In the late morning of September 12, 1939, Edward Letchworth stood in the rain gathering his thoughts. For the past five years, he and the Kleinhans Music Hall Committee had worked to honor his late friends, Ed and Mary Kleinhans, by creating the couple’s “Temple of Music” for the people of Buffalo. Now, as the ceremony to lay the cornerstone began, one hundred of those Buffalonians stared back at him, waiting for him to speak. 

It should have been—it was—a momentous, joyous occasion to celebrate this great gift of music, but 12 days earlier, Hitler had invaded Poland, kicking off the chain of events that would erupt into the Second World War. As Letchworth looked out across the worksite, he saw there, reflected in the puddles and mud, a deeper purpose for Kleinhans Music Hall. It was a gift even greater than its music.

Walls half up, bricks and stones on the ground. It is a picture similar to those received from war-torn Europe, pictures of destruction, desolation, death. But the picture before us typifies construction, fulfillment, life. May this symbolize the role our country is to play in the world, and may it symbolize the saving of civilization itself from the threat of annihilation.

By the time Kleinhans Music Hall officially opened only one year later, on October 12, 1940, the Nazis had taken Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and, shockingly, France. Hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers had been evacuated at Dunkirk and Britain was battling for its life. Even far-away Finland, home of the music hall’s architects, Eliel and Eero Saarinen, had been attacked by the Soviet Union.

That opening day, Letchworth again gathered his thoughts and looked out at an expectant crowd, but this time it was nearly 3,000 people packed into the brand-new hall looking forward to its first-ever concert. As the bombs rained down on London for the 36th consecutive night, the eloquent Letchworth stood up and magnified the value of the Kleinhans’ gift.

Their vision could not have been realized at a more opportune time. In a world gone mad, with mechanized brute force rampant, we need more than ever the ennobling influence of beauty and culture and things of the spirit if we are to remain sane human beings.

Today, thoughts of Buffalo’s Kleinhans Music Hall typically center around its illustrious architecture and world-class sound, and millions of Buffalonians have made memories there for over 80 years. But few remember that for the first five years of the hall’s existence, the country and the world were at war. The Second World War had very real and profound effects on everyone, including the caretakers and patrons of Kleinhans, and it also physically impacted the hall itself, remnants of which are still visible today.

The gravity of World War II meant the hall’s bricks and beams would need to bear far more than the music they were designed to support. Ed and Mary Kleinhans had dreamt of a temple where the community could gather and share the spirit of music. For its first five years, however, Kleinhans Music Hall was a refuge and shelter—literally a bomb shelter—to protect and nurture the very spirit of community itself.

Of course, Letchworth wasn’t the only one with war on his mind. Five days before Ed’s opening remarks, Mayor Thomas Holling had created Buffalo’s War Defense Council to start preparing the city and its citizens for what would become “Total War.” In 1940, the United States was still technically neutral in the world-wide conflict, but the first peacetime draft in the Nation’s history had already begun weeks before, and people were anxious.

As news of Hitler’s victories continued to pour in, Winifred Eaton Corey, the new hall’s director, had to field complaints about the three composers featured on the opening night program. Maestro Franco Autori and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra had chosen to play music by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms—three Germans! Defensively, but optimistically, Winifred replied, “Good music makes good neighbors; it makes all the world akin. . . .We may not like what certain nations are manifesting outwardly at the moment, but music will show the innate goodness of a people.”

Perhaps to make up for the three German composers, the Kleinhans Music Hall Women’s Committee sponsored the last event of the 3-day opening weekend and brought in Dorothy Thompson to speak. The world-famous journalist and foreign correspondent—and former resident of Buffalo and native of Lancaster—discussed “The World Today” and pleaded for her fellow Buffalonians to do everything they could to support the British against the Germans. “Let’s take up what we once laid down,” she rallied from the Kleinhans stage, “...that the world will not only be safe for democracy, but that democracy may be safe for the world!” From the very beginning, Kleinhans Music Hall, her people and patrons, rallied the home front, demonstrated democratic ideals and provided music, morale and a meeting place for the whole community.

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The next day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stood up and addressed a joint session of Congress, which then declared war on Japan. No more neutrality. The United States was officially at war.

This terrifying new reality came home to Kleinhans the very next day, December 9, 1941. That night, Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony were in town as part of Zorah Berry’s concert series. Thousands filled the hall for Beethoven (again!), Barber and Mussorgsky, but first Koussevitzky turned and asked the audience to rise and sing The Star-Spangled Banner as the orchestra played. The concert proceeded as usual, but then, promptly at 9:55 p.m., the orchestra stopped and the entire hall fell silent. Over the public address system, the Kleinhans engineer began to relay President Roosevelt’s 19th Fireside Chat, broadcasting live from the White House. Three thousand people listened together as F.D.R. said, 

We are now in this war. We are all in it – all the way. Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats, and the victories—the changing fortunes of war.

On the road ahead there lies hard work – grueling work – day and night, every hour, and every minute. I was about to add that ahead there lies sacrifice for all of us. But it is not correct to use that word. The United States does not consider it a sacrifice to do all one can, to give one's best to our nation, when the nation is fighting for its existence and its future life...

We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation, and all that this nation represents, will be safe for our children.

The Courier Express rightly reported that “thousands of music lovers who attended the concert... left the hall holding the memory of a never to be forgotten evening.”

