3. Proctor’s Palace Roof Theatre, Newark, NJ

Image via After The Final Curtain

The Proctor Palace Theatre, designed by John W. Merrow, opened in downtown Newark on November 22, 1915. It was one of the rare “double decker” theaters with a large 2,300-seat theatre at the ground level, with an additional 900 seats on the top four floors beneath the roof. It had its beginnings as a vaudeville house before switching into a movie theater.

In 1929, owner F.F. Proctor sold the Palace to RKO, who changed the name to RKO Proctor’s Theatre. After this switch, the roof section was hardly used until the early 1960s when it reopened as a the Penthouse Cinema, showing mainly foreign films. After a merger with Stanley-Warner in 1968, the RKO Proctor closed because of new management and the infamous Newark riots.