The Kinetoscope Parlor Opens on Broadway

On April 14, 1894, the Holland brothers opened a storefront at 1155 Broadway, at 27th Street, with ten of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope machines lined up in two rows of five. Each cabinet let one customer at a time peer through a peephole and watch a short film loop, including footage of the strongman Eugen Sandow flexing for the camera. A quarter bought a look at one row of five machines; fifty cents got you all ten. There was no screen, no theater, no shared audience, just a New Yorker alone with a box and a few seconds of moving pictures, and it was the first time anywhere that anyone had paid money to do it. The company behind the machines was run by Norman C. Raff and Frank R. Gammon, with Andrew M. Holland and Edison's former business chief Alfred O. Tate among the investors.