admirable coup when they persuaded him to take over the management of the new Music Hall.”

Krinsky (pg. 164): “On hearing that the radio group [RKO] planned to join the Rockefeller development, he proposed that he build a rival for his own namesake. The president of NBC [at the time, both NBC and RKO were subsidiaries of RCA, pg. 48, Loth] spoke to Rockefeller who approved of the idea… . In April 1931 Roxy announced his affiliation with the Center, having severed his ties to the Roxy Theater.”

(pg. 79) (She’s discussing why RCMH’s management wanted Roxy out in 1933) “… perhaps they thought that he was abandoning their sinking ship more quickly than he had abandoned his own Roxy Theater … .”

(Although they all agree with each other in fundamental ways, they also all present slightly different versions of what happened!)

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Re: the closing of the Roxy

(I didn’t find any mention in any of the three books of the Taft not being willing to renew a lease for the Roxy’s ticket lobby.)

Hall: As far as I could see, he doesn’t really go into the particulars about the demise of the Roxy — but he does have a full page reproduction of that wonderful Gloria Swanson photo as the last page of the book.

But regarding the Hotel Taft site, Hall does present what appears to be an apocryphal story — or sloppily written one — about how Herbert Lubin (the man who hired Roxy to create the Roxy Theater) originally purchased the land needed to build the Roxy. Hall says that in the spring of 1925 Lubin decided that the Seventh Ave. and 50th St. corner “would be ideal to build his big theater on,” asked the agent how much it would cost, and agreed to pay the $3,000,000 on the spot.

The problem with this story is that the corner of Seventh and 50th is where the Roxy’s ticket lobby occupied the first floor of the adjoining hotel. Now, there are ways for Hall’s version of the story to be true — say, for instance, if the Roxy leased to the hotel the right to build over the ticket lobby — but without any further explanation, this story appears to be sloppily written.

Loth: (pgs. 186-187) He mentions that after Rockefeller Center was “complete,” the management decided to expand to the other side of Sixth Ave. and began purchasing land there — first purchasing the land where the Time-Life Building would eventually be built (in 1953) and then purchasing the Roxy Theater, which was the adjacent property to the west (in early 1956?). Originally when they started buying land on the west side of Sixth Ave., they were considering building a TV City with studios for NBC and a skyscraper for Time-Life. But NBC pulled out of the deal before the Roxy was actually purchased.

(pg. 191) “The purpose for which they had bought it was a thing of the past, but they had acquired air and tower rights for the Time & Life Building … priced at $2 million. So the Center could afford to be relaxed about the Roxy’s fate in the entertainment world.

“Various attempt to revive its old popularity by a couple of lessees, one of whom was Roxy’s nephew were short-lived. They even at temped a combination of stage and screen show, but apparently the Radio City Music Hall has a monopoly on success in this field. [Don’t know what the author means here; maybe he means attempted to revive a combination of stage and screen show?] Shortly before the Time & Life Building opened (late 1959?), Rockefeller Center had to take over the controls; it was already dickering for an entirely different sort of deal. That deal was consummated in February, 1960, when it was announced that the theater had been sold to Webb & Knapp for an office building … .”

Krinsky: (pgs. 111-114) Her version is essentially the same, but again with some differences. “To let the Center build a slab as tall as this one [Time-Life Building] while conforming to the requirements of the Zoning Resolution, Westprop, Inc. a Center subsidiary, had to buy the Roxy Theater immediately to the west, for its air rights. This also guaranteed that no rival tower could abut the new building in the future.”

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The Loth and (especially) the Krinksy book also have lots of interesting info (and Krinksy has lots of great photos) about the creation of the Center Theater and Radio City Music Hall. If I get the chance, I will post some of this info on the appropriate site for each of the theaters.

Myron on January 8, 2005 at 7:04 pm

Vito, you are correct, the Music Hall didn’t sell popcorn, according to my sister, whose memory is better than mine and she visited RCMH maybe 50 times. Is it true that the ice-skating Roxyettes was added during the presentation of “Carousel”? Before then, there was no stage show with the Roxy’s film; this explains why there were either shorter lines or no lines at all at the Roxy. You would be admitted even in the middle of the film. I also found the Roxy marquee more attractive. It was bright red with changing patterns of neon light, sort of Las Vegas style. How I wish I had a camera then. None of the photos I’ve seen show the Roxy sign in color at night; they’re all in B&W.

