What the guidebooks won’t tell you

Photo: Michael Kirby

Carnegie Hall

WHY ESSENTIAL:
The best clichés stick because they’re true. (Hey, another cliché!) Hard to conceive that this imposing destination at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue—a National Historic Landmark—nearly met the wrecking ball in 1960.

The secret:
You know those photos you see of Carnegie performances that look like they were taken onstage? There’s no hidden camera in the brass section. The shots are taken through the maestro suite window, a secret portal found in a locked closet at the back of the conductor’s dressing room. From the audience you’ll see the window as an eight-inch black square above the stage door on the left (that’s stage right to all you theatrical types). The only people who see it from the other side are photographers, who wait outside the maestro suite for the conductor to leave his dressing room. An employee then unlocks the closet, at the bottom of which is a two-foot-high metal door. A mat inside is rolled out and the photographers lie on their stomachs and point their lenses through the small window toward the maestro onstage. 881 Seventh Ave at 57th St (212-247-7800, carnegiehall.org)

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