Listen to “Kind of Blue” and you can hear Miles Davis’s trumpet bouncing off the 50-foot ceiling of an abandoned church on 30th Street. Listen to “The Sound of Silence” and you can hear Simon & Garfunkel’s harmonies reverberating through the back stairwell of a building on 52nd Street.
New York City is always under construction—building and rebuilding but rarely sentimental. The music is revered, but the spaces where it was recorded are not. Many of those studios have been replaced by luxury apartments, hotels, and office towers—even a Duane Reade pharmacy, Fox News studios, and a temporary shelter for families seeking asylum.
These were the rooms where Elvis Presley fused his country-boy charm with African American rhythm and blues in a still-segregated America, and where Aretha Franklin demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T at the height of the civil rights movement.
By the early 1960s, Times Square was the heart of a booming music industry. Songwriters and producers blended music from the city’s immigrant communities—doo-wop, salsa, gospel, country, and blues—in search of the next hit record. America’s postwar economic power was amplified by its cultural reach, as the music born in these studios was exported around the world, symbolizing modernity and freedom.
Today, Times Square, once defined by creation, is now dominated by consumption. “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” celebrates New York City as a hub of musical innovation while challenging us to consider how we honor and preserve the spaces that shaped our collective identity.
COLUMBIA STUDIO C
207 East 30th Street
Miles Davis, "Kind of Blue"
March–April 1959
By 1949, Columbia Records was running out of studio space, prompting Mitch Miller, then head of A&R, to repurpose an abandoned Greek-Armenian Orthodox church on 30th Street. The interior space was enormous, with a 100-foot vaulted ceiling and a natural echo that gave the studio a unique acoustic signature.
“The Church,” as it became known, is widely regarded as the best-sounding recording studio in history. “We used the room as an instrument,” said Miles Davis producer Teo Macero. “It had a depth and a warmth that you just couldn’t replicate.”
Miller insisted that the building’s interior not be altered, believing that even minor changes could affect the sound. Janitors were not allowed to wash the floor, for fear that water soaking into the unvarnished wood might alter the room’s acoustics.
In 1982, new residents in a neighboring townhouse began filing noise complaints. “Imagine being in the middle of a recording session in one of the finest sounding studios in the world,” recalled engineer Jim Reeves, “and spinning around on your chair to a dozen police officers explaining that the session had to stop because neighbors complained about the noise.”
The Church was demolished in 1982. A ten-story apartment building, The Wiltshire, opened on the site in 1985.
RCA STUDIO A
155 East 24th Street
Elvis Presley, “Hound Dog”
July 2, 1956
On July 2, 1956, Elvis Presley arrived at RCA Victor Studio A to record “Hound Dog.” The session came one day after an appearance on The Steve Allen Show, where Presley—dressed in a tuxedo—was made to sing the song to a basset hound. The performance was widely ridiculed. The New York Times wrote, “Presley’s excitement is not his voice but his erotic presentation… it was plain he couldn’t sing or act a lick.”
Presley’s frustration carried into the studio, fueling a menacing version of the song far removed from his usual stage performance, snarling, “You ain’t no friend of mine.”
Released eleven days later, “Hound Dog” became a cultural and musical watershed. Presley’s blend of country-boy charm and African American-influenced rhythm and blues challenged the norms of a still-segregated America, cementing his status as the King of Rock and Roll.
Today, the site is home to Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. The city’s diversity is reflected in the student body, with racial and ethnic minorities making up 75 percent of undergraduates.
CALLIOPE STUDIOS
265 West 37th Street
A Tribe Called Quest, “Can I Kick It?”
Late 1989—early 1990
Calliope Studios opened in 1984 on the seventeenth floor of a loft building in New York City’s Garment District, charging just $24 an hour for overnight sessions. “Anytime you want to find what new music is bubbling up under the scene, go to the cheapest studio in town,” said engineer Bob Power.
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Power’s willingness to experiment in the studio made him the go-to engineer for bands like A Tribe Called Quest, part of the Native Tongues collective, who were exploring early sampling technology.
“I started to think of engineering as creative problem solving,” Power recalled. “It’s a great example of technology informing art.”
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Calliope was instrumental in hip-hop’s changing of the guard, producing breakthrough records that blended positive-minded, Afrocentric lyrics with jazz, soul, and funk-influenced beats in stark contrast to the harder-edged “gangster” sound in rap music at the time.
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“We weren’t trying to be tough guys,” said A Tribe's Ali Shaheed Muhammad. “It was about having fun, being poetic, being good with one another. Just be.”
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Calliope Studios closed in 1994. Today, the loft building still houses many businesses serving the garment industry, including pattern making, embroidery, glove-making, and Jimmy’s Sewing Machine Service.
ATLANTIC STUDIOS
1841 Broadway
Aretha Franklin, “Respect”
February 14, 1967
On Valentine’s Day 1967, Franklin recorded her version of Respect, written and first recorded by Otis Redding. While Redding’s original reflected the prevailing gender roles of the time, Franklin reframed the song from a woman’s perspective. Her performance transformed the call for respect from a request into a demand, establishing it as a feminist anthem and a rallying cry for the civil rights movement.
