The Man Who Made the Movies

by Vanda Krefft

47 handkerchief . . . right hand: “Who Captured Czolgosz?” NYT, Sept. 10, 1901, 3; “Verbatim Report of the Proceedings in the Trial of Czolgosz for the Murder of President M’Kinley,” Buffalo Courier, Sept. 25, 1901, 8.

  47 shot twice: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” 1.

  47 breastbone and stomach: “President Shot at Buffalo Fair,” NYT, Sept. 7, 1901, 1.

  47 whacked Czolgosz . . . lunged for the gun: “Detective Ireland’s Version,” LAT, Sept. 8, 1901, 5.

  47 toppled the assassin: Ibid.

  47 Pandemonium broke out: “The President Twice Shot,” 1.

  47 saw McKinley fall: Transcript, 22.

  48 “Fred Nieman”: “Verbatim Report,” 8.

  48 “trembled and trembled”: “The Assassin Makes a Full Confession,” 1.

  48 “no confidants”: Ibid.

  48 boyish-looking: “Detective Ireland’s Version,” 5.

  48 suspicious-looking character: Ibid.; “Verbatim Report,” 8.

  48 African American: “Detective Ireland’s Version,” 5.

  48 revised the story: “Who Captured Czolgosz?” 3.

  48 no “colored man”: “Czolgosz Guilty,” NYT, Sept. 25, 1901, 1; “Verbatim Report,” 8.

  48 “stop the reservoirs”: “Senator Depew Would Stop Immigration,” LAT, Sept. 17, 1901, 3.

  48 “thankful that there is such a pan”: Transcript, 22.

  49 “God wanted to save me”: Angela Fox Dunn interview with the author.

  49 Buffalo on September 23: “Assassin Czolgosz on Trial in Buffalo,” NYT, Sept. 24, 1901, 1.

  49 eight hours and twenty-six minutes: “Czolgosz Guilty,” 1.

  49 thirty-five minutes: Ibid.

  49 sentenced to death: Ibid.

  49 executed in the electric chair: “Assassin Czolgosz Is Executed at Auburn,” NYT, Oct. 30, 1901, 5.

  49 “I want to make a statement” . . . “cannot”: Ibid.

  49 “I am awfully sorry”: Ibid.

  49 Three surges of current at 1,700 volts: Ibid.

  49 Buffalo Cremation Company: “Cremation Refused,” LAT, Oct. 29, 1901, 1.

  49 drenched with a powerful acid: “Czolgosz Is No More,” Lockport Journal, (Lockport, NY), Oct. 31, 1901, 3.

  49 clothes and personal effects were burned: “The End of Czolgosz,” Weekly Bulletin, (Auburn, NY), no date or page number visible. (www.fultonhistory.com).

  49 “So far as possible”: “End of the Assassin,” LAT, Oct. 30, 1901, 8.

  50 “In all sincerity”: “Booker Washington’s View,” LAT, Oct. 2, 1901, 5.

  CHAPTER 5: 700 BROADWAY

  53 $12,000 tenement house: Transcript, 606.

  53 “Gee, I was proud!”: Ibid.

  53 “That is where I made”: Ibid.

  53 sold the property at a loss: USPWF, 47.

  53 Walking along . . .: Transcript, 13–14.

  54 fortune-telling machines . . . horses: David Nasaw, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 157.

  54 no great vision . . . savings to invest: Transcript, 13.

  54 eighteen feet wide: Ibid., 33.

  54 preparing for a major expansion: Charles Musser, The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1990), 405.

  54 “handsomest man you ever”: Transcript, 34.

  54 two friends . . . Sol Brill: Grau, The Theatre of Science, 20–21.

  54 Sol Brill and Jacob W. Loeb: “New York Incorporations,” NYT, Feb. 28, 1908, 13.

  54 Only two customers: Transcript, 14.

  54 hired crowds to pose: Ibid.

  55 “Temple of Art” . . . “to all an opportunity”: Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 116.

