Sprocket House

Our first office downtown was housed in a charming brick building called the Franklin Center which, at various and sundry times over the last hundred years, has been home to the JB Robbins House of Fashion, Town Hall Bar & Grill, and Pickwick Theatre—of which the latter was the first in town to feature what we call “talkies”. It closed in 1947. Our suite was housed on the second floor in what used to be the theater’s projection room and, as you’ll recall, the small squares on either side of a 35mm film strip are called “sprocket” holes. (Occasionally, Mr Durden joined us for afternoon tea and counterculture insurgency hour.) Sprockets are also a kind of gear and they’re employed to make things work. House’ because it was a two-level office, joined by a small staircase. You know, like a house.