Steinway Hall, 1925-2014
Introduction
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In 1925, the Steinway and Sons piano company opened a combination recital hall and retail center at this location known as "Steinway Hall." The ornate showrooms were only a block away from Carnegie Hall and replaced the original Steinway Hall, which had opened in 1866 on East 14th. The "new" Steinway Hall of 1925 featured recording studios and opened with a live radio broadcast. Some of the world's most famous pianists and composers performed at this location, including Sergei Rachmaninoff. In 2012, the company announced that they were selling the building and moving their retail outlet to an office building built in the 1970s. The new retail space includes a storefront with large glass windows that may be less of a tourist destination and more of a traditional retail space. “It’s not like somebody who’s just come from a concert [at Carnegie Hall] wanders across the street to buy a piano,” the architect of the new space said in an interview with the New York Times.
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Backstory and Context
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