Piano dealers M. Steinert & Sons own the building, erected in 1896 by company employee Alexander Steinert.[2][3][nb 1] Architects
Winslow and Wetherell designed the "six-story limestone and brick Beaux Arts-style facade with terra-cotta ornament and a copper cornice."[4]
Underground performance auditorium
Inside the building and four stories below ground is a concert auditorium, now closed, designed in the "
Adam-style ... with fluted Corinthian pilasters separating round arches."[4] Around 1911 some considered Steinert Hall the "headquarters for the musical and artistic world of cultured Boston.
Lhévinne,
Josef Hofmann,
Harold Bauer,
Anna Diller Starbuck,
Fritz Kreisler and many others have made their bows from its platform."[5]
The concert auditorium, now in ill-repair, has not been used since it was closed in 1942 due to new fire code restrictions imposed after the
Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire and the prohibitive cost to upgrade the hall.[1]
In May 2015, it was announced that the hall would be renovated in an attempt to open it again for performances.[6]
Vintage advertising
1898
1903
1904
1916
Notes
^In 1883 company founder Morris Steinert relocated the firm's headquarters to Boston (by way of Georgia, Connecticut, and Rhode Island). Around 1889 "Steinert Hall" opened in Boston's
Hotel Boylston, located at the corner of Tremont Street and Boylston Street; the building existed until 1894.