Carnegie Hall

Andrew Carnegie funded the hall at his wife's urging after she and a conductor lobbied him during a shared 1887 cruise to Scotland, and it opened May 5, 1891, with Tchaikovsky conducting his own music in his American debut. William Burnet Tuthill, an amateur cellist who had never designed a concert hall before, was the architect. By 1960 the New York Philharmonic's move to Lincoln Center left the building slated for demolition, and violinist Isaac Stern's Committee to Save Carnegie Hall pushed through the legislation that let the city buy it that July. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1967.