At the time of the opening of United Artists Theatre in New York, its owners proclaimed this building "the most beautiful, comfortable and up-to-date theatre in the world." As part of a United Artists Theatre series of buildings in Detroit, L.A., and New York, the idea was based a ‘movie palace’—a huge, all-encompassing destination where movies, recording studios, theater, and symphony performances, could all intermingle inside dazzling interiors.