Thank GOD wiser heads prevailed! Carnegie Hall was to be torn down....

I came across this page from the September 9, 1957 issue of Life magazine.  It rather coolly lays out for readers what they have in store for them when Carnegie Hall gets torn down in two years--making way for Manhattan's FIRST red porcelain, 44-story tower from hell.

The text is a bit difficult to read, so here it is:

"The building boom that has been making over the old brownstone face of Manhattan with new facades of gleaming aluminum, green glass and copper-tinted steel will reach a new degree of flamboyance in the skyscraper to be erected on the site of Carnegie hal.  When the famous concert place is demolished in 1959, a new office building faced in panels of bright red porcelain will go up in its place.  To liven up the effect even more, Architects Pomerance and Bevines have offset the building's windows in diagonal instead of vertical rows to produce a strange-looking checkerboard pattern.  Standing on stilts in a broad plaza, the $22 million building will rise 44 floors above 57th Street.

All this was saddening news to music lovers who have come to cherish old Victorian Carnegie Hall.  Built as a business venture by Andrew Carnegie, a lover of Scotch bagpipe music, it opened in 1891 with a program partly conducted by Tchaikovsky.  It became home for the New York Philharmonic and a magnet for the great musicians of the world.  When it is demolished, music will lose one of its most acoustically perfect halls.  But there was some good news for music lovers:  As the office building goes up, Carnegie Hall's activities will move to Manhattan's new Lincoln Square cultural center and into a modern auditorium adjoining the new Metropolitan Opera house. "

Interesting how this is all presented as a fait accompli; an inevitability that was sure to happen.  Well, fortunately, a small but very vocal band of music/architecture/cultural preservationists (and just plain common-sensical people!) rose up and said, "Hold on just a damned minute here!" 
They were led--and given a media face--by the great violinist, Isaac Stern.  In 1960, their efforts to save the hall from its fate with the wrecking ball were, almost incredibly, successful.  This was just prior to the formation of the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission, which was formed after the senseless destruction of New York's greatest public building, Pennsylvania Station, so the fact that they were able to convince the provervial "wiser heads" to see their point was not a given, in any sense of the word.  But the red porcelain tower never happened (can you even imagine??), the hall is celebrating its 120th birthday this year and is undergoing yet another major renovation--and the main auditorium of Carnegie Hall is now called "The Isaac Stern Auditorium". 

I think it's very important for the photo of this would-be "new Carnegie Hall" to be seen and discussed, and held-up as the ultimate example of the power of rallying to an architectural cause---and what might happen if too many people keep their mouths shut in the face of utter idiocy.  Thank you, Maestro Stern....