  55 footage of a tree . . . projection process: USPWF, 34.

  55 small store or even a backyard shack: Barton W. Currie, “The Nickel Madness,” Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 24, 1907, 1246.

  55 wall space of about nine square feet: “Morals and Moving Pictures,” Harper’s Weekly, Jul. 30, 1910, 12.

  55 saw an eleven-year-old boy: “Genuine Abuse,” Views and Films Index, June 6, 1908, 9.

  56 a $25 common show license: Subsequent year renewals were an even greater bargain, costing only $12.50.

  56 $500 theatrical license: Currie, “The Nickel Madness,” 1246.

  56 three three-minute films: Transcript, 15–16.

  56 “no very large practicable possibilities”: Thomas Edison, The Diary and Sundry Observations (New York: Philosophical Library, 1948), 77.

  56 Hurd, who had bought . . . Lumière Brothers: J. Austin Fynes, “Motion Pictures,” Views and Films Index, Jan. 11, 1908, 3.

  56 Lyon-based: “Louis Lumiere, 83, A Screen Pioneer,” NYT, June 7, 1948, 19.

  56 small converted store on Washington: Fynes, 4

  48 Offering no chairs . . . no great profit: Ibid.

  56 canceled his lease: Ibid.

  56 licensed a promoter . . . vaudeville theaters: Grau, The Theatre of Science, 8–9.

  56 gave up on . . . stock market investments: Fynes, “Motion Pictures,” 4.

  56 no one had tried: Transcript, 14.

  56 convert the second floor into a movie theater: A Story of William Fox, Bulletin F-5, unpublished.

  56 a thirty-dollar secondhand piano: “Roxy Theatre Added to Fox Chain,” MPN, Apr. 8, 1927, 1254.

  56 “tones like a tin pan”: “$15,000,000, Roxy Theater Is Bought By Fox Interests,” BDE, Mar. 26, 1927.

  57 On October 14, 1904: “Fox Celebrates Jubilee,” LAT, Oct. 13, 1929, 15. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle gives the date as Oct. 13, 1904 (“$15,000,000, Roxy Theater,” BDE). The Los Angeles Times article appears more reliable because it quotes a Fox Theatres executive.

  57 “I was put down as the craziest”: Gerhard, “William Fox, Owning.”

  57 “I stood out in front”: Transcript, 15.

  57 man in the western hat . . . “at that time”: Ibid.

  57 too dangerous: Hill, “William Fox Reminisces,” 648.

  57 black satin suit . . . goatee: Transcript, 35.

  57 “This man would”: Ibid., 15.

  57 laid-off Barnum and Bailey . . . “followed him up”: William Fox, “Reminiscences and Observations,” in The Story of the Films, ed. Joseph P. Kennedy (Chicago and New York: A. W. Shaw Company, 1927), 310.

  58 first year’s profit as $40,000: “Interview with William Fox,” May 1915, unpublished NYPL for the Performing Arts, William Fox clipping file.

  58 then as $75,000: A Story of William Fox, Bulletin F-5, unpublished.

  58 “little hole-in-the-wall”: Gerhard, “William Fox, Owning, Largest Theatre Here.”

  58 $50,000 in six months: Jack Lait, “How This Theatrical Producer Works,” American Magazine, Sept. 1917, 59.

  58 $250,000 in less: Gerhard, “William Fox, Owning Largest Theatre Here”; “William Fox Is Reminiscent,” New York Sun, Oct. 11, 1929.

  58 Others, notably former furrier Marcus Loew: Loew also opened his first movie theater in 1904, but in Manhattan.

  58 Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island: Currie, “The Nickel Madness,” 1246.

  58 That year, the trade journal: Views and Film Index was co-owned by the Vitagraph and Pathé movie production companies.

  58 “it can safely be said”: “Moving Picture Shows in Manhattan,” Views and Films Index, May 12, 1906, 4.

  58 tenement houses: Transcript, 38.

  58 “a glutton for work”: “William Fox—Film Magnate,” Theatre, May 1920, 486.

