Roxy Theatre
419 S. 5th Street,
Springfield,
IL
62701
419 S. 5th Street,
Springfield,
IL
62701
1 person
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Showing 20 comments
BillJunior: The Majestic Theatre, Springfield, IL does come up on a search of theatres with the Majestic name. Currently page 13 of ‘All Theatres’ when you type Majestic in the search box, this page for the Roxy Theatre comes up. I will contact the technical site manager regarding the insecure log-in. Thanks for telling us you enjoy the site. Ken Roe, Volunteer Theatre Editor.
BillJunior, I am not an Admin on this site. Just a contributor since 2004. If you click on the About link on the Home page, it will show where you can contact the Admins for support and send suggestions.
Thank you for mentioning. I have a few observations that might improve the site because after all, it is a very good site. The log in page is not secure and states your password and name can be “compromised” when you type it. That should be an easy fix. Per “The Roxy” of this entry; it does not appear under “Majestic” even on the main search page i.e. “Movie Theaters matching ‘Majestic’” when one searches all demolished Majestic theaters in the U.S. Yet The Roxy in Logansport, Indiana does appear when searching for the “Majestic” so, you’d think the same would be with this Illinois entry. It would be nice to have the “Previous Names” be a hyper-link to a sub page where a visitor could see even more images, another write up, etc. like a for more information section on each entry. I mention this because there is a real case here whereby the old Majestic was a more important venue than the Roxy but a historian or visitor would never see that information because of the way it is presented on this entry. Again, thanks for the assistance and for such a neat site!
BillJunior, Majestic Theatre has already been added to the Roxy’s “Previous Names” and is recognized as such in the Overview. CT usually uses the last/most current names for reference, but not always. So anything pertinent to the Majestic should be in the comments section here, and not submitted as a new theatre.
For longer/verbose comments, it is sometime advisable to split them up into separate paragraphs, or even separate comments, so whatever algorithms CT is using does not flag them as spam.
As far as adding new theatres to CT, I usually cross reference them with Cinematour first to make sure that they are not already added to CT but under a different name. If they then indeed prove to be missing, you add new theatres by using the “Submit your favorite” box in the lower right hand corner of the Cinema Treasures Home page. Just follow the prompts after you enter the given theatre name. State, address, previous names, description etc. will be in the pages that follow. Your initial description often is what appears as the initila Overview. After submitted, CT Admins will cross reference what was added with the records they have, and after approved it will appear under “Newest theaters” in the upper right hand corner of the Cinema Treasures Home page. After a new theatre has it’s own page, you can then add photos and additional comments.
Dear David, my hesitance uploading it to the comments is that it’s quite verbose. It is a new entry– the Majestic Theater and not the Roxy. The Majestic pre-dated the Roxy but was in the same building. How does one post a new theater for a given city? For example, there are a couple entries that could be added for Chicago that are missing and I’d like to add them. Thank you!
You should try uploading it directly to this page in the comments.
Hello, I created a write-up on the Majestic Theater, the house that pre-dates the Roxy. I sent the piece over to this site to be uploaded and no reply as of one month on. Is anyone monitoring the forum? Thank you.
Golffanatc, your photo has been added crediting Sangamon Valley Archives.
How does someone post a picture? I have found one at Sangamon Valley Archives of the Majestic from 1907 that I would like to upload, but don’t know how. If someone else can handle it, here is the link:
https://lincpubl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/public/index.assetbox.assetactionicon_0.view/1000234?rm=ARCHITECTURE+-1%7C%7C%7C1%7C%7C%7C0%7C%7C%7Ctrue
1938 & 1970 photos added via Terry Young.
July 1962 photo added credit Springfield Rewind facebook page.
Hadley & Worthington architectural refurbishing of the New Roxy Theater in 1950 in photos.
November 22nd, 1950 grand reopening ad also in photo section.
January 19th, 1935 grand opening ad in photo section.
Escapologist: What does that word mean? Does it have anything to do with magic and the type of escape magic Houdini pulled off? Harry Houdini was a BIG name to appear in Springfield Illinois!
HOUDINI played here Feb 7-9th 1924.
I see that this theatre is listed as ‘closed’ so is it still standing and is there any restoration group interested in restoring it?
lostmemory;
I am not sure where Bryan Kreft got the 1884 opening date from in the opening description. The THSA Marquee magazine Vol 7 #2 has an article on Springfield IL theatres which states the Majestic Theatre was built in 1906 as a ‘legit’ theatre. So the May 1907 opening date you have sounds about right. In 1914 it went over to vaudeville and played the Orpheum Circuit bookings until the new Orpheum Theatre opened in April 1927. Then re-modelled as the Roxy Theatre in the 1930’s.
lostmemory;
That is the correct Majestic Theatre, when it was re-modelled as the Roxy Theatre the seating capacity stated in Film Daily Yearbooks is given as 1,100.
It is amazing how many theatres are named ROXY in imitation of the once famous name of the New York City panjandrum of the movie palace: Samual Lionel Rothapfel = “Roxy”. His namesake was the famous ROXY THEATRE in NYC, which outlasted him by only 25 years when it was demolished in 1960. The whole story is in that landmark book “The Best Remaining Seats: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace” by the late Ben M. Hall in 1961. Various editions of it are sometimes available from www.Amazon.com, but only the first edition contains the color plates.