All this week NY1 is commemorating the 125th anniversary of Carnegie Hall. When the great concert hall opened on 57th Street in 1891, 14th Street was considered Midtown, and the area around Carnegie Hall was an outpost formerly known as Hogtown. It soon became an international musical destination. NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following report.

It's a building that's resonated with the world's most beautiful music. But as James Taylor explained when recalling his first performance at Carnegie Hall in 1970, it's so much more.

"It is the sort of cultural summit. We celebrated -- that's why I don't remember it that well." Taylor said.

This "cultural summit" was initially funded by industrialist Andrew Carnegie, thanks in part to some prodding by his wife Louise.

"His wife sang in a chorus, the oratorio society here, and there was no decent concert hall so she, as you do, asked her husband to build a concert hall for them," explained Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall's executive and atistic director.

For the job of building the new concert hall, Carnegie turned to William Burnett Tuthill, a cellist who was also an architect.

"Knew nothing about concert halls, sent him around Europe, he looked at all the greatest concert halls, came back and built something that was totally different from anything he'd seen and he built the greatest concert hall in the world," Gillinson said.

It is perhaps best known for housing classical music, or the great American songbook. But Carnegie Hall has played host to the greats of jazz and folk, and in 1964 The Beatles and then The Rolling Stones.

The past is never really past at Carnegie Hall, especially for a musician who has been called a musical anthropologist and archivist, Michael Feinstein.

"Whenever I'm here I think about Tchaikovsky being here opening night and Irving Berlin singing here in 1939, or George Gershwin premiering his 'Concerto in F' and 'An American in Paris.' And of course Benny Goodman in 1938, Judy Garland in 1961, an amazing history that it's humbling to be a part of," Feinsten said.