RKO Proctor's 58th Street

Hi. Just found this site. I worked at RKO 58th St Theatre from 1948 to 1954 after school and weekends. Started as an Usher, became Chief of Service – started at 45 cents per hour for 22 hour week, then 55 cents per hour for forty hour week after school and weekends, then 62 ½ cents per hour as chief.
Lavish decor. The stage was set up for vaudeville acts so had elevators built in it, whole attached building of dressing rooms and large areas storage. Curtains and drops were hung above the stage, lots of rigging, hoists, pulleys, etc up there. You could go up about forty, fifty feet and be on a catwalk where they suspended everything from. Very scary. There was a long open vertical ladder going up sidewall of stage that ushers used to climb as a ritual of passage – open ladder, steel built into wall – very long way up. Very spooky, you imagined meeting the Phantom of the Opera there. The basement had a tank for seals, heavy cages for lions/tigers and stalls for horses.
The sky had been projected on the huge ceiling over the orchestra and balcony. It was pierced with holes for “stars” to shine through – projectors on the sides hidden in plaster decorations sent up images of clouds drifting across the sky. Ceiling was only mesh and plaster on metal framework Steel catwalks criss-crossed above the ceiling allowed you to walk up there, look through “star” holes way, way down at seats – that was really bad.
Had a huge pipe organ with console that rose on elevator. Pipes of course hidden in sidewalls with trumpets, drums, etc. The house electrician, a bit crazy put in fuses one night and fired up organ – it still worked somewhat after years of inactivity – dust it blew out took a week to settle though.
We used to help the electrician change the signage on the two marquees, erected scaffolding, go up and shuffle letters. They were steel sheets that fit in tracks, had cutout for the white porcelain letters. Got five bucks for helping him, not bad for two hours of work when you are making 55 cents per hour ushering. Course this occurred after midnite, got home 2:30 and off to school in AM. Yawn. Marquee layout of lettering was a real art, had to layout the letters and spaces of the signs, get it approved by Manager. There were blank spacers, ¼, ½, full space. it had to look balanced and right. Had to replace burned out bulbs which often broke. would then used base of another bulb and jam it into busted one and screw it out. Electrician used to stick his knuckles into sockets to check if they were live – it was 110 volts DC power, original Thomas Edison system which was used in lower Manhattan until the late 1950’s. not AC – most of movie house had DC power as this was in older part of Manhattan – There was also some AC power in the house, never knew which was in a particular outlet, Lot of equipment couldn’t use DC power, burned out the new butter dispenser for the pocorn at the refreshment stand that way, also first freezer for the ice cream.
Theatre had one of the earlier Carrier air-conditioning systems. Had a huge DC motor driving compressor, Frankenstein style switches with heavy carbon pads instead of knife contacts, The house engineer had to use a starting technique. “Never look at the switch” he would say. It drew brilliant arc for they were also circuit breakers and would snap open. Like looking at a welding arc. To start he would grab the handles of two switches and slam them home. BANG – they immediately popped open and the big motor would rumble and turn over slightly, they he would quickly slam them home again and they would BANG and brilliant arc, but motor now was turning a bit faster, quickly again and same results but motor was reving a bit, and again – five-six times and the switch breakers would stay in and motor would be running, They he went off to the circulating pumps for this system chilled water, They would start easier and then he had to manipulate valves, etc to control refrigerant. The air for the theatre was heated in winter by NY Steam piped in from street, no furnaces in the house. When cooling needed, the chilled water was sent into a big room where the air was blowing though – it actually sprayed in there, cooling the air but also humidifying it – went to a drying chamber to eliminate actual fog droplets and then up into the house for distribution.
I was there when the Sychro Screen was installed, they had to upgrade the projectors and used the ones for drive-ins. A lot of people didn’t like them as they thought the picture didn’t fit the whole screen but I thought it was more restful to the eye. Had to shut down for couple of days for that installation and for the later Cinemascope screen. Had to shut down too after the first showing of the Robe in Cinemascope. When projectionist rewound it after first showing, the DC motors on the rewinder garbled the magnetic sound track on the film. Had to get new cans of film. Refunded a lot of tickets that day. Projectionists were king of the place though, made as much as the manager.
Manager then was A.E. Arnstein, his assistant was Mrs. Wachtel, the Porter was Felix Bell a retired boxer, Mrs. McNally was the Matron. They did use both box offices whole time I was there, the 58th St one opened into the theatre office. They closed the 58th St office early leaving the 3rd Avenue one open.

