Articles on new addition to Chickering’s Rooms

“A very beautiful music hall has just been added to the elegant warerooms of the Messrs. Chickering, in Fourteenth street, near Union Square. It is designed for private rehearsals, select concerts and musical reunions, but it is admirably adapted for readings and lectures, and will doubtless be in great request during the winter, on account of its convenient situation and the luxury of its arrangements.

“The entrance way lies directly through the central hall of the main building, and the apartment itself is but a few feet above the level of Fourteenth street, thus affording an easy access. The style of decoration is exquisite. The prevailing tint is pearl and the ornaments in relief are in gold. Graceful festoons hang around the elaborate cornice, and overhead light is admitted from the roof through ground glass, every pane bearing as a device the star of the Legion of Honor. Chairs in blue leather with folding seats fill the auditorium, and offer accommodations for two hundred and forty-eight persons. The general effect of all this is singularly fine, and ‘What a lovely room!’ is the exclamation that naturally drops from the lips of every visitor entering it.

At night, the hall is brilliantly lighted by carbonized gas from clusters of burners in wall brackets, and from rose lights in the ceiling. The illumination would be excessive, but for the peculiar softness and whiteness of the blaze, which reveals all objects with the utmost distinctness without hurting the eye; affording a material illustration of Mr. Mathew Arnold’s ‘sweetness and light.’

“The ventilation of the room is perfect. Streams of fresh air continually flow into it, but without creating draughts of reducing the temperature below the point of healthful comfort.

“With all these advantages, the room would yet fail of its purposes had not its acoustics been carefully considered. Artists and amateurs agree in saying that alike for the hearer and the vocalist or performer, it is just what a music hall should be. To the vocalist it has the property known as ‘assisting;’ the voice is helped by the resonance, and rejoices, after the first few notes have been uttered, in the ease with which the most difficult passages may be rendered. It follows, of course, that a reader or lecturer may address an audience without rising above the ordinary tones of conversation.

“The erection of the music hall, while it gives completeness to the establishment of the Messrs. Chickering, renders an important service to uptown society by providing an eligible room for select musical entertainments, where the brilliancy of the opera house and the privacy of the drawing room are happily combined.”