| Eastman School of Music | Eastman School |
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| Eastman School in the 1920s, from Rochester
Public Library |
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| "Plan of Great Building that George Eastman Is to Erect," Democrat and Chronicle, February 25, 1920, Page 21. |
Ground was broken for he new School of Music building at the beginning of 1920 and after a tumultuous period of construction it opened its doors to students on September 12, 1921.
References
1920 "Plan of Great
Building that George Eastman Is to Erect," Democrat and
Chronicle, February 25, 1920, Page 21.
1920 "First Contract for Pianos for Use in Eastman School Provides for Delivery of 38," Democrat and Chronicle, March 19, 1920, Page 13.
1920 "Because
of High Costs and Uncertainty as to Future Eastman Suspends Building,"
Democrat and Chronicle, March 19, 1920, Page 28.
Decision affects School of Music.
1920 "Brick Building Will be Moved to Swan Street from Site of Eastman School of Music in Gibbs Street," Democrat and Chronicle, April 5, 1920, 1920, Page 17.
1920 "One of Seven Organs Planned for Eastman School of Music will be Model of Kind, Contract Promises," Democrat and Chronicle, November 16, 1920, Page 21.
1921 "Gigantic Task of Erecting New Eastman School of Music Would be Much Greater Without Motor Truck," Democrat and Chronicle, February 6, 1921, Page 16.
1921 "Eastman School Now Ready for First Classes," Democrat and Chronicle, September 18, 1921, Page 40.
1923 "The Electrical and Illuminating Equipment of the Eastman Theatre and School of Music," by Frederick A. Mott and Loyd A. Jones, Journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers 42(6):569-582 (June 1923)
1926 Plat
Book of the City of Rochester
Plate
2: Eastman School and Theatre
1927 "Eastman
Theater Issues Booklet," Democrat and Chronicle, March 1,
1927, Page 24.
Building and Music School Pictures and Described.
1927 Rochester,
the making of a university, by Jesse Leonard Rosenberger, with
an introduction by President Rush Rhees.
Page 302-316: Eastman School of Music
1935 Plat
Book of the City of Rochester
Plate
1: Eastman School and Theatre
1977 History
of the University of Rochester, 1850-1962, by Arthur J.
May. Expanded edition with notes
Chapter 18, The Birth of a Music Center
On Monday, September 12, 1921, the Eastman School of Music opened its
doors to students, one hundred and four of them "regulars" of whom
fifty-nine were candidates for certificates and forty-five were aspirants
for a bachelor's degree; women outnumbered men in a ratio of seven to one.
Over 1,200 entered as special students or in the preparatory department.
It was decided that the music school and a small concert hall would occupy
the south end of the property, while a theatre with a large auditorium
would be erected on the north side. Musical entertainment would be
furnished in the great concert hall one day of each week, and for six days
it would be used as a cinema house de luxe, imitative of motion
picture theatres in New York City, in that film showings would be
accompanied by performances of good music and ballet. This feature of the
whole enterprise was dear to the heart of Eastman, who reasoned that many
moviegoers would thereby develop a taste for music of quality and thus
patronage of symphonic concerts and opera would be enlarged. 6
Planning of the vast edifice was entrusted jointly to McKim, Mead, and
White, a leading New York City architectural firm, and to Gordon and
Kaelber, Rochester architects. A Rochester company, A. W. Hopeman and
Sons, was chosen as general contractor. By St. Patrick's day of 1919
preliminary overall plans had been designed, but before construction was
finished many revisions had been made; from first to last, some 2,500
blueprints were drafted covering every feature of the huge complex.
To get ideas, architects inspected many American schools of music, concert
halls, and cinema houses. Eastman personally visited several institutions
and supplied the builders with detailed instructions on plans and their
execution. Between competing designs for the principal entrance to the
theatre, for instance, Eastman chose one which placed the doors at the
corner of Main and Gibbs; so furious was the McKim firm by the rejection
of its recommendation that the theatre face on Main Street that it
threatened to withdraw completely from the project, but, through the
tactful intervention of Eastman's friend, Frank L. Babbott, reconsidered
and agreed to design the facade and the interiors of the two concert
halls. Thinking that the seating capacity planned for the theatre might
exceed current needs and anxious to avoid a "barn-like" atmosphere,
Eastman proposed a semi-permanent curtain to cut off the top level.
During the construction Eastman stopped at the site almost every day, and
he was saluted as the master architect, as had been true of Hiram Sibley
when the library on the Prince Street Campus was rising. To erect and
equip the building, Eastman "spent money like water," Rhees wrote; the
President, too, kept a supervisory eye on construction, as did George W.
Todd, Rochester industrialist, an original member of the managerial board,
and a central figure in the expansion of the University as a whole.
Clarence A. Livingston, who was intimately associated with the,
construction of the musical center, subsequently became its general
superintendent; in 1927 he took a similar position for all University
properties, remaining until 1950.
No fewer than twenty-seven Rochester firms shared in the construction and
equipment of the center, supplying all manner of products from structural
steel to wood carving, and nine companies from outside of the city also
participated. Between 500 and 700 Rochester workmen were employed.
Delays in the arrival of materials and labor troubles interrupted progress
in construction. Following a strike, the pay envelop of workmen carried a
sketch of the complex as it would look upon completion and a statement
that "this building is not being erected for profit." Whatever money was
left over from the construction fund or was earned by movies in the big
auditorium would be devoted to the provision of "musical education and
entertainment for yourself and your children at the lowest practical
rates" and for no other purpose. As another means of cultivating esprit
de corps among the artisans, a "Building Progress Bulletin" made
its appearance in September, 1920, and was published now and then until
all work was finished. Readers were reminded that the structure was being
erected "for yourself and your children and your children's children."
