Article on the security at Steinway Hall

Event Information

Venue(s):
Steinway Hall

Record Information

Status:
Published

Last Updated:
8 August 2017

Performance Date(s) and Time(s)

01 Mar 1868

Citations

1)
Article: Orpheonist and Philharmonic Journal, March 1868, 2.

“This celebrated Salle de Concert is the most perfect in its appliances and regulations of any in this country; and the attendants, janitor, ushers, door-keeprs, et cetera, are the most efficient and well-trained. In the various notices of the Hall which have appeared from time to time, we do not recollect seeing any mention made of these peculiarities, but that they are very important and agreeable peculiarities no artist need be told.

Nor until the other evening did we fully appreciate the perfection of training to which Mr. Harrison has brought the ‘noble army’ of employees at this establishment, [sic].

We wished to deliver an important message to one of the artists, at a late concert, and applied at the stage entrance for admittance. A human Corberus met us with a jealous countenance, and assured us that we could not see our friend for that ‘was the rule.’

‘Ah! but we must see him!’

‘You can not.’

‘But he expects to see us!’

‘You can not. That is the rule,’ [sic]

‘But it is very important!’

‘I can’t help it: you cannot see him.’

‘But you don’t understand the case. He told me to call. Here take my card, and tell him to step out a minute.’

The card went in and we staid out—but no answer came. We suppose the card passed through so many hands that it was all worn out by the time it reached the right one; and, as a natural consequence, could not be read. So, after waiting a good long while, we finally became persuaded that it was bed time, and we retired to dream about Napoleon’s faithful sentry man, and the stage door-keeper at Steinway Hall—both of whom equally deserve to be immortalized.

This regulation at the stage doors of public buildings is a most wise one; for, if there is one time more than another, when an artist wishes to cry ‘deliver me from my friends’ it is during a concert, in which he takes part. We warn the Bey of Tunis, Mayor Hoffman, or Supt. Kennedy, if they value peaceful slumbers or sweet dreams, not to attempt to see any artists at Steinway Hall during a concert!

The door-keeper at the stage entrance is a jewel.”