Editing Carnegie Hall (section)

=== Famous joke ===
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<blockquote>Rumor is that a pedestrian on Fifty-seventh Street, Manhattan, stopped Jascha Heifetz and inquired, "Could you tell me how to get to Carnegie Hall?" "Yes," said Heifetz. "Practice!"<ref>{{cite book|author-link=Bennett Cerf|last=Cerf|first=Bennett|title=The Life of the Party: A New Collection of Stories and Anecdotes|location=Garden City, New York|publisher=Doubleday|year=1956|page=335}}</ref></blockquote>

This joke has become part of the folklore of the hall, but its origins remain a mystery.<ref name="Carlson2020">{{cite web|last1=Carlson|first1=Matt|title=The Joke|url=https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Articles/2020/04/10/The-Joke|website=Carnegie Hall|access-date=August 27, 2020|date=April 10, 2020|archive-date=August 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200826084106/https://www.carnegiehall.org/Explore/Articles/2020/04/10/The-Joke|url-status=live}}</ref> Although described in 1961 as an "ancient wheeze", its earliest known appearances in print date from 1955.<ref name="Carlson2020" /><ref name="Popik2004">{{cite web|last1=Popik|first1=Barry|author-link1=Barry Popik|title='How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' (joke)|url=https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/how_do_you_get_to_carnegie_hall|website=The Big Apple|access-date=August 27, 2020|date=July 5, 2004|archive-date=September 19, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200919005540/https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/how_do_you_get_to_carnegie_hall/|url-status=live}}</ref> Attributions to [[Jack Benny]] are mistaken; it is uncertain if he ever used the joke.<ref name="Pollak2009" /> Alternatives to violinist [[Jascha Heifetz]] as the second party include an unnamed [[beatnik]], [[bebop|bopper]], or "absent-minded [[maestro]]", as well as pianist [[Arthur Rubinstein]] and trumpeter [[Dizzy Gillespie]].<ref name="Carlson2020" /><ref name="Popik2004" /><ref name="Pollak2009">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/nyregion/29fyi.html|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Michael|last=Pollak|title=The Origins of That Famous Carnegie Hall Joke|date=November 29, 2009|access-date=December 4, 2020|archive-date=August 12, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190812235157/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/nyregion/29fyi.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Lees|first1=Gene|title=Meet Me at Jim & Andy's: Jazz Musicians and Their World|date=1988|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-504611-3|page=16}}</ref> Carnegie Hall archivist Gino Francesconi favors a version told by the wife of violinist [[Mischa Elman]], in which her husband makes the quip when approached by tourists while leaving the hall's backstage entrance after an unsatisfactory rehearsal. The joke is often reduced to a [[riddle]] with no [[framing story]].<ref name="Carlson2020" /> According to ''[[The Washington Post]]'', the joke "shows how firmly the building [...] has lodged itself in American folklore".<ref name=wp19910210>{{Cite news|last=McLellan|first=Joseph|date=February 10, 1991|title=The Hall That Carnegie Built|newspaper=[[Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1991/02/10/the-hall-that-carnegie-built/76fab940-77c7-43f1-853f-579de1fc9f8a/|access-date=August 21, 2021|archive-date=June 26, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220626153850/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1991/02/10/the-hall-that-carnegie-built/76fab940-77c7-43f1-853f-579de1fc9f8a/|url-status=live}}</ref>