On October 24, 1864, physician and dress reform activist Mary Edwards Walker spoke at a local Democratic Party rally held at Doolittle Hall, an auditorium in the mixed-use Doolittle Block. It was one of the first occasions on which any major-party convocation was addressed by a woman.
On January 23, 1885, famed freethought orator Robert Green Ingersoll delivered one of his controversial lectures on religion, "Orthodoxy," at the same site. The auditorium was by then known as the Academy of Music.
The Building and Site. The boxy, mixed-use building stood just north of the Market House, the surviving structure known today as Old City Hall. It was built at an unknown date by Oswego businessman and developer Sylvester Doolittle (1800–1881), who erected a number of commercial structures in the Lake Ontario port city. The building was a nondescript wharfside affair. The auditorium, originally named Doolittle Hall, occupied the upper floor. The ground floor housed a produce wholesaler, a ship's chandler, and other businesses.
In 1875, the building was extensively renovated and reopened as the Academy of Music. The auditorium, renamed Academy of Music Hall, operated for eighteen years. It closed when the building was condemned on December 24, 1892. Demolition followed.
The Richardson Theatre, a state-of-the-art facility by the standards of the time, opened on the Academy of Music site in January 1895. In 1904, the property was purchased and demolished so that railroad tracks that ran down the center of Water Street could be rerouted. (This must have been a very high-priority project to justify buying and razing a theater not even ten years old.) The tracks were removed in the late 1960s or early 1970s, and the site became the municipal parking lot that it is today. Thanks to historian Mark Slosek for research assistance.
The auditorium's original name was Doolittle Hall. It occupied part of this building, the Doolittle Block. It stood just east of the river. After an 1875 renovation, it was renamed the Academy of Music.
The Academy of Music. The auditorium where Ingersoll and many others performed occupies the upper floor. Decaying posters for various entertainments presumably presented at the Academy cling to the riverside wall, below. Part of the Market House (now Old City Hall) is visible at right. Photo courtesy Mark Slosek.
A side view of the Academy of Music building featuring signage for some of the other businesses in the structure. Photo courtesy Mark Slosek.
Demolition of the Academy of Music building, probably in 1893. Visible above the wagons at left is a decorated wall of the auditorium with a partial-relief statue nestled in an ornamental niche. Visible in foreground are the Water Street railroad tracks that would doom the Richardson Theatre, the Academy's successor. In 1904, the still-active Richardson would be bought and demolished so the tracks could be rerouted out of the public thoroughfare. Photo courtesy Mark Slosek.
Looking north from Old City Hall, this municipal parking lot bears no signs that it was successively occupied by an opera house, its successor theater, or busy railroad tracks. Photo by Haley Karr.
Alternate view of the Academy site as viewed from the direction of Old City Hall. Photo by Mark Slosek.
This panoramic photo was taken from the Oswego River boardwalk. At center is the parking lot that now occupies the Academy of Music site; at left is Old City Hall, the former Market House, which has met a happier fate than the Academy building did. Photo by Haley Karr.
October 24, 1864
January 23, 1885