When Sam Olshin (C’82, G’Ar’86) first stepped into the abandoned Met, several years of vacancy had caused the building to fall into serious disrepair. In the succeeding decades, the theater served a variety of purposes, including ballroom, sports venue and, most recently, a church. The theater hosted opera productions until 1934, when it became a movie theater. It had the largest capacity (over 4,000 seats) of any theater of its kind in the world when it opened.
Opened in 1908 with a production of Carmen, the Met (as it is affectionately known) was built by Oscar Hammerstein I, a theater impresario and the grandfather of the well-known lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II. Philadelphia’s historic Metropolitan Opera House, located at Broad and Poplar Streets in North Philadelphia, has undergone a painstaking renovation over the past couple years. The Power of Penn campaign will be hosting an event tonight at a newly renovated historic building renovated by an architect with a Penn connection.
National Architecture Week: Renovation of Philadelphia’s Historic Metropolitan Opera House
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