On this day in New York · January 15, 1861
Brooklyn Gets Its Academy of Music
A Brooklyn Heights concert hall opened its doors promising culture without drama, literally, and became the borough's proudest address for the next four decades.
The facts
- Opened
- January 15, 1861
- Architect
- Leopold Eidlitz
- Seating
- 2,109 in the main theater
- Destroyed
- Burned to the ground, November 30, 1903
The Brooklyn Academy of Music opened its first home at 176-194 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights on January 15, 1861. Architect Leopold Eidlitz designed a hall seating 2,109 people plus a smaller concert room, funded by more than two years of Brooklyn civic fundraising. The inaugural concert stuck strictly to music, an overture to Der Freischutz, opera arias, and the William Tell Overture, because management had promised no plays would ever be staged there. Brooklyn wanted its own cultural showpiece to rival Manhattan across the river, and got one, until the Montague Street building burned to the ground on November 30, 1903.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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At the inaugural address on the opening, the management announced that no dramatic performance should ever be held within its walls.
Brooklyn Academy of Music's management, inaugural address, January 15, 1861
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
That opening-night promise didn't last long (BAM would host Ellen Terry and Edwin Booth soon enough), but the ambition behind it did: Brooklyn was never going to settle for being Manhattan's back yard, and BAM is still the borough's flagship for music, opera, and theater more than 160 years later.
Sources
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