Comments from nrosen

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nrosen
nrosen commented about Roxy Theatre on Jan 29, 2007 at 7:03 pm

MJC
Sorry, no pictures of the projection booth in opening night program, but I hope you enjoy the following “word for word” description of the projection booth…

The unique location of the projection room—in a cut in the balcony—has a three-fold purpose, the bettering of the theatre’s acoutics, the improvement of projection and creation of an atmosphere of intimacy despite the theatre’s size. The distance from the booth to the screen—the “throw” of the picture is exactly 100 feet, instead of the customary 250 feet. All distortion is eliminated by this innovation. Sixteen projectionists are on the various shifts which will be entrusted with the projection of pictures for Roxy’s gang. Three different types of projectors demonstrate that the Roxy is keeping pace with developments so that the ultimate in motion picture entertainment may at all times be provided for patrons of the Roxy. There is the standard Simplex projector, the product of the International Projector Corp., a special projector for Vitaphone presentations, and one for projection of stereoscopic pictures, first of which now is being produced in Hollywood by the Spoor Natural Vision Process. Six high density arc lamps, installed by Hall & Connolly are used in the booth, four for the Simplex projector and for the use with the Natural Vision Pictures. Five others are used with the Brenkert floodlight. Hoffman & Soons supplied the rheostats for the exacting requirements. Equipment experts agree that the system used at the Roxy , which was designed by the National Theatre Equipment Corp., represents tremendous and revolutionary strides in projection.

nrosen
nrosen commented about Roxy Theatre on Jan 27, 2007 at 10:42 am

My grandfather, Abe Holzmann, was a music composer and friend of “Roxy” and attended the opening of the Roxy Theatre in NYC with my grandmother on 3/11/27. My grandfather wrote a music composition, “The Rialto”, in 1916 dedicated to Roxy. Roxy was Managing Director of The Rialto Theatre at the time it was written.
I have 2 ticket stubs ($11 each) from the opening night at the Roxy and the opening night program, “Roxy A History”. The program is 95 pages and contains many congratulatory messages along with pictures of those involved with the Theatre’s construction. It also has pictures of the interior and exterior of the Theatre and contains diagrams and much information about the Theatre. I also have a copy of the dedicatory program from the opening on 3/11/27. This program lists the events for the evening. The first motion picture shown at the Roxy was “The Love of Sunya” produced by Gloria Swanson.