"The cooling plant is revolutionizing picture show attendance in Houston!" said Will Horowitz, Jr., the Texas theater owner who asked Carrier to air condition The Palace, the Texan and the Iris theaters in 1924. "Patrons exclaim with delight when they get inside the doorway."
As Willis Carrier said, though, the acid test came when the young company was asked to air condition the famed Rivoli Theater in New York. The Rivoli's "cool comfort" was heavily advertised and block-long lines formed early on Memorial Day 1925 - nearly every patron was carrying cardboard fans, just in case. The film that showed that night was soon forgotten, but not the appeal of air conditioning. Summer film business boomed and by 1930, the 300 theaters Carrier had air conditioned were showing Americans they no longer had to settle for stifling indoor environments.
Owners of smaller businesses wanted to compete with larger retailers so Carrier began developing smaller "unit air conditioners" in the late 1920s. It was a small step in 1928 to the development of a residential "Weathermaker" that heated, cooled, humidified, cleaned and circulated air in homes, but the Great Depression quickly put an end to residential air conditioning.
Next >>
|
|
|
