1891, THE MUSIC HALL AKA CARNEGIE HALL OPENS IN NYC

Today, The Grandma has continued listening to some music. She has chosen classical music, and she has remembered how on a day like today in 1891, the Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.

Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets.

Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in 1891, it is one of the most prestigious venues in the world for both classical music and popular music.

Carnegie Hall has its own artistic programming, development, and marketing departments and presents about 250 performances each season. It is also rented out to performing groups. The hall has not had a resident company since 1962, when the New York Philharmonic moved to Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall, renamed Avery Fisher Hall in 1973 and David Geffen Hall in 2015.

Carnegie Hall has 3,671 seats, divided among three auditoriums. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the building as a city landmark in 1967.

Carnegie Hall is on the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street and 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighbourhood of New York City. The site covers 2,565.8 m2. Its lot is 61 m wide, covering the entire width of the block between 56th Street to the south and 57th Street to the north, and extends 46 m eastward from Seventh Avenue.

More information: Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall shares the city block with the Carnegie Hall Tower, Russian Tea Room, and Metropolitan Tower to the east.

It is cater-corner from the Osborne Apartments. It also faces the Rodin Studios and 888 Seventh Avenue to the west; Alwyn Court, the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing, and One57 to the north; the Park Central Hotel to the southwest; and the CitySpire Center to the southeast. Right outside the hall is an entrance to the New York City Subway's 57th Street–Seventh Avenue station, served by the N, ​Q, ​R, and ​W trains.

Carnegie Hall is part of an artistic hub that developed around the two blocks of West 57th Street from Sixth Avenue west to Broadway during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Its opening in 1891 directly contributed to the development of the hub. The area contains several buildings constructed as residences for artists and musicians, such as 130 and 140 West 57th Street, the Osborne Apartments, and the Rodin Studios. In addition, the area contained the headquarters of organizations such as the American Fine Arts Society, the Lotos Club, and the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Carnegie Hall is named after Andrew Carnegie, who funded its construction. It was intended as a venue for the Oratorio Society of New York and the New York Symphony Society, on whose boards Carnegie served. Construction began in 1890, and was carried out by Isaac A. Hopper and Company.

Although the building was in use from April 1891, the official opening night was May 5, with a concert conducted by Walter Damrosch and Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1925, when Carnegie's widow sold it to a real estate developer, Robert E. Simon. When Simon died in 1935, his son, Robert E. Simon, Jr., became owner.

More information: Classic New York History

On the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue sits
the most famous concert hall in the world.
No less a figure than when Tchaikovsky
led the first performances in 1891.
Virtually every major artist has performed there.
There is simply no place like it.
The first time I stepped foot in Carnegie Hall was in 1964.

Leonard Slatkin