The Academy of Music

330 Pine St.  | map |

Opened: May 18, 1864 with a comedy titled "Playing With Fire." This project of Tom Maguire was on the north side of the street the second building east of Montgomery. The theatre is in the light colored four-story building just beyond the center of this c.1866 photo that looks west toward Montgomery. This version of the photo appears on Calisphere from the Society of California Pioneers. It's from the collection Lawrence & Houseworth Photography Albums: California Views. Art Siegel notes that the image also appears on a page from the UCB Bancroft Library. 

Note: There's been some street renumbering. The Academy building was at 326-334 Pine. An equivalent address today would be approximately 370 Pine. 

In the foreground we get Cole's furniture store with signage saying they're at 314. In the 1865 city directory they were still on Front St. There isn't an 1866 directory available, but in the 1867 and 1868 directories they were listed at 312 Pine. By the time the 1869 directory was compiled they had moved to Bush St. The Davega, Joseph & Labatt auction house next door was a shorter-term tenant. They're not in the 1864 directory but are listed at 318 Pine in 1865. By the time of the 1867 directory they were gone.  

The photo also appears on page 94 of James R. Smith's 2005 book "San Francisco's Lost Landmarks" where it's with a discussion of Maguire's various theatres. It's on Google Books. Smith credits his version to the Library of Congress. The image is also in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library. Their version appeared in a publication (perhaps c.1906) with this copy: 

"Some forty years ago, Maguire's Academy of Music, on Pine street, between Montgomery and Sansome, was the famous temple of the drama in San Francisco. The building still stands on Pine street, but its character has been completely changed. It is now tenanted by thrifty stockbrokers and astute members of the legal profession. Not one in a thousand of the people who pass it by daily ever dream that it was once the fashionable theatre of San Francisco."

Architect: Samuel C. Bugbee & Son were mentioned as the architects in an article in the Daily Alta California on October 31, 1867. Huling Major was credited as the architect in an obituary appearing in the San Francisco Bulletin on January 21, 1896. But Mr. Major was Maguire's house carpenter, not the architect.

Seating: Somewhere between 1,500 and 1,800.

Maguire ran several seasons of grand opera in the theatre in the 1860s. Lawrence Estevan notes that there were two gigantic battles in the 1860s: the Civil War and Maguire's battles with opera companies. Estevan is the author of a 1938 study done for the WPA titled "Tom Maguire; Dr. David G. (Yankee) Robinson; M.B. Leavitt." It's on Internet Archive.

Maguire's other ventures up to this time included the Jenny Lind Theatre on Kearny St. in Portsmouth Square. It went through three versions starting in 1850. The first two burned, the third he sold to the city in 1852 to pay his debts. By December 1852 Maguire was operating the San Francisco Theatre at 616 Washington, also known as San Francisco Hall. In 1856 he demolished that and replaced it with a new theatre called Maguire's Opera House.

 

An accident during construction:

 

"San Francisco, May 8th. To-day, while a number of artists were engaged in decorating the ceiling of Maguire's new Academy of Music, on Pine street, the staging gave way and they were all precipitated to the ground floor, a distance of forty feet. One man was fatally injured and the others seriously, if not fatally."  

 

The item appeared in the May 9, 1864 issue of the Sacramento Daily Union. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating it via the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

 

 

 

"One door from Montgomery." The opening night ad appearing in the May 18, 1864 issue of the Daily Alta California. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating it on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection.  

 

 

Maguire was given permission to add lamps in front of his new theatre via this resolution appearing in the May 22, 1864 issue of the Daily Alta California. Art Siegel located it via the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

  

 

 

An item appearing in the "Letters From San Francisco" column of the Sacramento Daily Union on May 23, 1864. The Eureka Theatre that Maguire was mentioned as giving up was located right around the corner at 318 Montgomery St., in the middle of the block between Pine and California. Art Siegel located the article via the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

 

 

Maguire got himself arrested for violating the "blue laws." Thanks to Art Siegel for locating this item in the Sacramento Daily Union issue of June 23, 1864. It's online via the California Digital Newspaper Collection.  

