4. The Archive Contains Remnants of the Original Metropolitan Opera House

Within the Met Opera archive are pieces of the original Metropolitan Opera house at 39th Street, such as portions of the ornamented plasterwork, vintage lightbulbs, the stage, damask from the box seats, and a sign board. There are also pieces of the gold curtains from over the years, numerous door knobs, light fixtures and bricks, the box chair of Rudolph Bing (General Manager of the Met Opera 1950-1972), a large piece from the proscenium, and an original marble fountain.

Peter Clark, the Director of Archives tells us, “Sometimes people call and offer me pieces of it that were sold off by the demolition company in 1966,” and you can see from the comments on our previous article about the old Met Opera, there are more pieces out there.