Concert Hall (Boston, Massachusetts)

The Concert Hall (1752–1869) was a performance and meeting space in Boston, Massachusetts, located at Hanover Street and Queen Street. Meetings, dinners, concerts, and other cultural events took place in the hall.

According to some, Stephen Deblois built the hall in 1752. The Concert Hall building occupied a lot on Hanover Street that had changed owners several times through the years, beginning from the earliest days of Boston in the mid-17th century. "The site was first known as Houchin's Corner, from a tanner of that name who occupied it." Owners included: Gilbert and Lewis Deblois (1749); Stephen Deblois (1764); William Turner (1769); John and Jonathan Amory (1789-ca.1798).

At some point after 1787, architect Charles Bulfinch re-modelled the building ("new interior and enlarged," according to his notes). Around 1798, it was a "brick house, three stories, thirty windows, value $3000." It "underwent various alterations until torn down in 1869, to make way for the widening of Hanover Street."

Concert Hall served multiple functions, mainly as a venue for groups of people to gather to hear concerts, and to attend meetings and formal dinners. The Freemasons met there from the 1750s until at least 1818. In January, 1755, the Boston News-Letter advertised "a concert of musick" at the hall, tickets four shillings. The hall may have had "a small organ by the London builder John Snetzler from 1763 to 1774."

John Rowe, a merchant who built Boston's Rowe's Wharf, attended events at the Concert Hall and kept notes in his diary:

March 16, 1769: "Spent the evening at the Fife Major's concert at Concert Hall; there was a large and genteel company and the best musick I have heard performed there."
March 23, 1770: "Went in the evening to the Concert Hall to hear Mr. Joan read the Beggars Opera and sing the songs; he read but indifferently, but sung in taste; there were upwards one hundred people there."
Jan. 3, 1771: "Spent the evening at Concert Hall, where there was a concert performed by Hartly Morgan and others; after the concert a dance. The Commodore [i.e., James Gambier?] and all the captains of the navy here was there, and Colo. Dalrymple, and fifty or sixty gentlemen and the same number of ladies present."
Jan. 18, 1771: At the dinner on the Queen's birthday at Concert Hall ... there was "very good dancing and good musick, but very bad wine and punch."

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