The Academy of Music

The Academy of Music was an opera house with 4,000 seats. Despite being praised for its acoustics, it received criticism for its architecture, interior design, and seating arrangements. The theater became a social hub for New York's elite, with prominent families owning box seats.

The Academy was destroyed by fire in 1866 and rebuilt, but it was overshadowed by the Metropolitan Opera House in 1883. By 1886, it stopped presenting opera and shifted to vaudeville. The building was demolished in 1926 to make way for the Consolidated Edison Building.