Roxy had large success in New York City starting with the Regent Theatre on 116th Street and 7th Ave. Roxy worked his way through most of the Times Square Theatres as a production manager/managing director including The Rialto, The Rivoli, The Strand and the Capitol (where he really honed the Roxy style). 

 

There are reports of 6 theatres being planned as part of a new Roxy Theatre Circuit. If 6 theatres were planned, the idea was dropped quickly as there was only mention of 2 other theatres by the time Stocks for the newly formed corporation were being issued.  During construction of the Roxy and prior to opening, two other theatres were publicly announced with only one other theatre being completed. This is confirmed in Stock ads  in the trade papers. Those two theatres were The Beacon Theatre on Broadway and 74th Street (which was most likely going to be called the Roxy Midtown) and The Roxy Mansion Theatre on Lexington at 58th Street. There has always been talk of the location of the 175th Street Loews being an Uptown Roxy. Regardless, trade magazines and stock information have only mentioned the two other theatres on Broadway and Lexington Ave. 

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Lubin was over budget by a reported $2 Million and was on the verge of bankruptcy. He in turn sold the Roxy to William Fox of Fox Pictures two weeks after the Roxy's opening. Fox never reported what he paid for the theatres except for saying "Millions". The Roxy was reported to be built for $12 Million in 1927. Fox had an interested in the theatre to be the flag ship Fox Theatre in NYC with the idea that stageshows would be originated at the Roxy and then would travel around the country as complete packages to other Fox Theatres in San Francisco, St. Louis, Detroit and Atlanta. During the sale to Fox, there was mention of the two other theatres being part of the sale. The Beacon had started its construction and ground was "broken" for The Mansion Theatre. The Beacon was sold to Warner Brothers and there was never a theatre built in the location of the proposed Mansion Theatre. All mention of these two other theatres vanished from the press once Fox took over the Roxy. Its also interesting to note the contentious relationship between William Fox and Roxy, that when the Brooklyn Fox opened on Flatbush ave in 1929, Roxy's name was never mentioned and was instead under direct supervision of "William Fox". 

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The Roxy seated 5920 at the time of its opening. This number had changed over the years but was the largest seating capacity of any American theatre until Radio City Music Opened in December 1932. The Roxy opened on March 11, 1927 at 830pm and featured Gloria Swanson in "The Love of Sunya". The orchestra featured 110 musicians with a large Kimball Theatre Organ that was comprised of 34 ranks and 3 organ consoles. The Roxy also housed two other organs: a Lobby Organ and a Radio Studio Organ.  The orchestra was conducted by another Roxy alum, Erno Rapee. Rappe left the Captiol at the same time Roxy left to work exclusively for the new Roxy Theatre. Rappe would follow Roxy to Radio City in 1932 and remained musical director at the Music Hall until his death in 1945. 

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The stock market crash of 1929 impacted the Roxy's stability. By 1932, the theatre was in very bad financial shape that it was ordered closed in the summer of 1932 for at least 3-4 weeks to reorganize. When the theatre reopened in August  of 1932, it was reported that the musician count of the orchestra was lowered to 80 (after its largest being 125). It has also been noted that the stage apron was enlarged making the orchestra pit smaller, the three organ consoles were removed with only the large 5 manual organ being placed in an alcove outside of the pit and the organ chambers being walled-up and the organ now amplified. We do not know if the orchestra was on a permanent band car on stage or still remained in the orchestra pit. When the theatre opened in Aug of 1932, another Roxy alum would helm the orchestra this time: Hugo Reisenfeld.  From photos of the unavailing of the new Cinemascope Screen in 1953, it appears that the 5 manual Kimball Console was relocated to the left of its original position in the orchestra pit and there is still quite substantial room in the existing pit to house both the console on the smaller orchestra. 

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By 1935, William Fox would merge his studios with the younger studio, 20th Century, to created 20th Century-Fox. The Roxy would remain a Fox Theatre though out the 30's and 40's. By the early 50's, theatres took a hit by Television and the post-war suburban sprawl. The big Deluxe houses would dramatically lose attendance in the matter of 7 years, dropping almost by half from the 90 million US attendance per week in 1947 to around 51 million per week in 1952. 

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One of the ways the movie studios and theatre's combated TV was by stepping away from the conventional aspect ratio of 1.37 (which was the same for TV) and mono sound and adopted widescreen processes like Cinerama in 1952, Vistavision and 20th Century-Fox's own "Cinemascope" in 1953. Accompanying all of these formats was magnetic Stereo Multi-Channel Sound or Persepcta Optical Stereo Sound. Unlike Paramount's Vistavision which could be played back with a flat lens, Cinemascope was a 2.55:1 (2.35 Conventional 35mm) widescreen process that utilized an anamorphic (Fisheye) lens to uncompress the image.

 

The Roxy was the NY premiere theatre with this Cinemascope process in 1953. The film "The Robe" opened at the Roxy in September of 1953. Although the Cinemscope screen was as wide of the proscenium opening, it didn't damage any of the ornamental plaster work of the theatre at this time. Although, between 1953 and 1958, new stage curtains were added around the original proscenium covering over damaged plasterwork for unknown reasons, but this was also remodeling trend being done throughout all the Time Square Deluxe Theatres. Unfortunately, with the addition to another short lived widescreen process, "Cinemiracle", the proscenium of the theatre was dramatically altered with the addition of an almost 146 degree screen (100' x 40') and the addition of a new projection booth on the mezzanine level (the original booth was located in the upper balcony). Cinemiracle was very similar to Cinerama with the exception of some technical updates to mesh the three projector system better than the original 3 strip Cinerama. Due to the addition of this permanently fixed screen to the front of the proscenium the Roxy would stop all stage shows during the engagement of "Windjammer". It was announced that all stage shows would stop for the foreseeable future, but this wasn't the case. It appears that a Stage Shows would be brought back by the summer of 1958. We are unsure if the Cinemiracle screen was removed or a thrust stage was built in front of the screen during this period  The movie, "Windjammer" opened in March of 1958, lasted only 4 months and was the only film released in the Cinemiracle process. 

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Unfortunately, none of the changes that happened to the Roxy during its last decade of life couldn't help save the theatre and it would be closed by March 1960 and replaced by an office building as part of the expanding Rockefeller Center complex on 6th Ave. It was too early for any historical preservation movement (3 years before the loss of Pennsylvania Station) and it was the first of the Deluxe Houses in Times Square area to be torn down. It was followed shortly, by the New York Paramount and The Capitol. The remaining Deluxe Theatres remained only as cut-up multiplexs or other uses. By 1990, all of the Deluxe Theatres in the theatre district, with the exception of Radio City Music Hall were all gone. The Roxy Theatre was only 32 years old when it was torn down in 1960. 

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