Statement of the Historic Districts Council
Designation Hearing
NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
April 30, 2019
Item 1- 5
LP-2626
47 West 28th Street Building, Tin Pan Alley – 47 West 28th Street
Manhattan – Block 830 – Lot 11
An Italianate row house built c. 1852 with later commercial alterations to house music publishers at the turn of the 20th century, part of a block known as “Tin Pan Alley.”
LP-2627
49 West 28th Street Building, Tin Pan Alley – 49 West 28th Street
Manhattan – Block 830 – Lot 10
An Italianate row house built c. 1852 with later commercial alterations to house music publishers at the turn of the 20th century, part of a block known as “Tin Pan Alley.”
LP-2628
51 West 28th Street Building, Tin Pan Alley – 51 West 28th Street
Manhattan – Block 830 – Lot 9
An Italianate row house built c. 1852 with later commercial alterations to house music publishers at the turn of the 20th century, part of a block known as “Tin Pan Alley.”
LP-2629
53 West 28th Street Building, Tin Pan Alley – 53 West 28th Street
Manhattan – Block 830 – Lot 8
An Italianate row house built c. 1859 with later commercial alterations to house music publishers at the turn of the 20th century, part of a block known as “Tin Pan Alley.”
LP-2630
55 West 28th Street Building, Tin Pan Alley – 55 West 28th Street
Manhattan – Block 830 – Lot 7
An Italianate row house built c. 1859 with later commercial alterations to house music publishers at the turn of the 20th century, part of a block known as “Tin Pan Alley.”
The Historic Districts Council is the advocate for New York City’s designated historic districts, landmarks and buildings meriting preservation. We are delighted to support this proposed designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, having been strong advocates for preserving Tin Pan Alley since 2008, when the buildings were threatened with demolition to make way for a skyscraper. At the time, we were stunned by the remarkable, international support our campaign elicited. HDC received calls and messages from Great Britain, Germany and Australia wanting to help save the buildings where the American songbook was born. We got to know musicians, artists, collectors and historians from across the country who all felt a deep connection with this site – it was truly unlike any preservation campaign we’ve worked on. We mention this only to hint at the broad and meaningful public appeal this designation has.
Tin Pan Alley is more than this collection of buildings, it is a symbol of an earlier America, where the bonds of unity seemingly reigned supreme because everyone was singing the same songs. This is, of course, a reductive and skewed image. The artists who wrote the songs which were the soundtrack to America in the early years of the 20th Century were just as much outsiders as artists always are. They were African-Americans trying to make their way in a culture which barely recognized them but still was an improvement from the post-Reconstruction South. They were recent immigrants from Europe, fleeing successive waves of war, economic hardship and ingrained prejudice. Together, these groups of outsiders, working for colorful and aggressive publishers, transformed how music was shared and experienced in our country and around the world. The roots of popular culture can be found in Tin Pan Alley; the New York Clipper, an early sporting periodical, reinvented itself as a solely theatrical journal by 1894, and was located at 47 West 28th Street during the height of the music publishing era on the street. Similarly, the renowned William Morris Agency was housed at 43 West 28th Street, unfortunately not under consideration at this current time. This is more than where music flourished – it is where the business of entertainment was born.
It is sometimes difficult for people to understand what is being preserved when landmark designation is proposed for sites of historic significance. Comments such as “these buildings have been altered, they look nothing like they did Back When!” or “music isn’t made there anymore – why do you want to save these?” miss the point. History is the communal memory of a shared culture. It depends on artifacts to transmit knowledge across time, so that future generations can share in the same knowledge and form their own memories. The easiest form of transmitting knowledge are words but they can also be the least impactful. Reading a fact in about a place is nothing compared to the experience of visiting the place yourself. One’s understanding of the actual events which happened on Tin Pan Alley; the jangle of dozens of pianos, the random encounters of artists as they would rush in and out of offices jammed together, the camaraderie and competition caused by such a close proximity, the hustle of the place; is so much easier to comprehend standing before these buildings. These buildings, with the appropriate learned knowledge, open up the early days of the 20th century in a way that even a great documentary can’t. That they are still here a century after their heyday is a gift. To lose them at this point would be a tragedy.