Site of Vitaphone - new sound studios on west side of E. 14th street.

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Vitaphone Studios - 1925 - 1952

When Vitagraph was sold to Warner Brothers in 1925, a new sound stage was built directly across the street from the old Vitagraph studios (on East 14th street and Locust Ave) since the elevated BMT line directly behind the original studios produced too much noise for effective sound recording.

Vitaphone Studios, introduced its early sound-on-disc technology, where the sound was captured on a record and played in sync alongside the film. The company made thousands of short films (called “short subjects”) using this method.

Among those performers who made early film appearances in Vitaphone shorts filmed at the Midwood studios on East 14th street include Al Jolson, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Hope, Spencer Tracy, Jack Benny, Sammy Davis Jr., Sylvia Sidney, Pat O'Brien, Ruth Etting, Mischa Elman, Frances Langford, Betty Hutton, Burns and Allen, Giovanni Martinelli, Xavier Cugat, Bill Robinson, Lillian Roth, Joan Blondell, Ethel Merman, Abbe Lane, Eleanor Powell, Helen Morgan, The Nicholas Brothers, Milton Berle, Leo Carillo, Harriet Nelson, Brian Donlevy, Jane Froman, Jack Haley, Phil Silvers, Judy Canova, Nina Mae McKinney, Marjorie Main, Rose Marie, Joe Penner, Ethel Waters, June Allyson, Shemp Howard, Lanny Ross,Lionel Stander, Edgar Bergen, Cyd Charisse, and many more!!!

NBC purchased the studios from Warner Brothers in 1952.