Bike racks and blackout shades were easy, though, compared to the biggest difficulty caused by wartime rationing: it was impossible to get replacement parts for anything that broke. Deep in the Kleinhans archives, there is a folder vaguely labeled “PRIORITIES.” Rather than lists of goals or management plans, however, inside is a remarkable account of the lengths Winifred went to attempting to secure the most basic items needed to run the hall. 

Because goods were in such high demand during the war, the Federal War Production Board created Priority Regulations to determine who was allowed to have what and when. Industries that produced things like steel and airplanes had high “preference ratings” and usually got the supplies they needed. But what about entities that produced intangible things like morale, unity, and hope?

Winifred lobbied constantly to get higher ratings to procure everything from vacuum tubes for the P.A. system to pivot bolts for the massive doors of the Mary Seaton Room (one of which had already failed and fallen). When application forms asked how the requested item would help the war effort or civilian needs, she wrote, obviously, “Kleinhans Music Hall is a large building dealing in morale producing factors. [It is] in constant use for Morale Production both by the Army and Navy and civic organizations as well as War Plants.”

When Edward Kleinhans left his fortune to create a music hall for Buffalo, he specified it should be open to all “for the use, enjoyment, and benefit of the people of the City of Buffalo.” He knew the hall could accomplish this mission through music, but he couldn’t have imagined the variety of other ways his gift would be used to serve the community and benefit Buffalo.

In addition to regular music events, Kleinhans became a place the community could gather for news and information about the war. All kinds of local and national groups sponsored speaker events that featured luminaries such as war correspondent Leland Stowe, former Russian secret agent Jan Valtin, and football-star-turned-war-hero Tom Harmon. So many people turned out for these lectures that the sound often had to be broadcast live onto the grounds outside the hall for overflow crowds to hear.

During the day, Kleinhans rehearsal and meeting rooms were rented by groups holding civilian volunteer training sessions for air raid wardens, first aid students, public health workers, and other home front defense workers. Every local political party rented the hall for rallies—including the Buffalo Communist Party—and many religious groups held large, interfaith services to unite communities around the war effort.

With war production steaming ahead 24 hours a day, swing shift workers clocked out and went dancing in the wee hours of the morning, and Kleinhans stayed open to accommodate them. This made the Hall a fun and joyful gathering place—nothing lifts your spirits like the Lindy Hop—but it also meant the Kleinhans staff had to work around the clock to keep the music playing. At a time of systemic worker shortages and competition with higher-paying defense jobs, the staff who stayed with Kleinhans during the war understood their jobs were equally important in producing morale and community spirit, even if only for the length of a dance. All told, Kleinhans Music Hall hosted 1,627 events during the war years. The community came here for both refuge and revelry, to seek solace and to swing, and to find diversion and hope “in a world gone mad, with mechanized brute force rampant.”

Worker shortages weren’t only caused by the lure of high-wage defense industries. The draft expanded and went into full effect by the end of 1943, and thousands of civilians were also relocated to serve in the numerous government war agencies.

Alice Tierney Scanlan, Kleinhans’ expert and effective Director of Publicity, was whisked away to Albany in the summer of 1942 to serve in the War Information Service of the New York State War Council. By January 1943, she was in Atlanta, Georgia training with the Office of Price Administration – and that is where she was when she wrote to John Frederick Wright, a porter at Kleinhans who was leaving to fight in the Army. 

A copy of Alice’s touching letter lives in the Kleinhans archive, and it shows the genuine closeness, personal bonds, and “Spirit of Kleinhans” that held the staff together during the difficult war years.

Dear Johnny: 

So you are going to be a soldier!... I think you have a great deal to take away with you on your new adventure... 

You know, Johnny, we who have loved Kleinhans Music Hall as our home, – who have watched it rise up and grow, – we can't have helped developing within ourselves some of the Spirit of Music which Kleinhans Music Hall represents in the City of Buffalo. 

Keep that Music inside you Johnny, – it is the thing that makes everything else, – living, loving, fighting, and even dying, – worthwhile... 

All of us are with you – every step of the way. Don’t forget us – because we shall never forget you.

So again, Good Luck – and we'll all be together some one of these concert nights when the lights go up on a new performance..."

Your sincere friend,

Alice Tierney Scanlan

Thankfully, Johnny Wright survived the war and returned to his wife, two little children, and his Kleinhans family, where he continued to work and watch the lights go up on new performances.

In a 1949 report analyzing the New York home front during World War II, Karl Drew Hartzell, PhD, wrote that “Community of Spirit” was a “fundamental reality in time of war.” During such crises, he noted, “Individuals forget themselves and become bigger people through participation in the total effort of the community.” This powerful community force was a vital “weapon” in the Allied victory in WWII, and for Buffalo, much of it grew out of Kleinhans Music Hall and the services and safe spaces the new hall provided.

Lauren Becker is a former National Park Service interpretive ranger who’s worked in a variety of fields—literally: volunteering in the Canadian Arctic, teaching night sky constellations in the Badlands of South Dakota, and guiding hikes in Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park. More recently, she created FLAT HAT EXHIBITS to bring the NPS ethos into the museum world. She has served as the Kleinhans Music Hall archivist since creating the hall's 75th Anniversary exhibit in 2015.