Music: Monument

Great men die and are laid to rest with all the pomp and ceremony due them. Monuments are erected, grim, ugly things, with great names carved in cold, lifeless stone, incompatible above all things with the vitality, the enterprise that made their owners mighty. In August, 1919, a great man died in Manhattan, was given pompous Jewish burial from the Temple Emanuel. He had his monument of stone. Last week his son announced that he would build another memorial, one more worthy of his father. The son is Arthur Hammerstein, famed Manhattan theatrical producer, son of Oscar, famed impresario. He will erect a “Temple of Music,” 15 stories high, to be used for light operas and musical shows “of a distinctive type.” It will be at the corner of Broadway and 53rd St., with a seating capacity of 1,200, built with some $2,000,000 of the profits from Rose-Marie. In the lobby will stand a life-size figure of the elder Hammerstein. At the official opening, probably in September, 1927, will appear many of the singers who began or advanced their professional careers under his banner—Melba, Calvé, Tetrazzini, Mary Garden, John McCormack.