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Carnegie Hall
The story of Carnegie Hall begins in the spring of 1887: A 25 year old Walter
Damrosch (1862–1950) had attained the elevated position of conductor and musical
director of the Symphony Society of New York and the Oratorio Society of New
York. He had just finished his second season and took a sabbatical to Europe for
a summer of study with conductor Hans von Bülow. Before air conditioning, New
York summers were too hot for orchestral performances. It is not difficult to
imagine the feel of ground floor theatres packed with people, burning gas lamps
and no air circulation in the years before deodorant.
Damrosch inherited a vision for a grand concert hall for New York City from his
father Leopold, who had founded the Oratorio Society in 1873 and the Symphony
Society in 1878. The Symphony Society had a difficult time booking concerts into
any of the available halls large enough to accommodate it. The Metropolitan
Opera House was the best venue but it was controlled by the schedule of the
resident opera company and the Philharmonic Society, considered New York’s
primary orchestra at the time. The Oratorio Society was compelled to give its
concerts in the showrooms of piano companies: Chickering, Steinway and Knabe,
located on 14th Street.
In the spring of 1887, travelling by sail from New York to London aboard The
Fulda, maestro Damrosch chanced to meet the celebrated Scottish-born American
steel magnate Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie (1835 to 1919), then 52, was
taking his bride, 30 year old Louise Whitfield on a honeymoon to Scotland.
Louise Whitfield was the daughter of a well-to-do New York merchant and had sung
in the soprano section of the Oratorio Society for several seasons. Carnegie
took a liking to Damrosch and the three arranged a meeting at the end of the
summer at estate Kilgraston in Scotland. It was there that the idea of
Carnegie Hall was born.
Carnegie agreed to help build a grand hall to be the finest concert venue in New
York. In 1889, he formed a stock company, The Music Hall Company of New York,
Ltd., and acquired seven parcels of land along the block of Seventh Avenue
between 56th and 57th Streets, which were not yet paved. The location, at the
edge of Goat Hill was a short distance from Central Park and so far uptown that
it was considered suburban. Carnegie assumed a seat on the board of both the
Symphony Society of New York and the Oratorio Society of New York.
The Design and Construction of The Music Hall
 William
Burnet Tuthill, an architect who had served on the board of the Oratorio Society
and had a fondness for music as a cello player, was appointed chief architect.
Architects Adler and Sullivan and Richard Morris Hunt were retained as
consultants. Isaac A. Hopper and Company assumed the responsibility of general
contractor. On May 13th, 1890 Mrs. Carnegie cemented the cornerstone with a
silver trowel from Tiffany’s. She kept this memento on her mantelpiece for the
rest of her life. Carnegie’s contribution eventually reached $2 million;
approximately 90 percent of the total cost.
The plans called for a rectangular six-story structure housing three performance
spaces:
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The Main Hall, seating 2,800
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A recital hall (located below
the Main Hall) seating 1,200
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A chamber music hall
(adjacent to the Main Hall), seating 250
Above the chamber music hall were
assembly rooms “suitable for lectures, readings, and receptions as well as
chapter and lodge rooms for secret organizations.”
Carnegie Hall is one of the last large structures in New York City built
entirely of masonry. The building was designed not to require steel support
beams using the Guastavino process, with concrete and masonry walls several feet
thick. This turned out to be a good choice, considering the acoustical
properties of the chosen materials. The heavy masonry effectively acoustically
isolated the halls while providing good reflective and diffractive surfaces to
enhance musical performances. Several flights of additional studio spaces were
added to the building around 1900. For these, a steel framework was erected
around segments of the building. Studios above the Hall contained working spaces
for artists in the performing and graphic arts including music, drama, dance, as
well as architects, playwrights, literary agents, photographers, and painters.
The building was completed in the spring of 1891. The five-day opening festival
attracted the cream of New York society: Whitneys, Sloans, Rockefellers, and
Fricks – who paid $1 to $2 for performances by the Symphony Society and the
Oratorio Society under the direction of maestro Walter Damrosch and Russian
composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Opening night, May 5th, 1891, Horse drawn
carriages lined the streets for a quarter mile outside the Hall. The Music Hall
was filled to capacity. After a dedication speech from Bishop Henry Codman
Potter, Damrosch led the Symphony Society in a performance of Beethoven’s
Leonore Overture No. 3.
Tchaikovsky stepped up to the podium to conduct his Marche Solennelle. The
concert closed with the Berlioz Te Deum. Beyond the talent onstage and the
glamour in the audience, the reviews of that inaugural night focused on the
Hall. “Tonight, the most beautiful Music Hall in the world was consecrated to
the loveliest of the arts. Possession of such a hall is in itself an incentive
for culture.” proclaimed one newspaper and another: “It stood the test well!”
The reviews were unanimous: The “Music Hall founded by Andrew Carnegie” was an
overwhelming success.
The term “Music Hall” to many European artists, suggested a vaudeville palace
rather than a serious concert hall. Initially Andrew Carnegie had no interest in
having his name formally attached to the civic structure. After a period of
negotiations and appeals to Carnegie to use his name, he relented. During the
1894–95 season the name of the Music Hall was officially changed to “Carnegie
Hall”.
The prestige of a Carnegie Hall appearance has attracted most the world’s finest
performers to its stages. Carnegie Hall has become the essential venue in the
United States and a litmus test of greatness. The public appreciated from the
earliest performances that these halls served as a showcase of American culture.