Benjamin on January 7, 2005 at 6:45 pm

My copy of the Ben Hall book, “Best Remaining Seats,” is a Bramhall House (div. of Clarkson Potter, Inc.) edition from the mid-1970s. Although I was able to find the photos referenced in Jim’s post, I read them very differently and hope that those interested get a chance to look at the Hall book, especially the following pages: pg. 128, for what appears to me to be a modified “plan” of the first floor of the Roxy; pgs.82-83 (unnumbered), for what appears to me to be a loosely done “section” of the theater; and pg. 90, for a loose equivalent of an “elevation” of the proposed theater.

While there are also some good photos, including a photo of the Roxy’s main entrance on opening night (pages 2-3, unnumbered), these suffer (for our purposes) from severe foreshortening (the photographs being taken looking down relatively narrow streets).

But looking at the loose equivalents of a “plan,” “section” and “elevation” of the Roxy, it seems to me that pretty much only the ticket lobby of the Roxy extended into the hotel next door and that the five floors above the ticket lobby were most probably NOT used by the Roxy Theater — especially for things like the Usher’s Locker Room that is shown on the cutaway section.

Looking at an artist’s rendering of the Roxy (pg. 90), which also shows the adjacent hotel structure, and comparing it to the “plan” and “section” one sees that the Roxy facade was divided into three sections:

a very large section on the east (the auditorium itself);

a slightly lower section to the west of that (labeled the “Grande Foyer” on both the plan and the section);

and a yet smaller section, only three windows wide, to the west of that (labeled “Recpt. Hall” on the plan and the “Entrance Hall” on the section).

It is this last section, three windows wide, that appears to me to contain the five floors or so (there is a set back after the “third” story) of ancillary activities that are shown in the cutaway section.

Looking at both the plan and the cutaway section one notices that no ticket lobby whatsoever is being shown on either of them — the ticket lobby is the long, low area of the theatre that extended into the first floor of the adjacent hotel. In other words, neither the plan nor the section actually choose to show the ticket lobby — only the artist’s rendering, which shows the southern facade of the hotel, shows where the long, low ticket lobby was.

To a smaller extent this also seems to be borne out in the photo of the Roxy’s main entrance on opening night. One sees that the floors above the marquee appear to be conventional hotel type rooms — not rooms being used for the facilities being shown on the cutaway drawing.

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Also, looking through the Hall book (flipping through the pages and using the index) I found no reference to 1) a story that the adjacent hotel choose not to renew the lease of the Roxy Theater’s ticket lobby; and 2) no reference to Sam Rothafel being forced out by the “new” owners of the Roxy.

The only reference in the Hall book to Sam Rothafel being force out that I could find was the account of his being forced out of the management of Radio City Music Hall (the last section of the book, “The End of the Dream”). And surprisingly for a book with so much info on the Roxy, I was not able to find any sustained account of how it closed or why it was demolished.

Now the book is very loosely organized, with info about the Roxy, included reprints of various magazine articles, etc., spread (non-chronologically) all throughout the book. So it is possible that I might have missed such accounts.

But in any case, none of the accounts were a major part of the Roxy story in the Hall book — plus I’ve discovered accounts elsewhere (more about that latter) that would seem to dispute these versions of Roxy’s and the Roxy’s history.

I have some additional comments on what I found last night in the Hall book about the Roxy Theater — plus some interesting relevant info from the Carol Krinsky book (“Rockefeller Center”) and the David Loth book (“The City within a City”) about Rockefeller Center. But that will have to wait till later.

Vito on January 7, 2005 at 12:10 pm

I would have to agree with saps, thanks very much for the insitefull writing. Oh, and by the way myron, I too loved hearing the Fox fanfare at the Roxy, and the popcorn question is easy to answer, RCMH never allowed popcorn be sold there.

Mike (saps) on January 7, 2005 at 4:56 am

Some really heartfelt writing here. Thanks, guys.

