The Roxy's stage, while very wide, was not very deep and had limited space off stage. The design maximized the auditorium's size and seating capacity but compromised the function of its triangular stage. The hotel (later called the Taft Hotel) was built at the same time as the theater.Īhlschlager succeeded in creating an efficient plan for the Roxy's irregular plot of land, which utilized every bit of space by featuring a diagonal auditorium plan with the stage in one corner of the lot.
Off the rotunda was a long entrance lobby that led through the building of the adjacent Manger Hotel to the theater's main entrance at the corner of Seventh Avenue and W.
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Its main lobby was a large columned rotunda called the "Grand Foyer", which featured "the world's largest oval rug", manufactured by Mohawk Carpets in Amsterdam, New York, plus its own pipe organ on the mezzanine. Known as the "Cathedral of the Motion Picture", the Roxy's design by Ahlschlager featured a soaring golden, Spanish-inspired auditorium. who opened it as Warner's Beacon in 1929. The nearly complete theater was sold to Warner Bros.
Only one of the projected Roxy chain was built, the planned Roxy Midway Theatre on Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, also designed by Ahlschlager. With Lubin's exit, Roxy's dreams of his own theater circuit also ended. The final cost of the theater was $12 million.
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Lubin, who was $2.5 million over budget and near bankruptcy, sold his controlling interest a week before the theater opened to movie mogul and theater owner William Fox for $5 million. Roxy's lavish ideas and his many changes ran up costs dramatically. He worked with Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager and decorator Harold Rambusch of Rambusch Decorating Company on every aspect of the theater's design and furnishings. Roxy determined to make his theater the summit of his career and in it realize all of his theatrical design and production ideas.
It was intended to be the first of six planned Roxy Theatres in the New York area. To realize his dream, Lubin brought in the successful and innovative theater operator Samuel L. Rothafel, aka "Roxy", to bring it to fruition, enticing him with a large salary, percentage of the profits, stock options and offering to name the theatre after him. The Roxy Theatre was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin in mid-1925 as the world's largest and finest motion picture palace. Roxy Theatre Weekly Review, March 10, 1928
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