First jukebox

The 1907 Art Nouveau Hammersmith Building, designed by Lansburgh & Joseph, is one of my favorites in the area. Although its footprint is small, it looks opulent and dramatic in a way that outshines its neighbors. G. Albert Lansburgh was famous for palatial movie theater design, and he approached a commission for the gold- and silversmithing firm Hammersmith & Co. in the same spirit of magnificence.
The reason it was built on this site in 1907, of course, is that the preceding building, along with everything else here, burned down in 1906.

That preceding building was the Palais Royale tavern. On Nov. 23, 1889, an Edison Class M Electric Phonograph was installed there. It used a coin-operated mechanism invented and patented by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold. The inventors called it a ‘nickel-in-the-slot player,’ and it was the first jukebox in the world.
Electrical sound amplification hadn't been invented yet, so the customers had to insert stethoscope-like tubes into their ears. This allowed up to four people to listen for a nickel. Sound quality was atrocious, which led to a preference for strong and unsubtle tunes, such as John Philip Sousa marches.

Despite this shortcoming, the machine brought in $1,000^{1Approx. $34,000 in 2025 currency} in the first six months, ensuring a proliferation of like devices across the country. This, in turn, led the music studios to release more loud, unsubtle, rollicking tunes suitable for consumption in crowded bars, and these tunes evolved over the decades into what we know today as American pop music^{2You may consider this a bold claim, but the Smithsonian museum makes it as well}.
You are standing now in the place where pop was born.

^{1Approx. $34,000 in 2025 currency}Approx. $34,000 in 2025 currency
^{2You may consider this a bold claim, but the Smithsonian museum makes it as well}You may consider this a bold claim, but the Smithsonian museum makes it as well