The Roxy Theatre, New York City, 1927-1961.

With its nearly 6,000 seats and multi-tiered balconies, the Roxy Theatre was the showplace of New York City and of the nation.

Construction began on March 22, 1926 and it opened on March 11, 1927 with Gloria Swanson in “The Loves of Sonya”.

It was designed by architect Walter W. Ahlschlager of Chicago (who also designed New York’s Beacon Theatre), with interior decoration by Harold W. Rambusch of New York.

Its rather modest entrance at the corner of the Taft Hotel building disguised one of the most cavernous lobbies ever built and a magnificent auditorium that has lived on in its patrons’ imagination.

Whatever adjectives can be used for the Roxy Theatre, they all fail to signify the theatre’s achievement.

Sadly, the decline in attendance that had begun in the 1950’s spilled over into the early-1960’s and the Roxy Theatre closed with Dirk Bogarde in “The Wind Cannot Read” which began its run on March 9, 1960.

Despite numerous protests, it was razed in 1961. In its place sits a nondescript and unremarkable office building.

The neighboring Taft Hotel survives to this day (now the Michangelo Hotel) and is the only evidence that this epic structure was ever here. A TGI Friday’s restaurant occupies the theatres’ original entrance.

The legacy of the Roxy Theatre is almost as impressive as the theater itself once was.

The name ‘Roxy’ has since adorned movie theaters, nightclubs, restaurants and a host of other establishments around the world all attempting to give to their patrons what Roxy always brought to its own: entertainment.

The end of the Roxy Theatre signified the beginning of the end for thousands of movie palaces across the country.

With its destruction, New York City began to destroy its past for urban renewal and the city, and movie palaces, have never been the same.

Read on via Roxy Theatre in New York, NY – Cinema Treasures.