In the 1860's, 14th Street near Union Square was called "Piano Row".

In 1864 William Steinway jumped ahead of the piano district by erecting an elegant showroom building on East 14th&nbsp;Street near Fifth Avenue.&nbsp;&nbsp;Well-heeled customers could browse among over 100 Steinway &amp; Sons pianos here; away from the distraction of competitors&rsquo; showrooms.&nbsp;&nbsp;Two years later Steinway scored a&nbsp;coup&nbsp;when he ingeniously constructed a concert hall to the rear of his building. Now audiences who came to hear performances would get first-hand demonstrations of the Steinway instruments played by top musicians. Steinway&rsquo;s luck increased when Manhattan&rsquo;s premier concert venue, the Academy of Music, burned down four days below Steinway Hall&rsquo;s grand opening.

 By 1874 Chickering was ready to meet the challenge posed by Steinway Hall.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;The firm broke ranks with the Broadway piano merchants and signed a 25-year lease on the lot at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 18th&amp;nbsp;Street&amp;mdash;a neighborhood that a generation earlier had been the city&amp;rsquo;s most exclusive residential district and included Frank Chickering&amp;rsquo;s own mansion at No. 5 Fifth Avenue.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Architect George B. Post was hired to design a structure that could house a vast piano showroom, music store, warehouse and&amp;mdash;most importantly&amp;mdash;a concert hall to rival Steinway&amp;rsquo;s.  

Before the turn of the century Fifth Avenue and Union Square would see the construction of grand buildings of piano makers&amp;mdash;the Sohmer Piano and Decker Brothers buildings among them.&amp;nbsp;  

In 1882 poet Oscar Wilde arrived in America for a lecture tour and on January 9 crowds filed into Chickering Hall to hear the famed English writer. &amp;ldquo;Before 8 o&amp;rsquo;clock a placard setting forth that there was &amp;lsquo;standing room only&amp;rsquo; within was displayed at the entrance. A large portion of those who attended came in coaches, and there were many representatives of families conspicuous in the fashionable world,&amp;rdquo; reported The New York Times. &amp;ldquo;Young men dressed as though for an opera night ranged themselves behind the rear row of seats and along the side aisles. Ladies attired in rich costumes were numerous, and were prepared to level their opera-glasses at the lecturer upon his appearance.&amp;rdquo; The newspaper was a much interested in Wilde&amp;rsquo;s appearance as in his subject, &amp;ldquo;English Renaissance.&amp;rdquo; In detail it told its readers &amp;ldquo;His long and bushy hair crowded in front of his ears and nearly to his eyes, but it was brushed well off his forehead. He wore a low-necked shirt with a turned-down collar and large white necktie, a black claw-hammer coat and white vest, knee-britches, long black stockings, and low shoes with bows. A heavy gold seal hung to a watch-guard from a fob-pocket. The poet had no flower in the lapel of his coat. In his picturesque attire he was a study that seemed greatly to interest the audience.&amp;rdquo; Having recapped the lecture, The Times concluded saying &amp;ldquo;At the  

On December 4, 1901 Alliance Realty Company purchased the property for about $575,000.&nbsp;&nbsp;Four days later&nbsp;The Times&nbsp;reported that &ldquo;A new mercantile structure will soon rise on the site of Chickering Hall.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;The days of the magnificent structure where New Yorkers heard the world&rsquo;s foremost musicians, inventors, singers and lecturers had come to an end.Within months Chickering Hall was demolished and the foundation for an 11-story business building was dug.&nbsp;&nbsp;It was the scene of tragedy on May 27, 1902 when a crowd of excited viewers crammed the area of the construction site as a parade marched up Fifth Avenue.&nbsp;&nbsp;The temporary sidewalk erected in front of the deep pit gave way, plunging about 100 persons into the excavation pit.&nbsp;&nbsp;One man died instantly and &ldquo;at least fifty were so seriously injured that they either had to receive medical attention on the spot or else were driven away in carriages,&rdquo; said the police report.The limestone and brick-clad building that replaced Chickering Hall still survives; obliterating any memory of the once-famous concert hall that stood there before it.

Union Square Timeline Medallion 12

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