Here’s a link to a scan of an article about the RKO 58th Street in Boxoffice, August 6, 1956. There are photos of the John J. McNamara-designed remodeling job, and a couple of “before” shots.

This closed as a movie theatre in mid-May 1967 and the last films were indeed “The Viscount” and “The Cool Ones”.

After a long lapse, let me continue my recollections on RKO 58th, I worked there from 1948 to 1954 as usher and later Chief of Service while going to school. As mentioned in the theater description, the balcony was huge, The lower section were the premium loge seats providing the best view in the house. Ushers were stationed at Loge Left and at night at Loge Right to inspect and seat the premium paying patrons. The loge seats were bigger and softer than the normal orchestra and balcony seats and hence commanded the premium price. Ushers had to be alert to prevent regular patrons from taking loge seats. The upper balcony was normally closed and in fact, when needed because of a hit film, had to be specially cleaned. It was really very high up and very distant from the screen although the Synchro Screen that was installed was much larger than the previous one. The main lobby had a very high ceiling and two chandeliers were suspended from it. Periodically they had to be relamped. The house electrician had to go up in the loft area above it and use two hand-cranked winches to lower them for relamping. These were old and hard to crank and he got into a somewhat jerky way. Yhis set up some vibration and several large pieces of plaster from the ornate ceiling came loose and fell smashing on the lobby floor. It was after closing of course so it scared only the cleaners. Off the lobby on the house left side was the Managers and Chief of Service offices and a stair leading down to the basement area where the changing room for the ushers and the engineering spaces ad storeroom s were. There was also a passage leading to backstage and lots of deserted rooms and spaces. In some of them were stored boxes of large glass projection slides dating back to the forties at least and maybe earlier. These had the words to songs that the organist used to play. Wish I had taken some of them as many had cartoon drawings on them. It was very spooky down there and backstage as well as no one worked or ever went back there. We wereen’t supposed to go back there but the manager left at ten, the assistant manager left after the end of the last showing you had checked balcony and house for sleepers. So after you changed your uniform it was only the cleaners there. One feature of the 58th Street theater was the Lodge Building attached on 58th Street and part of same structure. Various fraternal orders had meeting rooms. It was all very mysterious as there was a doorman there who kept everyone out who had no business there. Although part of the same building and having some ties to it (maybe owned by RKO?) it was still off-limits even to ushers. Backstage, there were a lot of dressing rooms and offices, all empty and full of boxes and debris. It must have been very busy in the heyday of Vaudville. Ushering was mind-numbing most of the time. Daytimes only one usher would be on duty in the loges. Evenings and on weekends one would be on duty on the center aisle (aisle 3) and two in the loges. A doorman took tickets, even more mind-numbing than ushering as he couldn’t see the screen. These were usually retired men. (a Mr. Conti was a long serving doorman) One peculiar duty of the Chief of Service was to go each evening to Loews Lexington Theater and check the house for the number of patrons. You would come back and report it to the manager who called in. Loews didn’t mind and you would go to their doorman and announce you were from RKO and he would admit you. A look at the orchestra, then to the balcony and loges and a long walk back to RKO. Ushers were issued a uniform including a cardboard dickey and cardboard collar held together with a collar pin stud. It took a while to be able to slip a tie and knot it properly. Cardboard collars are not comfortable and chaffed the neck. I saw a lot of movies of course since we showed double-features. Most were forgettable, lots of grade B Westerns mysteries, etc but better than the tripe on TV now. And I will never forget the magnificence of that theater.

Regarding the nightly checking of Loews Lexington for attendance. I seem to remember that Loews did a better business than we did. Loews was tied in with MGM and so had better pictures. We drew a fair number of patrons from Queens who came across the bridge on a trolley or bus later. We did get Disney films though. We did get “stinke-bombed” once, alleged to be done by the projectionist’s union who were in negotiations with the theater chains. It was never proved of course. A bottle with a loose stopper was placed under a seat on orchestra right and then kicked over by the perpetrator as he left. It rolled down several rows spilling as it went. Really bad stuff requiring special cleanup and we were closed for two days as the place was uninhabitable. Theater unions were very strong but unfortunately never got to the ushers level as you could note from the pay scale I quoted in a previous post.