Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 6, No. 3 (1931-12)

44 lar source of income some of them had, and kept them alive much longer than they de- served. The Columbia Company was the first to conceive and carry into effect the revolu- tionary idea of assembling a large number of coin-slot phonographs in one place, so at- tractively arranged and displayed that the public was tempted to visit it for the purpose of entertainment and further tempted to linger for hours, and spend many nickels, in enjoyment of the varied program offered. In 1893, the Columbia Company moved its busi- ness into larger premises on Pennsylvania Avenue, then the principal street of Wash- ington. The building consisted of three floors and basement, each floor having an area of about 3,500 square ft. The front half of the ground floor was transformed into what we called a “slot machine parlor.” A continuous line of mirrors surmounted by electric lights on brackets, ran along each side wall for the depth of the “parlor.” A paneled ceiling with scores of electric lights outlining the panels and a color scheme of tasteful character made the parlor a very attractive place, while the lavish use of electric lights greatly en- hanced its appeal to the public. I think I am safe in saying that the Columbia Phonograph Company was the originator of the idea of using incandescent electric lights symmetri- cally arranged, and far in excess of any actual lighting requirements, for decorative purposes as well as a means of attracting attention. Some idea of the success of this novel plan may be gained from the fact that the receipts from the slot machines paid for the rental of the entire premises; and this proved equally true of similar places opened in other cities during the ensuing seven or eight years. The success of the Washington slot machine parlor led to the establishment of a similar place in Baltimore; next in Atlantic City, where the Columbia establishment was one of the sensations of the boardwalk; then in St. Louis, New York, and other cities in the United States, followed by Paris in 1897; Berlin in 1898; and London in 1900. In all of those places, the most prominent part of the premises was given up to the slot machine parlor and the arrangement, decora- tion, and lavish display of electric lights closely followed the original installation in Washington. In each of these places fifty, sixty, or even as many as one hundred slot machines were arranged around the walls or grouped back to back in the open floor-space, sufficiently far apart to allow visitors to make their way from one machine to another. It was no unusual experience in all of our The Phonograph Monthly Review establishments to have the crowd so dense that people would line up to take their turn at each machine and others would be waiting on the sidewalk outside for a chance to get in. The introduction of the coin-slot phono- graph to European countries undoubtedly did more than any other one step to create instant and overwhelming popularity for the talking machine in those lands, and inci- dentally, but by no means unimportant, it produced handsome revenues which con- siderably hastened our rapid expansion abroad. I have already told how the slot machine receipts were so large that they paid our entire rent expenses in America. This proved equally true in Paris and other European cities, notwithstanding the lower value of the coin by which the machine was operated. We had to build the instruments for Paris to receive the ten centime copper coin, which was almost as large as an Amer- ican half-dollar, but had a value equivalent to only two cents of our money. Similarly in England, the instruments were adapted to the penny coin, of about the same size and value as the French ten centime piece. In Germany we were a little more fortunate, as the popular coin there was the ten pfennig piece, a nickel coin very nearly the same size as the American nickel but worth at that time about two and one-half cents of our money. The immense popularity and revenue-producing result of introducing the coin-slot phonograph into Europe may be measured by my earlier statement that it provided the rental price of our entire premises, which in Paris, London and some other of the larger cities comprised entire buildings of three to five floors in the most expensive districts and on the most im- portant streets. I shall never forget the lesson I got in musical appreciation immediately following the opening of our first establishment in Paris. It had been our experience in the United States that popular and comic songs, dance music, and the lighter forms of music of all kinds were most appreciated. WJiile we always equipped a small number of the instruments with such of the better class of music as was available on records in those days, the number of coins they collected was pitiably small in comparison with the re- ceipts from the lighter class of selections. It was natural, then, to follow the same plan in equipping the machines in our Paris es- tablishment on our opening night. Not more than ten percent of the total number of machines contained vocal selections from the Grand Operas, orchestral or band excerpts from musical classics, and similar music of the better grade. But as the evening wore on,