The pianist Louis Gottschalk first performed at the Academy of Music on May 10, 1865. His interactions with Maguire, as well as comments about Maguire's stranglehold on the local theatrical market are detailed in the chapter titled "San Francisco," beginning on page 218 of Vernon Loggins' 1977 book "Where the Word Ends: A Biography of Louis Moreau Gottschalk." Thanks to Art Siegel for locating this as well as Gottschalk's memoir on Google Books. On page 293 of the memoir titled "Notes of a Pianist," he comments: 

 

"Maguire's Opera House is generally occupied by a dramatic company. Maguire's Academy of Music is a charming hall that holds from fifteen to eighteen hundred persons easily, and in which the italian opera company under the direction of Maguire is now performing here. The Metropolitan Theatre is a little larger than the Academy, but less elegant in its interior decorations... The name of Maguire is constantly found throughout all of California....He has made a fortune and at the same time built almost all of the theatres inland and in San Francisco. He is very intelligent, very enterprising, and provides by himself alone almost all the amusements of the northern cities of the Pacific.  I have found him very kind and very just in his transactions." 

 

 

An item about development on the street that appeared in the 1865 city directory. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating it.  

 

 

 

An ad for the opening night of Frank Hussey's "New York Minstrels" that appeared in the September 6, 1865 issue of the Daily Alta California. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating it. It's on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

 

 

Emily Thorne, Dan Setchell and the "New Burlesque of Arrah-Na-Poke" were advertised in the November 25, 1865 issue of the Daily Alta California.

 

 

 

The theatre is on the left, the second (light colored) building beyond the intersection in this 1866 view by Lawrence & Houseworth. We're looking east toward Montgomery with Sansome St. another block down. Note the "Furniture" sign up on the roof down at Cole's at 312-314. The photo is on Calisphere from the Society of California Pioneers. That sign propped up on the corner is a poster advertising the show at the Academy. 

 

 

 

Thanks to Art Siegel for this detail from the Lawrence & Houseworth photo. With "Otello" on the poster, he's dated it as January 1866 and found this copy from an ad in the January 17 issue of the Daily Alta California. It's on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

"Maguire's Academy of Music. Brambilla's Opera Season. Signorina Elvira BrambillaI begs leave to inform her friends and the public in general, that on the twenty-fourth of January she will open the Academy of Music for a series of Operatic Entertainments. The following Operas will be given: 'Lucia di Lammermoor,' 'La Traviata,' 'Otello, 'Ernani, 'La Sonambula, 'Norma," etc. The Box Office will be opened on Saturday, the 20th inst, when Season Tickets can be procured. For particulars see bills of the day."

 

 

And this ad for the production appeared in the January 29 issue.  

 

 

Art calls our attention to the fact that the streetlamps were used for advertising purposes. This one was at the corner of Pine and Montgomery. It's a detail from an 1866 photo by Lawrence & Houseworth of the west side of Montgomery between Pine and California that's in the J. Paul Getty Museum collection. 

 

 

 

An 1866 playbill for "Lost in London." It's on Calisphere from the Museum of Performance and Design Performing Arts Library.  Thanks to Art Siegel for locating a review of the show in the April 30 issue of the Daily Alta California. It's on the website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

 

 

 

An ad for Mark Twain's lecture at the Academy that appeared in the Alta California on October 2, 1866. It's on a page from the UCB Bancroft Library. It also was featured in the PBS Ken Burns film Mark Twain. 

Closing: Maguire closed the Academy of Music in 1867 and the premises were turned to other commercial uses. The 1867 city directory still had a listing for the Academy with the address just as the north side of the street between Montgomery and Sansome. 

 

Later Maguire adventures: Maguire's Opera House on Washington continued to run until 1873 when it was demolished for construction of Montgomery Ave., now called Columbus Ave. He then moved over to the venue at 318 Bush St. that he renamed Maguire's Opera House. It had opened as Congress Hall in 1865. Later it was known as the Standard Theatre.  

