It was the demise of the Astor Opera House that spurred New York's elite to build a new opera house in what was then the more genteel neighborhood of Union Square, led by Moses H. Grinnell, who formed a corporation in 1852 to fund the construction of the building, selling shares at $1,000 each to raise $200,000. When finished, the building, which was designed by Alexander Saeltzer – who was designing the Astor Library at about the same time, and had previously designed Anshe Chesed Synagogue – was the world's largest opera venue at the time, with seats for four thousand arranged on five levels (orchestra, parquette, balcony and first, second and third tiers) and an interior height from floor to dome of . It had a plush interior, and private boxes in the orchestra, but, perhaps due to newspaper editorials questioning the project's republican values, was consciously somewhat less "aristocratized" than the Astor Opera House had been – there, general admissions were relegated to the benches of a "cockloft" reachable only by a narrow stairway, and otherwise isolated from the gentry below, while in the new theatre many of the regular seats were relatively inexpensive. The stage's proscenium opening was wide, with between side-wings, and a depth of from the footlights to the back wall. The height of the proscenium opening was .