Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall (/ˈkɑːrnɪɡi/ KAR-nig-ee) is a concert venue at 881 Seventh Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built by its namesake, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the venue is one of the most prestigious 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 Carnegie Hall complex has 3,671 seats divided among three auditoriums. The largest one is the Stern Auditorium, a five-story auditorium with 2,790 seats. Also part of the complex are the 599-seat Zankel Hall, located below ground on Seventh Avenue, as well as the 268-seat Joan and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall on 57th Street. Besides the auditoriums, Carnegie Hall contains offices on its top stories.

Carnegie Hall, originally the Music Hall, was constructed between 1889 and 1891 as a venue shared by the Oratorio Society of New York and the New York Symphony Society. The hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1925, after which Robert E. Simon and then his son, Robert E. Simon Jr., became owner. Carnegie Hall was proposed for demolition in the 1950s in advance of the New York Philharmonic relocating to Lincoln Center in 1962, but was saved by a public campaign led by Isaac Stern. Though Carnegie Hall is designated a National Historic Landmark and protected by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, it has not had a resident company since the New York Philharmonic moved out. Carnegie Hall was renovated multiple times throughout its history, including in the 1940s and 1980s.

Carnegie Hall is on the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street and 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The site covers 27,618 square feet (2,565.8 m²). Its lot is 200 feet (61 m) wide, covering the entire width of the block between 56th Street to the south and 57th Street to the north, and extends 150 feet (46 m) eastward from Seventh Avenue.

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 apartment building. It also faces the Rodin Studios and 888 Seventh Avenue to the west; Alwyn Court, The Briarcliffe, the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing, and One57 to the north; the Park Central Hotel to the southwest; and CitySpire and New York City 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 a former artistic hub around a two-block section of West 57th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The hub had been developed 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, 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. By the 21st century, the artistic hub had largely been replaced with Billionaires' Row, a series of luxury skyscrapers around the southern end of Central Park.

Carnegie Hall was designed by William Tuthill, along with Richard Morris Hunt and Adler & Sullivan, in a modified Italian Renaissance style. While the 34-year-old Tuthill was relatively unknown as an architect, he was an amateur cellist and a singer, which may have led to him getting the commission. Dankmar Adler of Adler & Sullivan, on the other hand, was an experienced designer of music halls and theaters; he served as the acoustical consultant. Carnegie Hall was constructed with heavy masonry bearing walls, as lighter structural steel framework was not widely used when the building was completed. The walls measure 4 feet (1.2 m) thick in some places, while the floor slabs, 2 feet (0.61 m) thick, are made of cement and hollow tiles.

Carnegie Hall is composed of three structures arranged in an "L" shape; each structure contains one of the hall's performance spaces. The original building, which houses the Isaac Stern Auditorium, is an eight-story rectangular building at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 57th Street, measuring 150 feet (46 m) along the street and 175 feet (53 m) along the avenue. The 16-story eastern wing contains the Weill Recital Hall and is located along 57th Street. The 13-story southern wing, at Seventh Avenue and 56th Street, contains Zankel Hall. Except at the eighth floor, all three structures have floor levels at different heights.