  58 “My job was”: Transcript, 38.

  58 “Is this a business?”: Untitled item, NEN, June 18, 1932.

  58 his old job back: Ibid.

  59 dens of sin: “Vile Moving Pictures Corrupting the Morals of Countless Children,” New York Evening World, Dec. 3, 1912, 17; “Health as Well as Morals of Children is Menaced in Cheap
Movie Theatres,” New York Evening World, Dec. 5, 1912, 4.

  59 “pernicious moving-picture abomination”: “Shows Schools of Crime,” NYT, Feb. 14, 1909, 8.

  59 “The child who steals”: Ibid.

  59 “an exceedingly low type”: Frank C. Drake, “Real Danger of Moving Picture Shows,” New York World, Dec. 24, 1908.

  59 regretted having gone into business . . . “gin mill”: “Leaders Welcome Murnau to America,” MPN, Jul. 17, 1926, 209; Transcript, 49.

  59 bought them out . . . original investment: William Fox to Upton Sinclair, June 1, 1932, 2, US-MSS. Lilly Library, Indiana University.

  59 February 1908: William Fox answer, ECC-USKF, at 4.

  59 sixteen-hundred-seat . . . former Unique Theater: “Unique Theater Shut Up,” BDE, May 10, 1901, 2.

  59 194 Grand Street: Transcript, 45.

  59 January 1904 . . . potential firetrap: “Closes Galleries of Six Brooklyn Theatres,” NYT, Jan. 10, 1904, 8.

  59 “When I went . . . ever saw”: Transcript, 45.

  59 $20,000 purchase price: Transcript, 46.

  59-60 took back Brill and Loeb as partners: “New York Incorporations,” NYT, Feb. 28, 1908, 13.

  60 50 percent share: Transcript, 49.

  60 asked to come back: Ibid.

  60 nicknamed “the Bum”: Ibid., 46.

  60 “assure the people” . . . ten thousand nearby residents: Ibid.

  60 April 1908: “Editorial Notes and Comments,” MPW, Apr. 25, 1908, 366. It’s not completely certain when Fox’s Comedy Theater opened—other dates have been reported—and this article refers to the theater by its former name, the Unique, with the news that it was now showing movies. However, April 1908 is consistent with Fox’s statement about ten weeks’ worth of construction updates to area residents.

  60 vaudeville acts with movies: Transcript, 46.

  60 ten cents: Ibid.

  60 “real palace”: Ibid., 49.

  60 paid off the mortgage: Ibid.

  60 non-English-speaking immigrants: Fox, “Reminiscences and Observations,” in The Story of the Films, ed. Joseph P. Kennedy (Chicago and New York: A. W. Shaw Company, 1927), 302.

  60 after working hours: Transcript, 39.

  60 catered to a family audience: “Interview with William Fox,” May 1915, unpublished.

  60 “I tried to make my theatres”: Ibid.

  61 men with a good voice: Transcript, 38.

  61 “A bit of good luck”: Ibid., 22.

  61 shoppers and mothers with children: “The Nickelodeon,” MPW, May 4, 1907, 140.

  61 “open the doors”: Ibid.

  61 three to five thousand nickelodeon theaters . . . two million: Daniel J. Czitrom, Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 41.

  61 “faster than guinea pigs”: “The Nickelodeon,” 140.

  62 In April 1906 . . . dashed for the exits: “Panic in Theatre Follows a Fight,” Views and Films Index, Apr. 25, 1906, 6.

  62 bright lights and loud decorations: “The Future of the Five-Cent Show,” Views and Films Index, Mar. 14, 1908, 3.

  62 business owners became incensed: Frederic J. Haskin, “Nickelodeon History,” Views and Film Index, Feb. 1, 1908, 5.

  62 from 3.4 million to 4.2 million: “Question—What Constitutes a New Yorker?,” NYT, Nov. 17, 1907, SM1.

  62 about 37 percent were foreign born: Ibid.