Benjamin on January 7, 2005 at 12:09 am

The Ben Hall book, “The Best Remaining Seats,” is indeed a fantastic source of info about the Roxy. And, it is one example of a discussion about movie palaces where the Roxy is actually “numero uno” (written about more extensively than any other theater) while RCHM hardly even rates a mention! Just the other day I was thinking that one might almost consider this book to be an ode to the Roxy, as the extensive Roxy material appears to be the centerpiece of the book. I don’t have my copy of the book here with me at work, but will, of course, look at it again when I get home.

Although the Roxy may have used the first five floors above the ticket lobby for theatrical purposes, the building above the ticket lobby was still essentially part of the hotel’s structure — at least that’s the impression that I had from general reading of the book, from walks by the hotel post-Roxy demolition and from a general understanding of the way New York City “works.” And it’s not all that uncommon for one use in one structure to “infiltrate” another use in another structure. For instance when Barney’s clothing store was on 17th(?) St., it expanded into (among other structures) a neighboring apartment house — remodeling apartments in the apartment house to be an extension of its sales floor, fitting rooms and administrative offices. Also I think part of Radio City Music Hall may have also extended into the office building above the ticket lobby portion of RCMH.

As to “why” these things are done: I believe in the Carol Krinsky book on Rockefeller Center she too mentions “effect” as a partial reason for a low ticket lobby — but in this case the reference is to the “low” ceilinged lobby of RCMH. But practically speaking, I think it’s very rare — perhaps even unheard of — for any auditorium in Manhattan to NOT have any office space (or something similiar) above the ticket lobby. So to some degree it also seems to be a question of how much office space, administrative space or hotel rooms the theater’s builders are going to allow to be “displaced” by a “uselessly” high ticket lobby.

I think my comments about the clean lines of RCMH may have been misunderstood. Actually I was talking mostly about the clean lines of the interiors (especially the sunburst auditorium) that make the theater very unusual for a “movie” palace — and thus rather distinctive. I think these interiors probably make RCMH more “photogenic” — especially to the modern day tastes of the general public at large.

Regarding the exteriors — it seems to me from photographs that the Hotel Taft’s exteriors somewhat MATCH those of the Roxy. This is one of the reasons I think that the same corporate builder may have been involved in both. (The exteriors of the Hotel Manhattan, the Majestic, the Golden and the Royale — which indeed had the same corporate parent — also, similarly, “match.”) While at the time of the Roxy’s demolition, the ticket lobby area (as well as, of course, the Roxy facilities in the hotel structure above the ticket lobby) were apparently owned by someone else, I wonder if this was true when they were constructed?

While, I will have to keep an eye out for info on the construction of the hotel, it seems to me that the that kind of hotel structure is of the same era as that of the Roxy — another reason that it appears to me that there may have been some sort of corporate connection between the Roxy and the hotel.

With regard to the aesthetics of the interior of the Roxy: “… perhaps not the most artistic and memorable at all levels, but certainly overwhelming if for no other reason that vastness.” If I understand this comment correctly, this is close to my point: that the effect of the Roxy largely depended upon being overwhelmed by its size when you were inside it.

While technically speaking, Roxy may not have “abandoned” the Roxy but been forced out, if the Roxy theater were a “first” wife she would have had good grounds for divorce because of Roxy’s “unfaithfulness” with the two much younger and more stylish young beauties he was having “an affair” with. I think this is closer to how the general public may have seen Roxy’s relationship with the original Roxy.

I hope I didn’t come across as being “anti” Roxy. I was just trying to add some more reasons to those already given as to why RCMH may have had (if it indeed did have) a higher profile than the Roxy.

Benjamin on January 6, 2005 at 7:35 pm

Re: the lobby area of Roxy

Actually, in spite of the differences in architectural styles, I think the lobby area of RCMH and the Roxy are actually quite similar.

Both of them sit beneath a skyscraper that is separate and apart from the theater itself. In the case of the Roxy, the building was a hotel; in the case of RCMH it is an office building with an entrance on, I believe, Sixth Ave. (just to the north of the entrance to RCMH itself).

