The theatre of science; a volume of progress and achievement in the motion picture industry (1914)

IS Cbe Cf)catre sands of store theatres that came afterward were apparently modeled after Davis' unique idea. It is also worthy of note that the financial success of the Davis innovation was so great that it awakened the vaudeville managers of the country to the necessity of entering this nev/ field in one way or another, or else be confronted with endless competition, for vaudeville in that day v/as not yet given at high admission prices. In February, 1906, J. Austin Fynes, in association with Charles S. Kline, opened at No. 35 V/est 125th Street the first "Nickelet" picture show in New York City. Kline had previously (July, 1905) operated a five-cent "store" show in Paterson, N. J. Both Fynes and Kline admit that they got their idea from Harry Davis' success in Pittsburgh, and Fynes frankly told the v/riter that he personally v;ent to Pittsburgh at the suggestion of the late B. F. Keith (for whom he was then acting in a confidential capacity) to look over the Davis place. The "Nickelet" or "Nicolet" (as both titles were used) V'/as an instantaneous success. Fynes with characteristic generosity spread the good news widely among showmen by opening the first "Nicolets" in 'New Haven, Jersey City, and in The Bronx. These were all rather pretentious places of their kind, and until the regular theatres vv^ere utilized a vs^ell-conducted Nicolet, even with a 300-seat limit as to capacity, was easily good for $200 to $350 a week profit. Marcus Loew, William Fox, and Sol Brill, of Moss & Brill, were among the earliest to enter the "Nicolet" field. Loew was operating penny arcades in 1905-06, and interested in slot-machine parlors in New York, Cincinnati, and Covington, Ky. He h?d a penny arcade diagonally opposite to Fynes' Moving Picture