It was the last word in "colossal" movie theatres, a relic of the 1920's when florid gilt and marbled cinemas mushroomed across the land, each more ornate than the last. A zenith had to be reached one day and that ultimate was generally conceded to be the New York Roxy Theatre.

Kimball organ in the lobby balcony

If you were one of the 50 million visitors who climbed stairways during the cavernous theatre's first 12 years of operation, it is very likely that you came to see this magnificent theatre in operation. The current attraction was merely an added benefit of your visit.

You entered under a sparkling galaxy of 4,500 marquee lights. As you gave your ticket to the smartly uniformed doorman, your feet sank into the deep carpet underfoot.

You were greeted by the sound of live organ music resounding throughout the spacious foyer. Frank White may have been at the console of the three-manual Kimball organ located in a little balcony above the foyer... or it could have been playing automatically from the player roll mechanism.

You were amazed at the opulent acres of carpeting, the costly hanging of "dream cloth," all of which was dominated by a huge ton-and-a-half chandelier which cast its shimmering sparkles over the huge rotunda.

Such was the Roxy Theatre, Broadway's fanciest, flashiest showcase from the era of colossal movie palaces.

Turning Back the Clock

We turn the time back to March 11, 1927 -- the day the palatial theatre opened.

You managed to find a seat in the huge auditorium just in time for the organ presentation. With the enormous stage curtain softly flooded with variegated light as a backdrop, three massive organ consoles rose in the orchestra pit, all the while creating that glorious music which to this day echoes in the memories of those who heard it.

The musicians of the 100-piece symphony orchestra were all in their places behind illuminated music racks, but the orchestra elevator remained at the bottom of the pit so as not to block the sound of the organ emanating from chambers beneath the stage.

Soft lighting illuminated the gilded stairways that adorned both sides of the gigantic stage. Behind the columns and staircases that surrounded the gaudy proscenium was an area honeycombed with passageways leading to several balconies on different levels. These balconies were often used for specialty acts or occupied by the Roxy Chorus during stage shows.

Attention was drawn to the three consoles by brilliant shafts of rose-colored light from the arc spots. The effect, visual and auditory, was one of breathtaking beauty.

Organist C. A. J. Parmentier was seated at the five-manual console in the center of the orchestra pit while Dezso d'Antalffy and Emil Velasco played the three-manual "Woodwind" and "Brass" consoles located at the sides of the pit.

As the final organ cadence sounded, the spots flipped from rose to a blinding white and the organists took their bows. The consoles then sank slowly below the rail as the spectacular show continued. Lew White later took over the master console.

Those were the great days of the Roxy, when it was the unchallenged number one showplace of the nation -- a title it was to maintain until the opening of Radio City Music Hall five years later.

The Five-Manual Kimball Organ Console

The pipework of the Kimball organ was installed under the stage in four chambers. It started out with 34 ranks, despite legends that it had up to 80 sets. Three ranks were installed in a Fanfare Chamber above the auditorium and included the Military Bugle 8', Fanfare Trumpet 16', 8' and 4', and Fife 4'. Hanging from a tower on the roof was a gigantic set of tubular Deagan chimes, the deepest being 21 feet in length. These were under expression and could be directed either into the auditorium or out on to the street, although no one seems to recall their use as tower chimes.

The five Roxy consoles are lined up for inspection before being shipped from the Kimball factory. L. to R., the broadcast studio 3/11, the three auditorium consoles, and the roll-playing, duplexed rotunda 3/10. Only the five-manual giant (center) survived the leveling of the theatre.

S. L. (Roxy) Rothafel, the impresario who dreamed up the Roxy Theatre, wanted to have the flashiest organ presentations possible. Being a showman of the old school, he figured that what the audience saw was perhaps even more important than what was heard. Thus the three consoles. This visual assault may also explain why the legend grew that the ranks numbered as high as 80.

Six thousand first-nighters crowded into the dual-balconied theatre on opening night. The Roxy was the last word in decorative gingerbread, gold leaf, draperies, alcoves, and urns -- the indications of elegance peculiar to movie houses of the "golden age."

It was regretted in some musical circles that the budget for the organ allotted too much for showy consoles while sacrificing ranks of pipes. Even so, there was never any complaint that the organ failed to fill the hall, although the under-stage installation made it necessary to saturate the rows closest to the orchestra pit in order to achieve a moderate level at the back of the auditorium. Problems arose with the orchestra pit moving up and down, blocking off much of the organ volume when the elevator was raised.

The Organ is Silenced

When Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932, live organ music in the Roxy ended. When Rothafel moved on to guide the course of the Radio City Music Hall, the new Roxy management decided to extend the stage apron out over the orchestra pit (which had until then been large enough for over 100 musicians and three organ consoles). This architectural miscarriage not only immobilized the pit elevator; it left no room for any consoles.

C. Sharp Minor, who was the house organist at the time, made a valiant effort to save the organ. He talked very persuasively to the management about relocating the pipework in chambers to be built on either side of the stage. The Kimball people suggested that all the pipework be placed on one side of the auditorium instead of divided. They believed the distance between the right and left sides would be too great for a divided organ to be effective. On July 9, 1932, Kimball's R. P. Elliot wrote the Chicago factory and outlined the plan, saying that the job would have to be completed in 20 days because the theatre was to reopen on July 29 under Mike Rubin's management. Elliot described the moving job in detail and obtained an estimate. But he couldn't sell the Roxy management on the cost of moving, so the organ fell silent.

The five-manual console in a basement tomb

The three consoles were packed off to a warehouse. In addition, the city building code now required that the area beneath the new footlight line be filled in with a wall of fireproof brick, sealing the organ chambers off from the auditorium completely. Between 1932 and 1936, the Fanchon & Marco management provided no organ music at all.

