Cohoes Music Hall
Encyclopedia
Cohoes Music Hall is located at 58 Remsen Street in Cohoes
, New York
, United States
. It is a four-story brick building in the Second Empire architectural style
. Built in 1874
, it is considered the best example of that style in the city , with an unusually decorative front facade.
In 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
. Thirteen years later, when the Downtown Cohoes
Historic District
was added to the Register, the Music Hall was listed as a contributing property
. After a restoration
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
.
wide by six deep. It is made of brick with alternating courses
of limestone
, a material also used for the hooded trim on the windows. The mansard roof
found on many Second Empire buildings is pierced by several decorative corbel
ed brick chimney
s. Below it is a bracketed
cornice
. The east (front) facade
is faced in green marble
at street level, making it unusually decorative
for a Second Empire building and one of the most ornate in Cohoes.
Inside, the third and fourth stories host a five hundred seat auditorium
, with a balcony
on the upper level. Much of the original interior furnishings and decor remains.
designed and built it for a cost of $60,000. It opened with a performance of Dion Boucicault
's London Assurance
.
They lease
d the space on the ground floors to stores and other businesses to provide extra income, starting with the local post office
. Two years later the city's library
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
, Buffalo Bill Cody, George M. Cohan
, Jimmy Durante
, Lillian Russell
, John Philip Sousa
, Tom Thumb
and then-Cohoes native Eva Tanguay
(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
at the roofline. They closed the theater after discovering one of the roof truss
es was sagging.
By the middle of the 20th century, as the city declined along with its textile industries and the Erie Canal
, 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
just before it was added to the Register. An extensive restoration
allowed to reopen a year after its centenary, with another production of London Assurance.
Since 2002 it has been the home of C-R Productions, which is committed to revitalize the theater and attract visitors to Cohoes by presenting quality theater and educational programs. To the former end, it has staged popular musicals like Chicago
and Miss Saigon
. The street-level offices also serve as the city's visitor center
, with displays on the history of the textile industry in the city and information about historic sites and other local attractions.
Cohoes, New York
Cohoes is an incorporated city located at the northeast corner of Albany County in the US state of New York. It is called the "Spindle City" because of the importance of textile production to its growth. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 16,168...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It is a four-story brick building in the Second Empire architectural style
Architectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
. Built in 1874
1874 in architecture
The year 1874 in architecture involved some significant events.-Buildings:* The Opéra Garnier, designed by Charles Garnier is completed.* California State Capitol in Sacramento, California is completed....
, it is considered the best example of that style in the city , with an unusually decorative front facade.
In 1971 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. Thirteen years later, when the Downtown Cohoes
Downtown Cohoes Historic District
The Downtown Cohoes Historic District takes up of the city of Cohoes, New York, United States. Many of the 165 contributing properties date from the 1820-1930 period when the Erie Canal and Harmony Mills were the mainstay of the city's economy. It was recognized as a historic district and added to...
Historic District
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, historic districts receive legal protection from development....
was added to the Register, the Music Hall was listed as a contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
. After a restoration
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
it began putting on performances again in the 1970s. It is the fourth-oldest music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
currently in use in the country, and also serves as the city's visitor center
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...
.
Building
The Music Hall is nine baysBay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
wide by six deep. It is made of brick with alternating courses
Course (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
of limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
, a material also used for the hooded trim on the windows. The mansard roof
Mansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterized by two slopes on each of its sides with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper that is punctured by dormer windows. The roof creates an additional floor of habitable space, such as a garret...
found on many Second Empire buildings is pierced by several decorative corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
ed brick chimney
Chimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
s. Below it is a bracketed
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. The east (front) facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
is faced in green marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
at street level, making it unusually decorative
Ornament (architecture)
In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
for a Second Empire building and one of the most ornate in Cohoes.
Inside, the third and fourth stories host a five hundred seat auditorium
Auditorium
An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens.- Etymology :...
, with a balcony
Balcony
Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...
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 of nearby AlbanyAlbany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
designed and built it for a cost of $60,000. It opened with a performance of Dion Boucicault
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, 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 Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...
's London Assurance
London Assurance
London Assurance 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, from March 4, 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden was Boucicault's first major success...
.
They lease
Lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the lessee to pay the lessor for use of an asset. A rental agreement is a lease in which the asset is tangible property...
d the space on the ground floors to stores and other businesses to provide extra income, starting with the local post office
Post office
A post office is a facility forming part of a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies...
. Two years later the city's library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
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
Market saturation
In economics, "market saturation" is a term used to describe a situation in which a product has become diffused within a market; the actual level of saturation can depend on consumer purchasing power; as well as competition, prices, and technology....
. Performers who played the building over the years included Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
, Buffalo Bill Cody, George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
, Jimmy Durante
Jimmy Durante
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s...
, Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
, John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
, Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb
Tom Thumb is a character of English folklore. The History of Tom Thumb was published in 1621, and has the distinction of being the first fairy tale printed in English. Tom is no bigger than his father's thumb, and his adventures include being swallowed by a cow, tangling with giants, and becoming a...
and then-Cohoes native Eva Tanguay
Eva Tanguay
Eva Tanguay was a Canadian-born singer and entertainer who billed herself as "the girl who made vaudeville famous".-Early life:...
(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
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
at the roofline. They closed the theater after discovering one of the roof truss
Truss
In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...
es was sagging.
By the middle of the 20th century, as the city declined along with its textile industries and the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...
, 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
Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
just before it was added to the Register. An extensive restoration
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
allowed to reopen a year after its centenary, with another production of London Assurance.
Since 2002 it has been the home of C-R Productions, which is committed to revitalize the theater and attract visitors to Cohoes by presenting quality theater and educational programs. To the former end, it has staged popular musicals like Chicago
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
and Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon
Miss Saigon is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's opera Madame Butterfly, and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed romance involving an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover...
. The street-level offices also serve as the city's visitor center
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...
, with displays on the history of the textile industry in the city and information about historic sites and other local attractions.