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I had a friend who wrote his doctoral thesis on the history of movie projection. I wish I could cite it, but A/C came about around the same time TV was starting

I had a friend who wrote his doctoral thesis on the history of movie projection. I wish I could cite it, but A/C came about around the same time TV was starting to cut into movie theater profits. A/C not only was a major draw, but it may have save movie theaters.

Spooky23 13y ago
That's funny, one of my first bosses had done a thesis on old time fancy theatres that did movies and live shows. He worked at one in our city in college, and talked alot about the HVAC system, which he ended up maintaining as a volunteer for a long time. It was a pre-freon, compression based system powered by natural gas. The refrigerant was some sort of nasty ammonia mixture that came in 55 gallon drums -- I guess when they dropped one, it basically melted through the concrete floor.