On October 22, 1883, New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House opened at Broadway and 39th Street with a performance of Charles Gounod’s Faust. Backed by wealthy patrons—including members of the Vanderbilt, Morgan, and Roosevelt families excluded from the Academy of Music’s coveted private boxes—the new house offered an ambitious alternative to the city’s established operatic institution. Its opening marked a new chapter in both New York’s musical life and its Gilded Age social rivalries.
Designed by architect J. Cleaveland Cady, the building acquired the nickname “Yellow Brick Brewery” for its industrial-looking exterior. Inside, however, its tiered auditorium provided an intimate setting that generations of audiences came to cherish. The contrast between the building’s unassuming exterior and its celebrated cultural life became part of the old Met’s identity.
On August 27, 1892, a devastating fire gutted the theater, forcing the cancellation of the following season. Rebuilt largely along its original lines, the house reopened in 1893. Further alterations followed, including an interior redesign in 1903 and the installation of its signature gold damask stage curtains in 1906.
The Metropolitan Opera remained at its Broadway home until its move to Lincoln Center in 1966. Despite a bitter preservation campaign, the original building was demolished in January 1967. Its loss erased a setting closely associated with New York’s operatic history—and with the Gilded Age patrons whose pursuit of social standing helped bring it into being.
Photo Caption:
The Original Metropolitan Opera House, Broadway and 39th Street
Designed by J. Cleaveland Cady (left), New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, with Gounod’s Faust. Nicknamed the “Yellow Brick Brewery,” it housed the company until its move to Lincoln Center in 1966 and was demolished in 1967.
