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In the late 1800s, lawyer and inventor Thaddeus Cahill patented his “telharmonium,” a machine which would make music and pipe it across Manhattan along phone lines — a century before Rhapsody and Spotify arrived on the streaming scene. Initially, subscribers could in by phone to listen to live music synthesized on his vast contraption, but that was just the beginning of his grander vision.
Later, restaurants and hotels would likewise pay to these sounds into shared spaces. His tunes became a kind of proto-Muzak. But in this before amps, end users had to attach paper funnels to boost volume. At the heart of this music-making network was Telharmonic Hall, a building in the middle of New York City with around 200 tons of equipment and built out at an estimated cost of around $200,000. Cahill called this his “music plant,” and it aptly resembled something like a complex industrial factory filled with moving parts.