Reluctantly, Eastman acquiesced in the assignment of his name to the
School and the Theatre. Jocularly, he inquired of a long-time friend who
recommended that the donor should be commemorated in art form, "Would it
not satisfy your portrait aspirations if I should be sculpt'd heroic size
for one of the figures on the roof, with a camera in one hand and a horn
in the other ?..." At the summit of the Theatre facade an inscription,
devised by Rhees, "For the enrichment of community life," proclaimed the
supreme objective of the music center. By the terms of the Eastman gift
(which with an endowment for the School approached $6,500,000, excluding
the cost of constructing the Theatre, nearly $3,000,000 more) ownership of
the property was vested in the University, of which the School would be an
integral division, but management was entrusted to a small, separate,
self-perpetuating board, subject to nominal approval by the University
trustees. Eastman, who selected the original board, had a place on it as
had Rhees and Todd, who served as the first chairman. It was charged with
the promotion of musical culture in Rochester generally. 7
For the dignified exterior of the entire edifice, the Italian Renaissance
style was freely adapted and Indiana limestone was used. Rusticated
masonry was applied on the first story, and above that the principal wall
was divided by windows and Ionic pilasters, surmounted by a cornice in a
classic pattern. The whole was topped off by a crest of metal and a tiled
roof. Columns of Vermont marble were set over the main entrances to the
School and to the auditorium. A long marquee, on which attractions would
be advertised, stretched across the width of the sidewalk, affording
protection to patrons from inclement weather. Powerful projectors could
flood the entire building with brilliant light.
On the first floor of the School, a broad corridor traversed the whole
length of the structure; pilasters separated the walls into panels.
Administrative offices and a temporary library fronted on the corridor.
Considering its spaciousness, it is not altogether surprising that this
portion of the School in the early years was sometimes assumed to be
something it was not. Raymond S. Wilson reports, "After being seated for
more than an hour in the main corridor... a rather elderly woman, laden
heavily with baggage, arose and went to the information booth. Mistaking
the School for a railway terminal she expressed surprise [that] the Empire
State Express had not yet been announced!
From the east end of the corridor a fine staircase passed through twin
columns of gray Sienna marble and led to a corridor on the second level;
treads and risers were made of gray Tennessee marble and the balustrades
of cast bronze. Walls of the upper corridor were divided by pilasters of
brown marble; lower down was wainscoting of buff-colored marble imported
from Italy. Two noble white marble pillars stood at either end of the
corridor, while a band of black and white marble circled it just above the
floor level. Paintings, some of them to be borrowed periodically from the
Memorial Art Gallery, would be here displayed. The corridor, like the one
below connected by doorways with the Theatre, ran the full extent of the
building. It would serve as a promenade during concert intermissions and
be used for School dances and other social functions.
Off the corridor to the south and on two upper floors were faculty
studies, classrooms, and studio and practice rooms. Other practice and
tuning rooms were laid out in the basement, where storage space was
reserved for orchestral scores; an attic above the fourth level remained
vacant. School equipment was of the best, including nearly forty (soon
increased to over one hundred) pianos, two (later thirteen) organs, and a
special organ to train students to play in cinema houses. When the first
students arrived, School facilities were not yet finished, and until
February of 1922 pupils and teachers gained access to classrooms through a
wooden gangway proceeding from Gibbs Street to an elevator that lifted
them to the third and fourth levels.
At the southwest corner of the first floor corridor, an exquisite hall was
erected as an adjunct to the School. A memorial to the donor's mother,
Maria Kilbourn Eastman, it was named Kilbourn Hall. This beautiful room
was noted for choice walnut panelling on the lower part of the side walls,
while the upper third of stone was draped with blue tapestries stencilled
with patterns in gold; heavy beams studded the panelled ceiling,
embellished in blue and gold. A grille over the proscenium arch emitted
music from a great four-manual organ (enlarged in 1951). The acoustics of
Kilbourn Hall, which was equipped for motion pictures, were flawless.
Seats for 512 listeners were arranged in a Roman-style amphitheatre with
rising tiers so that everyone could see the stage without obstruction;
light was furnished by small windows and by chandeliers suspended from the
ceiling. Concerts, of chamber music, recitals by faculty and students, and
School assemblies would be held here.
For the formal dedication on March 3, 1922, 2,000 guests crowded into
Kilbourn Hall or followed the ceremonies in the adjoining foyer or in the
School corridor.
1987 "A
History of the Eastman Theatre," by Vinci Lenti, Rochester
History 49(1):1-24 (January 1987)
This city block-bordered by Main Street on the north, Barrett Alley on the
south, Gibbs Street on the west, and Swan Street on the east-underwent a
profound and dramatic change during the years 1919-1922. George Eastman
had selected this site for the new Eastman School of Music and adjoining
Eastman Theatre, and only two buildings were spared demolition. The owner
of the large building at the comer of Main and Swan demanded too high a
purchase price from Eastman. Rather than agreeing to what he considered to
be an exorbitant amount, the mil-lionaire philanthropist ordered his
architects to redesign the plans for the new theater and abandoned his
efforts to acquire the building. It stood there for over forty more years,
cutting a triangular wedge into the side of the theater, and was finally
purchased by the Eastman School of Music and demolished.
1996 "The Eastman School of Music," by Vincent A. Lenti, Rochester History 58(4):1-32 with illus (Fall 1996)
© 2021 Morris A. Pierce