New-York tribune., 1916-07-04
Music Firm Obtains Site
Between Sixth and
Seventh Avenues.
10-STORY BUILDING
TO BE ERECTED
Concern Has Kept Home In
East l4th Street Fifty
eight Years.

Steinway & Sons are to have home
on the north side OF Fifty-seventh
Street, between Sixth and Seventh ave-
nues. which centre is called by many
persons the music hub of the city. The
frm'o new building will replace the
dwelling house properties 1os to Ii3
West Fifty-seventh Street and ia
West Fifty-eighth Street, which they
purchased yesterday through Seton
Henry & Douglas Gibbons.
The parcels form a site with a front
age Of GO feet on Fifty-seventh Street
and extending back 100 feet to the
Fifty eighth Street premises, which is
1913 by 100 feet. Dr. Hermann NJ. Biggs
was the seller Of the Fifty-seventh
Street houses and Mrs. Henry Flagg
of the Fifty-eighth dwelling.
The transformation of Fifty-seventh
Street from Lexington Avenue TO a
point many feet west of Broadway into
one OF the great crosstown shopping
thoroughfares OF this city was begun
few years ago, when some brownstone
dwellings, uBe vacated for residential
purposes and were altered into retail
business places.
Trade Claims Homes.
Since then the former W. c. Whitney
house property, at the southwest corner
of Fifty-seventh Street and Fifth Ave
nue., considered b. many realty experts
TO be the most alluring speculative par
eel in the whole city, beside the Roose-
welt house and some other choice home
sites, have been claimed by trade.
Steinway & Sons have been located at
109 TO ll3 East Fourteenth Street for
the last ffty-eight years, the building
on the site before II was remodelled,
twenty-six years ago, being historic
Steinway Hall. In its heydsy Steinway
Hall was in the heart of the musical
centre of old New York. This property
has been for sale for several wears at
about s750,000. Montehore G. Kahn
was reported to have made overtures
TO purchase the property, but he never
his negotiations.
The building has a marble front. The
side Of the building is used
for Offices, and on the Fifteenth Street
side was the famous auditorium. Up to
1890 nearly all the great concert artists
Of Europe and America made their New
York appearance at Steinway Hall.
With the northward expansion OF the
residential areas Of the city and the
building of Carnegie Hall at Fifty
seventh Street and Seventh Avenue,
Steinway Hall ceased to draw the musi-
cal crowds.
Hall Turned Into Lofts.
Then the old auditorium was made
over into lofts for use as storage and
In the reconstructed build
ing, which is almost as substantial to-
day as when erected, are four lofts on
Fourteenth Street and three lofts on
the Fifteenth Street side.
On the Fifty-seventh Street site
modern ten story building will be erect
ed that will be model structure of its
kind for the storage, display and sale
of Steinway pianos. To the east OF the
site is the beautiful home Of the
Club. and opposite is the
imposing home of the Lotos Club. Many
fine studio apartments and some fine
hotels are in this growing home and
trade centre Of New York.
Ex-Ambassador Morgenthau predict
ed some years ago that Fifty-seventh
Street would be the greatest retail
shopping thoroughfare in the city, If
not in the world II was this trend to
Fifty-seventh Street that led the piano
house 10 buy the Biggs and Flagg prop
critics.