 

Later he took over the theatre that had opened in 1868 as the Alhambra at 325 Bush St. which he called, after a rebuild, Maguire's New Theatre. It was later known as the Bush St. Theatre. In 1876 Maguire was managing the Baldwin Theatre located on Market St. at Powell in the Baldwin Hotel Building. Initially it was called the Academy of Music.  

 

Comments after Maguire's death: The January 27, 1896 issue of The Argonaut, in their obituary for Tom Maguire: 

 

"Maguire's misfortunes began with the building of the Academy of Music on Pine Street in 1862. He failed to make the enterprise pay and never again attained to much prosperity..."

 

George E. Barnes discussed the Academy of Music in "The Dead Napoleon: A Final Accounting," his obituary of Maguire that appeared in the San Francisco Bulletin on January 21, 1896. It's cited on page 62 of Lawrence Estevan's monograph. 

"The cost of the Academy was $40,000. Huling Majors was his architect, but he was much opposed to the project, as was Maguire's first wife. Said Majors to him one day: 'Maguire, have you thought closely on the step you are taking in building this theatre?' 'Why do you ask that question? Have you not all the men, money and material you need? What I require of you is good work and in as short a space of time as possible.' 

 

"'Ah, well, that's all right. I asked you the question because the time will come, in my opinion, and shortly, too, after you have finished the building when you will be sorry you laid one stone upon another.' Maguire must have felt in his secret soul that Majors' words were prophetic. There was a glare in those nondescript eyes of his — no one could tell their color -- as he looked at the plain-spoken architect, and with an extra tug at his mustache he walked up the street. It was a pretty theatre, but as Majors predicted, it soon passed out of his hands, and was converted to business uses. It is now owned by Mrs. Theodore Payne. The Bergez restaurant now occupies a portion of it."

It's a fine story except Huling Major (not Majors) wasn't the architect. Which isn't to say he didn't have a hand in the design. He had more direct theatre experience than the architect of record, Sumner Bugbee. Mr. Major was employed by Maguire as house carpenter, first at Maguire's Opera House as early as 1861, then for the Academy project. He was killed in Rio Vista, along with at least three other Maguire employees, when a boiler of the sidewheeler ship Yosemite exploded in 1865. The Daily Alta California had the story in their October 14 issue. Thanks to Art Siegel for the research.  

 

In the 1896 city directory the Bergez restaurant was listed with an address of 332-334 Pine St. William and Theodore Payne had offices in the building, using an address of 330 Pine, room 8. The directory identified them as "capitalists." One story repeated in multiple sources is that the theatre was turned into a furniture store for N.P. Cole & Company. But Cole's was too far east on Pine and their time on the block overlapped with the period when the Academy of Music was active.

 

Repurposing the building: The August 31, 1867 issue of Pacific Appeal reported: 

"It is said that the Academy of Music San Francisco, has been purchased by the extensive furniture firm of Goodwin & Co., for ninety thousand dollars, and that they intend to take possession of it at the termination of the present opera season, and turn it into a furniture mart."

The Daily Alta California reported on September 1, 1867:

"A Change in the Programme.—The negotiations pending for some days for the sale of the Academy of Music property and the old engine house property adjoining on Pine street, east of Montgomery, by Thomas Maguire to J. P. Goodwin & Co., the extensive furniture dealers, were completed yesterday, and the deed was placed upon record. The Academy of Music property fronts sixty feet on Pine street by ninety-seven and a half feet in depth, and the engine house property twenty-two feet on Pine by sixty-five feet in depth. The Academy of Music building is four stories in height, and is one of the finest structures in the city, at least in outside appearance. 

 

"The entire property will be changed by Goodwin & Co. to suit the purposes if their business, and will be ready for occupation as a store and workshop by January 1st, 1868. The price paid for this property was $90,000 in gold coin, and the changes and improvements required to fit it for the new purposes for which it is to be used will cost from $12,000 to $18,000, and when completed it will be one of the finest furniture warehouses in America. The Academy of Music will be closed early during the present week, and the beautiful temple of the muses will be known as such no more to the people of San Francisco."