  62 “air and movement of hysteria”: Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (New York: First Vintage Books, 1990), 462.

  63 “Disregard for the Sabbath”: “Sunday Less Blue Under Injunctions,” NYT, Dec. 16, 1907, 3.

  63 “blue” law enforcement, church leaders formed: “Bingham to Close Sunday Theatres,” NYT, Dec. 5, 1907, 16; “New York May Have Its Sundays White,” NYT, Dec. 17, 1907, 6.

  63 honorary vice president was J. P. Morgan: “Close Everything Is Bingham’s Order,” NYT, Dec. 8, 1907, 1.

  63 end all Sunday theatrical . . . losing his job: “Clergy After McClellan,” NYT, Dec. 1, 1906, 5.

  63 age forty-six . . . necessitating amputation: James B. Morrow, “Talks With Big Ones,” LAT, Apr. 28, 1907, III-1.

  63 detested immigrants: Ibid.

  64 “burglars, firebugs, pickpockets”: Theodore A. Bingham, “Foreign Criminals in New York,” The North American Review 188, no. 634 (Sept. 1908): 384.

  64 “Public Sports” . . . baseball games: “Moving Picture Men Score in One Court,” NYT, Jan. 3, 1908, 7.

  64 horse racing, wrestling: “Police Get Orders to Enforce Blue Law,” NYT, Dec. 6, 1907, 3.

  64 any “public show”: “To-Day Likely to Be a Near-Open Sunday,” NYT, Dec. 29, 1907, 2.

  64 motion pictures weren’t shown outdoors: “To-Day Likely to Be a Near-Open Sunday,” NYT, 2.

  64 they weren’t prohibited: Ibid.

  64 highly unusual omnibus injunction that protected: Ibid.

  65 “It is indeed gratifying”: “William Fox,” Views and Films Index, Aug. 3, 1908, 3.

  CHAPTER 6: NECESSARY EXPENSES

  66 want good government?: Lincoln Steffens, “New York: Good Government in Danger,” McClure’s Magazine, Nov. 1903, 85.

  66 “the most powerful, efficient, corrupt”: Alexander B. Callow Jr., introduction to Gustavus Myers, The History of Tammany Hall (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1971), v.

  66 three-story marble . . . Third Avenue: Alfred Conable and Edward Silberfarb, Tigers of Tammany (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967), 153.

  66 local Democratic Party organization: Turner, “Tammany’s Control of New York by Professional Criminals,” 119.

  67 “lying, perjured, rum-soaked”: “Dr. Parkhurst Dies of Hurts,” LAT, Sept. 9, 1933, 2.

  67 six-foot-one . . . blue-eyed: Oliver Simmons, “Passing of the Sullivan Dynasty,” Munsey’s Magazine, Dec. 1913, 415.

  67 “more absolute individual political power”: Ibid., 407.

  68 six East Side districts: Ibid., 413.

  68 one-sixth: Ibid., 412.

  68 about equally divided: Turner, “Tammany’s Control of New York by Professional Criminals,” 125.

  68 Board of Aldermen: “‘Little Tim,’ Ill, Asked to Resign,” New York Herald, Nov. 6, 1909; “Little Tim Sullivan Dead,” LAT, Dec. 23, 1909, I-1.

  68 “wondered and adored”: Simmons, “Passing of the Sullivan Dynasty,” 412.

  68 turkey, mashed potatoes: “Bowery’s Waifs Feast in Silence,” NYT, Dec. 26, 1909, 8.

  68 one-legged: “5,000 Get Shoes from ‘Tim’ Sullivan,” NYT, Feb. 7, 1909, 8; “5,000 of the Needy Get Sullivan Shoes,” NYT, Feb. 7, 1910, 2.

  68 sturdy black shoes: “5,000 of the Needy,” 2.

  68 nearest pawnshop . . . twenty-five cents: “5,000 Get Shoes,” NYT, 8.

  68 elementary school teacher: “Big Tim Weeps and Denies the White Slave Charge,” New York Herald, Nov. 1, 1901, 4.

