May 5, 1891: Carnegie Hall Opens

May 5, 1891: Carnegie Hall opens in Midtown Manhattan. Although its main entrance is on West 57th Street, its mailing address is 881 7th Avenue. It becomes America's foremost performance space for classical music.

Andrew Carnegie, the Pittsburgh coal and steel baron, was, by then, living in New York. He sat on the boards of both the New York Symphony Society and the Oratorio Society of New York, and had what was originally called simply "Music Hall" constructed for them.

The first music conducted there was "Old 100th," a hymn written in 1551 by French composer Louis Bourgeois. It was followed by a concert conducted by none other than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer of Swan Lake and The 1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky called the auditorium "unusually impressive and grand."

The building was renamed Carnegie Hall in 1898. And yet, while Andrew always pronounced his name "Kar-NAY-gee," the building's name has always been pronounced "KAR-nuh-gee." Except when comedian Allan Sherman turned George M. Cohan's 1908 song "H-A-R-R-I-G-A-N" into "H-O-R-O-W-I-T-Z," in honor of the great classical pianist: "Yesterday, I took my girlfriend Peggy/to watch him play a concert at Car-ne-gie."

But it's not just classic music that has been played at Carnegie Hall. On January 16, 1938, the Benny Goodman Orchestra introduced jazz to the place -- racially integrated jazz, no less. Rock and roll debuted there on May 6, 1955, with Bill Haley & His Comets.

Folk music was introduced on December 24, 1955, with a show by The Weavers, then including Pete Seeger. (Despite it being Christmas Eve, they played no Christmas songs, although they played "Greensleeves," which has the same melody as "What Child Is This?") A live album was made. Country music was introduced on March 25, 1966, with Buck Owens & His Buckaroos. This led to a live album as well. The first all-comedy show there was An Evening with Groucho, in 1972, with Groucho Marx being interviewed by Dick Cavett.

Judy Garland performed there on April 23, 1961, and it was recorded for the album Judy at Carnegie Hall, which may still be the biggest-selling non-rock music album in history. The Beatles played 2 shows there on February 12, 1964, in between their 2 Sunday performances a few blocks away on The Ed Sullivan Show. Frank Sinatra sang there on April 8, 1974, the same night that Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run, and it became part of his Sinatra: New York live album.

The building actually has 3 performance venues. The largest, and the one most people think of when they hear the name "Carnegie Hall," is the Stern Auditorium, with 2,804 seats. In the 1980s, the violinist Isaac Stern led a drive to renovate the building in time for its 100th Anniversary in 1991. It was so successful that was completed in 1987.

You may have heard an old joke: A young man asks an older man, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" And the old man says, "Practice, my boy, practice!" In fact, level of talent has nothing to do with being allowed to perform at Carnegie Hall. All you have to do is pay the rental fee.

And so, at the rededication show in 1987, the master of ceremonies, comedian Alan King, began the proceedings by sending a message that any Jewish boy's mother would want to hear, short of being told her son had become a medical doctor: "Made it, Ma: Carnegie Hall. And I didn't even have to practice."

King rattled off the names of so many who had performed there, either as musicians or as conductors, men like Tchiakovsky, Ignace Paderewski, Arturo Toscanini, and so on: "If these walls could talk... it would be with a very heavy accent!"

Also in 1987, I visited for the 1st time, joining my family to see Danish pianist and comedian Victor Borge. Despite being 78 years old, he was on top of his game: "It's your language, I'm just using it!"

For some people, it's a tradition to dine either before or after a Carnegie Hall show 2 doors to the east, at The Russian Tea Room. We ate there before the show. All of us had the same recommendation: Don't. Typical of the more famous New York restaurants, the food would still be mediocre at half the price, and what a price it was.

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May 5, 1891 was a Tuesday. Baseball was the only sport in North America that was openly professional at the time. There were 3 games played that day in the National League:

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0 at the Philadelphia Baseball Grounds. This ballpark would burn down in 1894, and be replaced by Baker Bowl.

* The Brooklyn Bridegrooms lost to the Boston Beaneaters, 12-6 at Eastern Park in Brooklyn. The Dodgers-to-be were then named for the fact that several players had gotten married during the off-season a few years earlier. It would take until 1912 for the Beaneaters to adopt the name, if not the city, that they have today: The Braves.

* And the Chicago Colts beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0 at West Side Park in Chicago. The Chicago team was known as the Colts because they had so many young players. They adopted the name "Cubs" in 1903.

There were also 3 games played that day in the American Association, which had not recovered from the "Players' League War" of the previous year, and would fold at the end of this season:

* The Boston Reds beat the Washington Statesmen, 7-4 at the Congress Street Grounds in Boston. This ballpark would be a temporary home for the Beaneaters in 1894, when the South End Grounds was rebuilt after a fire.

* The Cleveland Spiders beat the Cincinnati Reds, 15-10 at League Park in Cleveland. No, that's not a football score.

* And the Philadelphia Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles, 18-5 at Athletic Park in Philadelphia.

The Orioles would join the NL the next season. So would the Spiders, the Reds, and the Statesmen, the latter becoming the Washington Senators. But the Orioles (despite winning the Pennant in 1894, '95 and '96, and nearly again in '97), the Spiders, the Senators, and the Louisville Colonels would be contracted out of the NL after the 1899 season.