 

The ad for the auction appeared in the September 5, 1867 Daily Alta California. The 322 Pine address given in the ad was the location down the block that Goodwin & Co. had earlier. 

This item appeared in the September 20, 1867 issue of the Daily Alta California: 

 

"Sic Transit Gloria —We stepped into the Academy of Music building, yesterday, and found a large number of workmen busy disembowelling it completely. The luxurious crimson plush covered seats are gone, the mimic scenes of city, village, moorland and forest have been carted off to other places of amusement, and the beautiful frescoed ceiling; and arched proscenium go next. In a day or two more the last trace of the inward decorations will have disappeared, and the building will be divided into four stories, and turned into a furniture warehouse, for Goodwin & Co."

 

In a column titled "Local Intelligence - Progress of Building in San Francisco" that appeared in the October 31, 1867 issue of the Daily Alta California there was a further report about the gutting of the building. Here we get Bugbee & Son credited as the architects:

 

A big sale at Goodwin & Co. before they moved into the Academy of Music Building. This ad appeared in the December 8, 1867 issue of the Daily Alta California: 

 

Thanks to Art Siegel for locating all of these newspaper items via website of the California Digital Newspaper Collection. 

 

A stereo card looking east across Montgomery that's in the California State Library collection. This was published by Thomas Houseworth & Co. with the Library giving it an 1869 date.  

 

 

A detail of the Academy building from the Houseworth image. This was furniture row. Goodwin Co. had earlier locations on Washington St. and Market St. By the time of the 1868 directory they were at 322-324 Pine, farther off to the right. By 1869 they had added the 334 location we see here. They were still here in 1871. At the east end of the Academy building it's McElwee & Ackerman. They just show up here at 326-328 Pine in the 1868 and 1869 directories. Earlier they were on Montgomery, by 1871 they were on Market.   

 

 

 

An 1895 drawing of the north side of Pine St. with Montgomery St. on the left and Sansome St. on the right. It's from "The Illustrated Directory," published by the Hicks-Judd Company. Thanks to Art Siegel for locating this in the David Rumsey Map Collection. 

 

 Leidesdorff St., the 22' wide alley in the middle of the block, didn't go south as far as Pine St. until after 1875. It was noted in the Real Estate column of the February 2, 1875 issue of the Daily Alta California "...that Leidesdorff street will be opened through to Pine..." 

 

 

A detail from the 1895 image. Although the interior of the Academy of Music, at the center, was gutted almost immediately after the sale to become a furniture store, the exterior remained basically unchanged. 

 

The building is identified as the "Academy Building" with addresses 326-334 Pine in this detail from image 19 from the 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map in the Library of Congress collection. Pine St. is on the left and Montgomery St. runs across the top of the image. When Maguire sold the Academy building it was noted that he also owned a 22' wide building on the south side of the theatre. The building at 310 Montgomery had once been Lyceum Hall. 314-316-18 Montgomery had earlier been the site of the Eureka Theatre, here identified as Pacific Stock Exchange.

 

The theatre building can also be seen on image 13 from the 1887 Sanborn Map on the Library of Congress website. On that year's map it's not identified as the Academy Building. 

Status: There's now a newer building on the site once occupied by the Academy of Music. 

More information: Maguire's adventures are discussed at length in the 1938 monograph by Lawrence Estevan titled "Tom Maguire; Dr. David G. (Yankee) Robinson; M.B. Leavitt." It was completed as part of a Works Progress Administration project. The copy in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library is reproduced on Internet Archive.

The Academy of Music is mentioned by James Madison in a 1926 article titled "San Francisco Theatrical Memories" that appears on a Virtual Museum of  the City of San Francisco page.

Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller. 

 

 

Ken Burns, in his PBS film Mark Twain used this image to show the interior of the Academy of Music. But there seems to be no evidence that this actually was the Academy.

| back to top | San Francisco Theatres: by address and neighborhood | alphabetical list | list by architect | pre-1906 theatre list | home |