In both cases the theater patron goes from a long, relatively low, lobby/ticket area into a vast and grand theater lobby. In the case of RCMH the lobby space is rectangular and goes across the block. In the case of the Roxy, I believe it was oval – which was a clever way for the architect to mask the fact that the auditorium itself was not parallel to the street it fronted on, but was at a angle (to make the most of a relatively small plot of land).

In both cases, having a skyscraper over the ticket lobby area is a way of optimizing the value of the land. The lobby/ticket area of a theater is pretty much the only part of a theater overwhich one can economically build another structure. (Interestingly, it appears that the builders of that grand movie place in Atlanta, for example, had no need to maximize the value of their land in this way. From the illustrations I’ve seen they only have stores to the left and right of the lobby/ticket area — but no office building above.

Don’t know what the arrangement was between the Roxy and the Taft, but both of them seem to have exteriors built in the same style. So my guess is that they were built together — pehaps by the same owner who then leased or sold off the parts? For a similar arrangement look at what was once the Hotel Manhattan (don’t remember if that’s its current name) on Eighth Ave. It was built by the same builder and in the same architectural style as the Majestic Theater (44th St.), the Golden and Royale Theaters (45th Sts.). The theaters all share a common service alley way on 45th St. that used to be open but is not gated off.

By the way, I think the Michealangelo is some sort of condo/corporate hotel. I think big corporations own apartments there where they put up workers visiting from other places. For instance, I once temped at a fabric company (in the building just across the street to the north) that housed an employee from North Carolina who was temporarily assigned to a project at the New York office.

Re: Popularity / fame of Roxy vs. RCMH — some additional thoughts

Interesing question. I agree that the fact that one was demolished “ages” ago is part of the reason. Also think that the clean lines of RCMH makes it more distinctive — especially among movie palaces! — and also more “photogenic” (i.e., a beauty that easily comes across in photos).

Also think that the Roxy interior was maybe more overwhelming for being “gargantuan” than for being visually engaging. (Personally, I think as a kid I was my fascinated by spectacular “themed” theaters, like the Loew’s atmospherics, than by the Roxy.

Also, RCMH was the newer and “better” theater — after all didn’t Roxy himself(!) forsake the Roxy for the Roxy Center and Radio City Music Hall. So, I guess, people may have just seen the Roxy as being a bit old hat.

(Interestingly, I think it was generally believed that RCMH was the largest theater in the world (which would certainly have added luster to its image) although maybe the Roxy was the larger of the two? — not to mention other theaters that also might have been larger than either of them. So maybe RCMH also had a better press department?

Plus RCMH is part of a large and famous group of buildings — and that probably also helped.

Myron on January 6, 2005 at 6:09 pm

CC Connolly is right, the Taft Hotel was not demolished but re-named as the Michelangelo. I passed by this week and it does look the same. It’s very depressing to remember all the good times we spent at the Roxy. By the way, the Roxy didn’t always offer a live show with the film. They were in competition with the RCMH, so had no choice. We often strolled over to the Roxy if the Music Hall’s line was too long. I preferred the Roxy because I preferred films from 20th Century-Fox and loved the Alfred Newman Cinemascope fanfare. Also, I felt the Roxy had a more attractive marquee, while the RCMH had an art-decor marquee. Which theatre had better popcorn, I don’t remember.

Vito on January 5, 2005 at 12:06 pm

Bill, for a moment, while reading your notes I was able to forget the troubles of the world, travel thru time, and imagine myself watching the grand curtain rise at RCMH to the MGM logo on “Teahouse” and hear the Fox Fanfare at the Roxy for “Anastasia”. Thanks for that.

BoxOfficeBill on January 5, 2005 at 6:03 am

On the RCMH page yesterday, SimonL evoked the “Ave Maria” chorales that the Roxy had offered (inconsistently) in their Christmas shows. He rightly questioned my recall of that presentation with the screening of “Anastasia” in ‘57. But since after twenty-eight years I recently opened my sealed storage-box of programs and playbills from the '50s and '60s, I’ll act badly and quote from the souvenir of that show.