In 1936 Arthur Knorr came in as stage manager for Fanchon & Marco. He evidently had a weakness for organ music. Surveying the slumbering giant with its pipework sealed in a tomb under the stage, he hit upon the idea of amplifying the organ from its buried position, using the house public address system.

Meanwhile, Mike Schumm, the Roxy's organ maintenance man from the beginning, had completed a heartbreaking task. On orders he had moved the three ranks from the overhead Fanfare Chamber to the tomb of the Orchestra Chamber down under the stage.

Then came the happy order to move the master console from the warehouse back to the theatre. When the console arrived, it was swung up to the little balcony on the left side of the proscenium, where it remained until the early '50s. The organ sounded strangely muffled as it was amplified through the house public address system. The distortion and limited frequency response of the PA system could hardly do justice to the big Kimball sound... but at least it was organ music.

The "Ice Age" at the Roxy

After a few years of this amplified organ music, the Roxy adopted an ice show policy where everything presented on the stage was done by performers on ice skates. The stage became a huge frozen lake and remained that way for many years until the installation of a Cinemascope system. Several times during the "ice age," the ice melted and water dripped into the organ chambers, damaging chests located mainly in the Percussion chamber. Mike Schumm saved the rest of the organ by removing all vulnerable pipework and covering the denuded chests with tarpaper.

At the end of the "ice age" in 1954, a time that saw some of the worst flooding of the chambers, the master console was removed from its perch on the "shelf" and returned to its accustomed place in the pit. Mike Schumm went ahead with the tedious job of tuning, and in time he had about 18 ranks operational. The organ was used occasionally until January 1956 -- but always through the public address system. It was heard during the 1955 Christmas show and for a few performances into the New Year. The final organ performance was late in January 1956 with Gordon Seaman at the console. Shortly thereafter, stage shows were abandoned for the abortive run of the Cinemiracle film, "Windjammer." The 100-foot screen swallowed up the Roxy's vast proscenium arch, the ornamental boxes and staircases.

When stage shows were resumed, Bob Rothafel (nephew of the theatre's originator) managed the theatre during its final five years. He decided to enlarge the orchestra by adding ten musicians. The once-large pit was now cramped and the only way to make room for the extra sidemen was to move the console out of the pit. This time it was the final curtain for the organ. The console was heaved into a space beneath the orchestra pit and the floor was replaced over it.

This marked the end of the Roxy Kimball organ. So far as is known, there were never any commercial recordings made and there are probably no hobbyist recordings either.

POSTSCRIPT

S. L. (Roxy) Rothafel examines the five-manual console before its installation. Inset: Many years later, its current owner, Richard Loderhose, strikes a similar pose.

What became of the Roxy organ when the theatre was demolished? Most of it went down with the building, mainly because the wrecking firm was slow in processing bids for the instrument. The steel ball was ominously close to the building when Richard Loderhose of Jamaica, New York came to the rescue. Dick, who already owned the New York Paramount studio 4/21 Wurlitzer, entered the doomed theatre with his crew, only to be greeted by a scene of intense activity. Workmen were rolling up the once rich carpeting and tearing down the faded "dream cloth." In the huge foyer, Dick watched a crew of piano movers trying to hoist the console of the lobby organ over the balcony rail. Their block and tackle moved the bulky package over the railing, but before the descent started the makeshift platform crumpled and the console crashed 25 feet to the floor below as a pile of junk. With that unfortunate event, the buyer gave up and consigned the whole lobby organ to the mercy of the steel wrecking ball.

There was not time to remove the entire 5/34 auditorium organ (or even the 3/11 from the broadcast studio), so Loderhose concentrated on collecting some parts from both instruments -- the five-manual console and the distinctive Kimball reed pipework. In all, he saved 10 ranks of pipes, but there was insufficient time to remove their chests. He also managed to save some of the percussions.

In the mid 80's, the five-manual Kimball console was sold to Phil Maloof, then of Albuquerque. The console was part of the 5/29 organ installed in the Albuquerque's Classic Hotel. In 2000, the organ was moved to Las Vegas and installed in Roxy's Pipe Organ Pizzeria, Fiesta Casino.

Gloria Swanson bidding final farewell to the Roxy Theatre in New York City

Dick Loderhose found himself drawn to the Roxy ruins whenever he was in the neighborhood. During one visit, the great tower chimes (the longest measuring 21 feet) came crashing down in twos and threes, clanging in harsh and final tintinnabulation as the wreckers attacked their moorings. As the outline of the great auditorium disintegrated in rubble, one final scene remains etched in the Loderhose memory. It was the sight of the big wooden pedal diaphone pipes standing at attention in the same spot where they had been installed 33 years earlier, proudly proclaiming to passersby and the open sky that here once was a pipe organ.

The tragedy in the destruction of one of the world's great showplaces -- a theatre well maintained and in good condition -- is that it set a pattern of things to come. The Roxy was among the first of the great cinema palaces of the '20s to be sacrificed to the steel ball of "progress." Changing public tastes in the entertainment field (especially with the advent of television) rendered the big theatres unprofitable. These majestic palaces were simply torn down to clear the land for something that would make money -- such as a parking lot!

Once the trend was set by the demolition of the Roxy, there followed in dreary succession the leveling of the San Francisco Fox and Paramount, the Minnesota in Minneapolis, the Los Angeles Paramount and Carthay Circle, the Chicago Paradise and Marbro, the Toledo Paramount, the Palace and Loew's in Rochester, New York, the Oriental in Portland, the New Haven Paramount, and many more along New York's Broadway... among the memorable losses being the Capitol and Times Square Paramount. These represent only a few of the many theatres lost to future generations in a single decade since the Roxy went down.

Copyright © 1970 The American Theatre Organ Society, Inc. All rights reserved.