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New Aeolian Hall Formally Dedicated
5
to Service of the Public
T
Golden Key of New Hall
Is Presented to New York
City Officials at First Pub-
lic Function in Building
ing and there witnessed the presentation to Whit-
ney Warren, representing the architects, of thie
gold medal awarded by the Fifth Avenue Asso-
ciation for the finest building erected on ihe
avenue during 1926, the story of the award
having already been published in these columns.
Gold Medal for Architect
The presentation was made by Col. Michael
Friedsam, president of the Fifth Avenue Ass.o-
ciation, who, of the building itself, said, in part:
"On this marvelous avenue of aspiring
varieties, it stands unique, lovely, a little shy.
Not sweeping upward to scrape the sky in
physical reach; it seems compounded of the
days and times when viols and lutes sounded
in castle parks. Horn of and infused with the
spirit of music, standing at the corner of this
most modern and luxurious of avenues, I like
to think that from its concealed girders and
stones the overtimes of music will overreach
and spread higher than its towering neighbors.
"We have, in this city, to contend with the
problems of commerce and aesthetics. In
' • '• ' ^ s l - ^ - . V V -1 \ ^ .;••?. *F ^ j £ rr- .s
commerce, men must fight for victory; but we,
do not wish them to trample beauty in the
dust to find, at last, their victory arid, less
rich than it might have been. Laws enable
men to join in a civilized community to fight
according to rules, in harmony. It seems to
me that the Aeolian Building, in every sense,
•rr- -T"
expresses and stands for the harmony that
even these swift days can achieve.
v,
"It is with great pleasure that I introdute"
to you Mr. Whitney Warren, whose sense of
the past, realization of the present and vi1?*ori^
of the future is responsible for the beauty of
the Aeolian Building."
In acknowledging the presentation of the
medal Mr. Warren said, in part:
"Forced to the confession, will you allow
me to admit that I think the Aeolian Buildirig
a thing of beauty. Its planning exhilarate"^, •
fascinated us. Our inspiration lay everywhere,
difficult to fix. Ancient traditions of pure
melody clashed with the modern dissonance
The New Aeolian Hall
of jazz; the towering, aggressive structures of
industry and commerce were like clarion calls
HE first official event in connection with may be regarded as more or less the property of architecture all about us. What to do?
the opening of the magnificent new of the public, for music is essentially a public Man is not always strident, the soul is not
always in haste, the eye does not always seek
Aeolian Hall, Fifth avenue and Fifty- art.
Some twoscore executives of the Aeolian the restless gesture of the skyscraper never
fourth street, New York, occurred on Wednes-
day afternoon of this week and was in the Co., officials and representatives of Warren & attaining its sky. A little rest, a little peace,
nature of an architectural dedication, with the Wetmore and others connected with the con- a simple loveliness all complete, a dream sym-
City of New York appropriately represented struction and decoration of the building gathered bolized, as Col. Friedsam has so fittingly said,
(Continued on page 37)
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in the ceremonies of what in a musical sense in the rotunda on the second floor of the build-
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7,
NEWARK. N. J.J
ESTABLISHED 1862
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MANUFACTURERS OF PIANOSOF QUALITY
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