It was an expanded program celebrating the first anniversary of return of the Roxy’s stage shows, which had been suspended since CinemaScope overtook the proscenium in ‘53 (“The Robe,” et al.). The show was titled “Wide Wide World Holiday,” and Sandy Szabo, who last 10 October wrote on this page that she had skated at the Roxy, is listed among the Ice Roxyettes. It began with a segue from the Fox Movietone Newsreel, in which the then ubiquitous television personality Dave Garroway congratulated the theater’s Managing Director Robert C. Rothafel for his wisdom in resuming the live presentations. Next followed “the Roxy Orchestra under the baton of Robert Boucher and the Roxy Caroleers under the direction of Robert Nicholson” [at this point might it have been possible that the latter intoned “Ave Maria”? I remember this chorale from shows past, but might have transposed it here?].

Segment #2 was called “Happiness Street—Anywhere, U.S.A.” and it enlisted “the entire ensemble featuring the Ice Roxyettes” along with the Caroleers, first in a number entitled “Song to a Star,” and then in a number (confounding Cole Porter, Mary Martin, and Eartha Kitt) entitled “My Heart Belongs to Santa Baby,” the latter “introducting Miss Mae Edwards …a 1957 Chrvrolet Corvette … Manuel Del Toro [the lead male skater] … the Roxy Blades [the male skating corps] and Paula Newland, vocalist.” My memory of this scene goes quietly blank.

Segment #3 was called “Three Spots of Cheer” and it featured the Roxyettes, Blades, and Caroleers “in a holiday visit to Merrie London Town and Holand and … a touch of ‘Christmas in Killarney.’” Here my visual recall summons an image of those snow villages that you place on train sets at this time of year, with appropriate Victorian, Dutch, and Gaelic touches.

Segment #4 was called “The Bruises” and offered “holiday hilarity and nonsensical fun!” Clowns on skates, no doubt: don’t hold me to it.

Segment #4, “Winter Blossom Time,” introduced, with thanks to Eastman Kodak, “the scenic presentation of the innovation known as ‘SpectaColor.’” I recall that the latter was a gigantic projection device, like a 35 mm home-slide-show pumped up to unimaginable dimensions. Its three numbers were comprised of “The Jingle Belles of Ming in Fan Fare” with Miss Edwards, the Roxyettes, and Caroleers (hazy memories of the Tibetan Roof, Chongqing, Suzhou, the Great Wall, and the like), “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” with Miss Edwards and the Blades (the program notes “with apologies to the Kabuki and Noh plays of Japan”: but why apologize?), and “Geisha Gaiety” with “the entire ensemble in a holiday celebration.” Here SimonL recalls a striking image of Japan’s Matsumoto mountain as the curtain fell.

Two notes: (1)The Christmas film at RCMH that year was “Sayonara,” and the co-incidental Japanese thematics conveys a whiff of the rivalry that those theaters pitched coyly at the time. (2) The following year, Kodak photographed the Rockettes in their Christmas routine accompanying “Auntie Mame” (my Showplace program for the week of 4 Dec. ‘58 calls the number “Rocket to the Moon”). That enormous photomural was then put on exhibit at Grand Central Terminal, and in Dec. '61 was returned to the stage of RCMH as a self-referential backdrop for the Rockettes who were clad in the same outfits they had worn for the picture. By that time, as we all know, the Roxy had been razed, with a scant remainder of Kodak moments to remind us of what it had been.

chconnol on January 3, 2005 at 4:55 pm

There was a truly lame “Modern Marvels” program on the History Channel last Thursday evening about Times Square. My mouth salivated at the thought (before it started) that they would at least dwell in part on the great movie palaces in Times Square. But lo and behold, the program barely discussed the item touching upon it ever so briefly and never ONCE discussing any particular theater by name except for The Hippodrome(??!!) and showing still photographs of The State and some semi-interesting photos of The Capitol and The Rivoli. The stupid ass thing about it was that they showed the photographs but did not identify the theaters by name. Only because of this site did I know what I was looking at.

Why hasn’t someone done a documentary on the movie houses of NYC? You’d think PBS could do something amazing with it. The Roxy alone sounds like it could make a fascinating documentary. That’s just me, of course.