Cohoes Music Hall is a vintage music hall located at 58 Remsen Street in
Cohoes,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It is a four-story brick building in the
Second Empire Second Empire may refer to:
* Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783
* Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396)
* Second French Empire (1852–1870)
** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...
architectural style
An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...
. Built in
1874
Events
January–March
* January 1 – New York City annexes The Bronx.
* January 2 – Ignacio María González becomes head of state of the Dominican Republic for the first time.
* January 3 – Third Carlist War &ndas ...
, it is considered the best example of that style in the city, with an unusually decorative front facade.
Register of Historical Place designation
In 1971 it was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
. Thirteen years later, when the
Downtown Cohoes Historic District
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...
was added to the Register, the Music Hall was listed as a
contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...
. After a
restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
it began putting on performances again in the 1970s. It is the fourth-oldest music hall currently in use in the country, and also serves as the city's
visitor center
A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to visitors.
Types of visitor center
A visit ...
.
Building
The Music Hall is nine
bays
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
wide by six deep. It is made of brick with alternating
courses of
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
, a material also used for the hooded trim on the windows. The
mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
found on many Second Empire buildings is pierced by several decorative
corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
ed brick
chimney
A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typic ...
s. Below it is a
bracketed cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
.
The east (front)
facade is faced in green
marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite. Marble is typically not Foliation (geology), foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the ...
at street level, making it unusually
decorative
Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
for a Second Empire building and one of the most ornate in Cohoes.
Inside, the third and fourth stories host a 375-seat
auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...
, with a
balcony
A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor.
Types
The traditional Maltese balcony is ...
on the upper level. Much of the original interior furnishings and decor remains.
History
Two local businessmen, newspaper owner James Masten and miller William Acheson, partnered to build the Music Hall in 1874.
Nichols and Halcott Nichols may refer to:
People
*Nichols (surname)
*Nichol, a surname
Places Canada
* Nichols Islands, Nunavut
United States
* Nichols, California, an unincorporated community
* Nichols Canyon, Los Angeles, California
* Nichols, Connecticut
* Nic ...
of nearby
Albany designed and built it for a cost of $60,000. It opened with a performance of
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820 – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the ...
's ''
London Assurance
''London Assurance'' (originally titled ''Out of Town'') is a five-act comedy by Dion Boucicault. It was the second play that he wrote but his first to be produced. Its first production was by Charles Matthews and Madame Vestris's company and ...
''.
They
lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
d the space on the ground floors to stores and other businesses to provide extra income, starting with the local
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
. Two years later the city's
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
rented some space on the second story. In 1878 Masten sold his interest to Mary Acheson for 25 cents, because he felt the local market was
oversaturated.
Performers who played the building over the years included
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt (; born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including '' La Dame Aux Camel ...
,
Buffalo Bill Cody
William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in ...
,
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan (July 3, 1878November 5, 1942) was an American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and theatrical producer.
Cohan began his career as a child, performing with his parents and sister in a vaudev ...
,
Jimmy Durante
James Francis Durante ( , ; February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American comedian, actor, singer, vaudevillian, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced song ...
,
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell (born Helen Louise Leonard; December 4, 1860 or 1861 – June 6, 1922), was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, known for her beauty ...
,
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dist ...
,
General Tom Thumb
Charles Sherwood Stratton (January 4, 1838 – July 15, 1883), better known by his stage name "General Tom Thumb", was an American dwarf who achieved great fame as a performer under circus pioneer P. T. Barnum.
Childhood and early life
Bo ...
and then-Cohoes native
Eva Tanguay
Eva Tanguay (August 1, 1878 – January 11, 1947) was a Canadian singer and entertainer who billed herself as "the girl who made vaudeville famous". She was known as "The Queen of Vaudeville" during the height of her popularity from the early 1 ...
(supposedly booed on her first appearance
).
In 1880 the First National Bank moved into the first floor.
By 1905 it had taken over ownership of the building, putting its name on the
entablature
An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...
at the roofline. They closed the theater after discovering one of the roof
truss
A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure.
In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...
es was sagging.
By the middle of the 20th century, as the city declined along with its textile industries and the
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing t ...
, the Music Hall had begun to deteriorate and fall into disuse. It became city property for one dollar in 1969,.
and was in danger of being
demolished
Demolition (also known as razing, cartage, and wrecking) is the science and engineering in safely and efficiently tearing down of buildings and other artificial structures. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a ...
just before it was added to the Register. An extensive
restoration
Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to:
* Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
** Audio restoration
** Film restoration
** Image restoration
** Textile restoration
* Restoration ecology
...
allowed to reopen a year after its
centenary
{{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation)
A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years.
Notable events
Notable centennial events at ...
,
with another production of ''London Assurance''.
The Music Hall has been managed by a number of organizations throughout the early 21st Century, including CR Productions and Albany’s Palace Performing Arts Center.
Currently, the street-level area serves as the city's
visitor center
A visitor center or centre (see American and British English spelling differences), visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to visitors.
Types of visitor center
A visit ...
, with displays on the history of the textile industry in the city and information about historic sites and other local attractions.
Cohoes Music Hall is now managed by Playhouse Stage Company (Park Playhouse Inc.). The venue plays host to Playhouse Stage musical theatre productions, as well as a wide variety of live music, stand-up comedy and other performing arts and civic events.
References
External links
Website
{{Authority control
Music venues in New York (state)
Theatres in New York (state)
Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Second Empire architecture in New York (state)
Music venues completed in 1874
Cohoes, New York
Buildings and structures in Albany County, New York
Tourist attractions in Albany County, New York
1874 establishments in New York (state)
National Register of Historic Places in Albany County, New York
Event venues on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state)
Performing arts centers in New York (state)