The motion picture industry commissioned the plaque that marks this site. It is titled: "Here The Motion Picture Began:". Actually it should have indicated "Here The Motion Picture Industry Began" because it marks the place where the first commercial projection of a motion picture to a paying audience occurred. For this performance the Vitascope, made by the Edison Manufacturing Co., was used.
The plaque is inscribed:
HERE THE MOTION PICTURE BEGAN
*
On the night of April 23, 1896, on this site
in KOSTER & BIAL'S MUSIC HALL
THOMAS EDISON
with the "Vitascope"
FIRST PROJECTED A MOVING PICTURE
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In commemoration of the event, this tablet is here affixed by
THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY, OCTOBER 4, 1938
In fact, the projection of motion pictures had occurred earlier. Thomas Edison invented, patented, and successfully marketed the Kinetoscopes which enabled single users to view motion pictures. It was so profitable that he had no motivation to develop a mass projection system. The Lumière Brothers in Paris, France had demonstrated their Lumière Cinématographe projection system earlier in 1895. In America, Woodville Latham and Sons created the Eidoloscope projector, which was demonstrated publicly in April 1895.
About this time C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat invented a device for projecting motion pictures that they called the Phantoscope. They demonstrated the projector at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta in September 1895. The partnership soon broke up with each claiming sole credit for the invention.
Thomas Armat then showed the Phantoscope the owners of the Kinetoscope Company, who purchased the rights to the Phantoscope and approached Edison for his approval. The Edison Manufacturing Company agreed to manufacture the machine and to produce films for it; but they insisted that it be advertised as a new Edison invention and named it the Vitascope. Thus the Edison secures the credit for inventing the motion picture projector referred to in the plaque. In November 1896, the Edison Company develops its own projector known as the Projectoscope and abandoned marketing the Vitascope.
The performance on April 26, 1896 at the Koster and Bial Music Hall was widely advertised and received critical acclaim. An ad in the New York Times of April 19, 1896 read:
KOSTER AND BIAL'S MUSIC HALL, 34th St.
TO-MORROW (MONDAY) NIGHT.
THE ONLY CHEVALIER.
2---NEW SONGS---2
Together with all the other
GREAT FOREIGN STARS.
EXTRA--Due notice will be given of the first
public exhibition of Edison's latest marvel,
THE VITASCOPE.
A review in the New York Times on April 24, 1896 read:
(The film referred to in the review that amazed spectators was "Rough Sea at Dover" by Robert Paul and Birt Acres.)
EDISON'S VITASCOPE CHEERED.
"Projecting Kinetoscope" Exhibited for First Time at Koster and Bial's. ... The ingenious inventor's latest toy is a projection of his kinetoscope figures in stereopticon fashion on a white screen in a darkened hall. In the center of the balcony of the big music hall is a curious object, which looks from below like the double turret of a big monitor. In the front of each half of it are two oblong holes. The turret is neatly covered with ... blue velvet brocade... The moving figures are about half life size.
...a buzzing and roaring were heard in the turret, and an unusually bright light fell upon the screen. Then came into view two precious blonde young persons of the variety stage in pink and blue dresses, doing the umbrella dance with commendable celerity. Their motions were clearly defined. When they vanished, a view of an angry surf breaking on a sandy beach near a stone pier amazed the spectators. A burlesque boxing match between a tall, thin comedian and a short, fat one, a comic allegory called "The Monroe Doctrine"; an instant of motion in Hoyt's farce, "A Milk White Flag," repeated over and over again, and a skirt dance by a tall blonde completed the views, which were all wonderfully real and singularly exhilarating."