Manhattan School of Music

130 Claremont Avenue | also 120 Claremont Avenue, 601 West 122nd Street, 3081 Broadway | Morningside Heights | built 1924

Open on the map8 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1910

    The Institute of Musical Art, forerunner of Juilliard, moves to Claremont Avenue

    Founded in 1905 in the former Lenox Mansion at Fifth Avenue and 12th Street, the Institute of Musical Art moved in 1910 to 120 Claremont Avenue, beside Columbia's campus. After it merged with the Juilliard Graduate School in 1926, the Graduate School moved next door to 130 Claremont in 1931. Miles Davis entered the school here in 1944, and Juilliard stayed until it left for Lincoln Center in 1969.

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1931

    Juilliard wraps an Empire State Building architect's Art Deco addition around the Institute

    Juilliard needed more room and spent part of Augustus Juilliard's $13 million endowment on an addition to the north and east that wraps around the 1910 Institute of Musical Art building. It was designed by Arthur Harmon of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, whose previous job was the Empire State Building. The addition holds classrooms, studios, offices and an auditorium whose marble lobby, star-burst chandelier and metal details echo the skyscraper.

    Source: msmnyc.edu

  3. 1957

    Juilliard announces it will leave Claremont Avenue for Lincoln Center

    The Juilliard School of Music's board announced in 1957, after two years of talks, that the school would leave upper Manhattan for the future Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center would pay for the new building, but Juilliard had to teach only advanced students, add a drama program and drop its Preparatory School. Its new Lincoln Center building was finished on October 26, 1969.

    “In 1957, after two years of deliberation, the Juilliard School of Music board announced that the school would relocate from upper Manhattan to the future Lincoln Center.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1969

    Manhattan School of Music moves into the old Juilliard buildings

    Janet Daniels Schenck founded the school in 1918 as the Neighborhood Music School on East 104th Street, with 120 students and 23 teachers; it took the name Manhattan School of Music in 1938. In 1969 it moved from the East Side to West 122nd Street and Claremont Avenue. It added the 19-story Andersen Residence Hall, with new performance spaces and a library, in 2001.

    Source: msmnyc.edu

  5. 1970

    January 30

    The inherited Art Deco auditorium is dedicated to John C. Borden

    Manhattan School of Music finished its move from East 105th Street in record time, but renovations, including air conditioning, dragged on, and the public was only welcomed in early 1970. On January 30 the Art Deco auditorium it had inherited from Juilliard was dedicated in memory of John C. Borden, a former president of the school's board. It became the main hall for opera, symphony and jazz concerts.

    Source: msmnyc.edu

  6. 2001

    Fall

    A 19-story dormitory tower opens on the empty lot north of the school, months before 9/11

    The lot north of the school had sat empty for decades, and a 34-story apartment tower planned there in the 1980s died when funding collapsed after the 1987 crash. By the 1990s the school wanted student housing, and its 19-story Andersen Hall opened in fall 2001, ending the school's character as a commuter campus. The school notes that a few months' delay might have left it unbuilt, since construction in the city stopped after September 11.

    Source: msmnyc.edu

  7. 2012

    Scabby the Rat shows up at the school's audition season

    Precollege faculty formed the union ARTS-MSM after a contentious certification fight in 2009, but nearly three years later no contract had been reached. In 2012 the union ran a leafletting campaign during the conservatory's audition period, joined by Scabby, the large inflatable rat that New York unions use to protest employers. The dispute flared again in 2024, when the two sides again failed to agree on a contract.

    Source: Wikipedia

  8. 2018

    November

    The school's main concert hall reopens after a major renovation

    Manhattan School of Music completed a major renovation of its largest performance space, previously known as the John C. Borden Auditorium, in November 2018. Renamed Neidorff-Karpati Hall, the venue hosts the school's orchestral and large jazz ensemble concerts on the Claremont Avenue campus.

    Source: Wikipedia

Further reading

Nearby

All 49 buildings with stories in Morningside Heights