  68 twenty-five thousand dollars a year to the poor: M. R. Werner, Tammany Hall (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1928), 505; Alvin F. Harlow, Old Bowery Days: The Chronicles of a Famous Street (New York: D. Appleton, 1931), 513.

  68 buy food and pay rent: Simmons, “Passing of the Sullivan Dynasty,” 410–11.

  68 four lawyers on call . . . paid the wedding fees: Roy Crandall, “Tim Sullivan’s Power,” Harper’s Weekly, Oct. 18, 1913, 14.

  68 Born in 1863: Some sources, such as the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 1774–Present (http://bioguide.congress.gov/biosearch/biosearch.asp), list Big Tim’s birth year as 1862.

  68 1863 . . . on the Lower East Side: Simmons, “Passing of the Sullivan Dynasty,” 407.

  68 “beer dives, basement groggeries”: Harlow, Old Bowery Days, 489.

  68 controlled all the prizefights: Werner, Tammany Hall, 505. Big Tim was also the official stakeholder for the historic July 4, 1910, Jeffries-Johnson fight in Reno, Nevada, in which reigning heavyweight champion of the world Jack Johnson, an Afri
can American, knocked out white, retired titleholder James J. Jeffries in the fifteenth round.

  69 estimated illegal profits of $175,000 to $200,000: Werner, Tammany Hall, 505.

  69 Monk Eastman: “‘Monk’ Eastman Killed,” LAT, Dec. 27, 1920, I-1; “Thousands at Funeral of Eastman,” LAT, Dec. 31, 1920, I-1; “Admits Slaying Monk Eastman,” LAT, Jan. 4, 1921, I-9.

  69 gunmen, burglars and drug addicts: “‘Monk’ Eastman Killed,” I-1.

  69 Kid Twist: Kid Twist, whose real name was Max Zwerbach, also manufactured a celery tonic sold by most East Side refreshment and confectioners, mainly because when others refused, he either busted up the business or murdered the proprietor (Turner, “Tammany’s Control of New York by Professional Criminals,” 123).

  69 extortionists, killers: Turner, “Tammany’s Control of New York by Professional Criminals,” 123.

  69 blackmailers: “Gangs in Terror at Gunmen’s Fate; Hint at Revenge,” New York Evening World, Nov. 20, 1912, 2.

  69 “perhaps the most successful”: “Gangsters Again Engaged in a Murderous War,” NYT, June 9, 1912, SM1.

  69 140 theaters nationwide: J. C. Jessen, “In and Out of Los Angeles Studios,” MPN, Feb. 13, 1915, 35.

  69 former alderman George Kraus: “Concert Halls May Be Open To-Day,” NYT, Apr. 14, 1889, 5.

  69 Sullivan & Kraus . . . music halls: “Will of George J. Kraus,” NYT, June 16, 1914, 9.

  69 first dramatic first-class house: “Other New York Theaters to Try Moving Pictures,” MPW, May 30, 1908, 476.

  69 municipal building code did not . . . unlimited discretion: “Motion Picture Theaters in Greater New York,” Moving Picture News, Apr. 1, 1911, 8.

  70 Department of Gas . . . qualifying exam: “New York Operators Taken in Hand,” Views and Films Index, Jan. 25, 1908, 4.

  70 left eye removed: “George Kraus Under Knife,” Variety, June 20, 1908, 6.

  70 Fox approached Kraus . . . nearly one thousand: William Fox statement, ECC-USKF, at 4; Robert C. Allen, “Motion Picture Exhibition in Manhattan, 1906–1912: Beyond the Nickelodeon,” in Film Before Griffith, ed. John L. Fell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 166.

  70 since the end of May: William Fox statement, ECC-USKF, at 4.

  70 ten-week lease for $50 a day: “Kraus’ New York Houses Desert Western Wheel,” Variety, July 11, 1908, 7.

  70 movies and light vaudeville: William Fox statement, ECC-USKF, at 4.