The Secret Symphonic Stage Forgotten 40 feet below a Local Piano Shop

Boston has its own phantom of the opera; a vast and forgotten 120 year-old concert theatre buried 40 feet below street level. One of the city’s best-kept secrets, the sleeping concert hall reminiscent of Italian Renaissance style, has been closed for more than 70 years, hidden away from the public below the unassuming old storefront of piano seller M. S Steinert & Sons on Boylston Street.

Steinert Hall was once a treasured performance space, hailed at the dawn of the 20th century as the “headquarters for the musical and artistic world of cultured Boston”.

Today it doesn’t serve as much more than a subterranean crypt for old pianos and their spare parts…

The “acoustically perfect” theatre was built by Alexander Steinert, son of Morris Steinert, a German immigrant who arrived in Boston in the mid 1800s along with his dream of opening an American piano store. Alexander commissioned the 650 seater concert hall for musicians to benefit from a unique acoustic environment, buried deep enough to entirely silence the noise of the busy Boston streets.