It hosts progressive and avant-garde performances, with theater, dance, music, opera, film programming across multiple nearby venues.

The building, designed by architect Leopold Eidlitz, housed a large theater seating 2,109, a smaller concert hall, dressing and chorus rooms, and a vast "baronial" kitchen.

BAM presented amateur and professional music and theater productions, including performers such as Ellen Terry, Edwin Booth, and Fritz Kreisler.

[13] After the building burned to the ground on November 30, 1903,[14] BAM made plans to relocate to a new facility in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

[23] In 1967, Harvey Lichtenstein was appointed executive director and during his 32 years in that role, BAM experienced a turnaround,[24] attracting audiences with new programming and establishing an endowment.

[33] Artists who have presented work at BAM include Philip Glass, Trisha Brown, Peter Brook, Pina Bausch, Merce Cunningham, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Laurie Anderson, Lee Breuer, ETHEL, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Steve Reich, Seal, Mark Morris, Robert Wilson, Peter Sellars, BLACKstreet, Ingmar Bergman, David Van Tieghem, Michael Moschen, Twyla Tharp, Ralph Lemon, Ivo van Hove, and the Mariinsky Theater, directed and conducted by Valery Gergiev, among others.

[citation needed] American punk band Hole recorded their live album MTV Unplugged at the Academy on February 14, 1995.

The building has a high base of gray granite, with cream colored brick trimmed in terracotta with some marble detail above.

[34] The Howard Gilman Opera House has 2,109 seats and BAM Rose Cinemas,[35] which opened in 1998, comprises four screens, and primarily shows first-run, independent and repertory films and series.

[40] A renovation by architect Hugh Hardy left the interior paint faded, with often exposed masonry, giving the theater a unique feel of a "modern ruin".