Steinert Hall, Boston, Underground concert hall in Boylston Street, Boston, US
Steinert Hall is an underground concert hall inside a Beaux Arts building on Boylston Street in Boston, with a limestone and brick facade. The hall sits several floors below street level, has an oval shape, and its walls are decorated with Art Nouveau murals.
The hall opened in December 1896 with a performance by pianist Carl Baermann and the Kneisel Quartet, in front of an audience that included Isabella Stewart Gardner. It closed in 1942 after new fire safety rules requiring multiple exits made the cost of adapting the underground space too high.
Steinert Hall sits on a stretch of Boylston Street once known as Piano Row, where music shops lined the block and gave the area its identity. The building still carries the Steinert family name, reflecting their role as piano dealers who built the hall to showcase instruments and attract serious musicians.
Steinert Hall has been closed to the public since 1942 and cannot be visited today. The exterior of the building on Boylston Street is visible from the sidewalk, and local historical archives are a good starting point for anyone wanting to learn more about the space.
The hall was built underground specifically to block out the noise of horse-drawn carriages on Boston's cobblestone streets above. This made it one of the very few concert spaces of its era designed from the start with acoustics as the main reason for going below ground.
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