As such, they were not limited to classical music, opera and dance but to all
forms of public performance. In the days before radio and television, Carnegie
Hall allowed a public forum to anyone with an articulate cause. Jack London
spoke on communism in 1905; Emmeline Pankhurst lobbied for women’s suffrage, and
Margaret Sanger for birth control. A young Winston Churchill spoke on the Boer
War, and Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington shared the stage at a Lincoln
Memorial Meeting. Clarence Darrow debated Ernest Howe on the merits of
prohibition and found there were none. When a hall in the nation’s capital was
closed to her because of her race, the great Marian Anderson found herself
welcome on the Carnegie Hall stage.
In 1892 a fire gutted the Metropolitan Opera House. The Philharmonic Society
seized the opportunity and joined the Symphony Society in making its home at
Carnegie Hall. The move ignited a rivalry that continued until 1928 when the two
organizations finally merged as the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York,
the official name of the New York Philharmonic.
 In
1912, Carnegie Hall presented a concert of early jazz by James Reese Europe’s
Clef Club Orchestra. It was the first of many jazz performances including Fats
Waller, W. C. Handy, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Dizzy
Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Gerry
Mulligan, Mel Tormé, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane. A 1938 concert by Benny
Goodman and his band marked a turning point in the public acceptance of swing.
Duke Ellington made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1943 with the premiere of his
tone poem Black, Brown and Beige, and when Norman Granz toured his legendary
“Jazz at the Philharmonic” programs, featuring the greatest names in jazz,
Carnegie Hall was the New York City base.
In 1933, John Jacob Niles was the first folksinger to perform at Carnegie Hall.
He was followed by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Bob
Dylan, and Joan Baez. Popular entertainers who have performed at Carnegie Hall
include Josephine Baker, Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Nat King Cole, Lena Horne,
Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli, and Tony Bennett. In 1964, The Beatles made their
New York City concert debut, their third live appearance in the US, at Carnegie
Hall. They were followed by The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Bob Dylan, Elton
John, David Bowie, and Stevie Wonder, and many others.
Carnegie Hall has been the site of numerous television and radio productions
including Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, the televised NBC
Symphony concerts led by Arturo Toscanini, “Horowitz on Television,” “Carol
Burnett and Julie Andrews at Carnegie Hall,” weekly radio broadcasts by the New
York Philharmonic from the 1920s through 1962, and “AT&T Presents Carnegie Hall
Tonight” in the 1980s. And “Live From Carnegie Hall” recordings by artists and
entertainers including: Paul Robeson, Sviatoslav Richter, Edith Piaf, Glenn
Miller, Ike and Tina Turner, Groucho Marx, and others.
The Difficult Years: 1955 –1960
Andrew Carnegie sold his industrial holdings to J. P. Morgan in 1900 for
$400 million. He devoted the rest of his life to giving away this fortune.
Carnegie funded the construction of 2,509 free public libraries at a cost of $56
million. Before he died, he managed to distribute $308 million to public works.
When he died in 1919, however, he had not left an adequate endowment for
Carnegie Hall. With him died the assurance of continued funding for the halls.
In 1925 New York realtor Robert E. Simon bought Carnegie Hall. At the time of
the purchase, Simon promised Mrs. Carnegie that he would not demolish the
building for a period of five years, or use it for purposes other than those for
which it had been originally intended. Simon held to his promise to his death in
1935 despite the steady financial drain of this type of cultural venue and the
financial pressures of the depression. His son, Robert E. Simon, Jr. assumed
management of the Halls and actually made it profitable for a short period. By
the mid-1950s, however, the music business had evolved. It was no longer
possible to continue to operate Carnegie Hall in the same fashion. Simon offered
the New York Philharmonic an option to buy Carnegie Hall for $4 million. The
orchestra was the major tenant, renting the Hall for more than 100 nights a
year. Unfortunately, plans were under way for the Philharmonic to move to the
new facilities at Lincoln Centre. They declined the offer. Though Simon wanted
to keep it running, he was forced to offer Carnegie Hall for sale in 1955, under
the condition that if a way could be found to save it, the contract would be
null and void. A deal was made with a group of developers planning to demolish
Carnegie hall and build a 44-story office tower on the site. The deal fell
through, but not before the September 9th, 1957 issue of Life magazine showed an
artist’s rendering of the proposed fire-engine-red project the developers were
contemplating. This helped raise the public awareness of the imminent loss of an
institution.
By 1960, with the Philharmonic’s departure set, Simon ran out of options and
could no longer afford to keep Carnegie Hall operating. The date of March 31st,
1960 was set for its demolition. At the eleventh hour, the Committee to Save
Carnegie Hall, headed by concert violinist Isaac Stern with administrative and
financial assistance from Jacob M. Kaplan and State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and
others, developed a workable plan. On May 16th, 1960, by special State
legislation, New York City was permitted to purchase Carnegie Hall for $5
million. The Carnegie Hall Corporation was chartered as a non-profit
organization and Stern was elected president.
The Future
Carnegie Hall was reborn as a public trust. The non-profit corporation was to
manage and rent the concert hall and could sponsor events as well. Since 1889,
Carnegie Hall has had two distinct kinds of boards: The first was Andrew
Carnegie’s handpicked advisory board, a largely ceremonial group depending on
the generosity of its primary donor. The real philanthropy began in 1960, when
The Carnegie Hall Corporation was formed and a board of directors pledged to
ensure the Hall’s financial and physical health. To maintain economic viability,
the original core mission of showcasing American culture helps ensure that the
Hall will remain open to all forms of performance art.
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PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