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With her powerful voice and a single word, Franklin transcended both racial and gender boundaries, paving the way for future musicians to fuse pop and politics.
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“I think it’s quite natural that we all want respect, and should get it,” Franklin later reflected. “Perhaps what people could not say, the record said it for them.”
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1841 Broadway was demolished in 2020 to make way for a luxury apartment building. Anagram Columbus Circle opened in 2023. Tenants have an unobstructed view of Columbus Circle, Central Park, and the residential supertalls of Billionaires’ Row. Amenities include a children’s zoo-themed playroom, a pet spa with towel service, and a flavored water bar. A three-bedroom apartment is listed at $36,000 per month.
MAYFAIR STUDIOS
710 Seventh Avenue
The Velvet Underground, “Sunday Morning”
October 1966
For more than sixty years, the Mayfair Theater’s eight-story wraparound billboard dominated Times Square from the corner of 47th Street and Broadway.
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In October 1966, the Velvet Underground recorded “Sunday Morning” upstairs at Mayfair Recording Studios. The pegboard-walled studio was poorly lit, badly isolated, and much of the equipment was hand-built. “The place had a wooden floor that was all ripped up, and there were holes everywhere—a real fucking hassle,” recalled John Cale.
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Everything about the session was last-minute. Despite having written the song for Nico, Lou Reed decided to sing the vocals himself. Cale found a celesta in the studio and used it to carry the song’s distinctive melody throughout.
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The single was released in November 1966 and failed to chart. When the album was released in March 1967, it only sold 30,000 copies. But as Brian Eno famously said, “Everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band.”
710 Seventh Avenue was demolished in 2015 to make way for a 42-story tower with the vanity address of 20 Times Square. A 17,000-square-foot LED display wraps around the building, echoing the giant billboard that once covered the Mayfair Theater.
RIGHT TRACK RECORDING
168 West 48th Street
Foreigner, “I Want To Know What Love Is”
December 1983–July 1984
For more than sixty years, West 48th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues thrived as New York’s “Music Row.” Instrument stores like Manny’s served the city’s music industry, with studios like Right Track Recording just a few doors away.
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Right Track’s large studio rooms and proximity to Broadway theaters made it a favorite for cast recordings and other large-ensemble sessions.
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What was once a prime location with musical cachet soon became a liability, as the redevelopment of Times Square brought major construction projects around the studio.
In 2014, work began on a 42-story hotel directly behind the studio. When plans were announced for a 36-story hotel across the street and a 38-story hotel mid-block, the studio’s closing was inevitable.
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“It’s hard to record an orchestra when you have a jackhammer going in the background,” said studio owner Dave Amlen.
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In 2023, the building was demolished to make way for the 32-story glass-and-steel Hotel Voco, boasting Times Square’s only rooftop bar with panoramic views of the Manhattan skyline.
BELTONE STUDIOS
4 West 31st Street
Nina Simone, Little Girl Blue
December 1957
When the Hotel Wolcott opened in 1904, it embodied New York’s Gilded Age, offering luxury to the city’s elite. By the 1950s, the hotel’s ballroom had been repurposed as a recording studio.
In December 1957, a 25-year-old Nina Simone recorded 14 songs during a single 13-hour session. “I wasn’t interested in being famous,” said Simone, who signed away the rights to the recordings for $3000 and spent the next three days playing Beethoven "to get the recording session out of my system.”
The recordings captured Simone in an incandescent moment, blending jazz, gospel, and blues with her classical training. Eleven tracks were released as her debut album, Little Girl Blue, marking the beginning of a career that merged musical innovation with political conscience.
“An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times,” Simone later said.
By the early 2000s, the Wolcott was operating as a two-star budget hotel. In 2024, the city began using the building as a humanitarian relief center, providing shelter to immigrant families who crossed the U.S. southern border seeking asylum.
CENTURY SOUND STUDIOS
135 West 52nd Street
Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"
September–October 1968
On September 25, 1968, Van Morrison joined some of the city’s top session musicians for the first of three sessions at the newly opened Century Sound studio. Most tracks were completed in one or two takes. “Everything was live,” said studio owner and engineer Brooks Arthur. “He ran it down once, we set the levels, and I hit record.”
The result was both new and timeless—a spontaneous blend of classical guitar and jazz melded with Morrison’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics about being transported to “another time, another place.”
“A cloud came along,” Arthur said. “We all hopped upon that cloud, and the cloud took us away for a while, and we made this album, and we landed when it was done.”
Astral Weeks is widely regarded as a transcendent work. The Guardian called it “the greatest work of art to emerge out of the pop tradition.” Rock critic Lester Bangs called it the most significant record of his life—a “mystical document.”
The building was demolished in the early 1980s. The site is now occupied by a luxury apartment building with multimillion-dollar penthouse units.
Designer Thierry Dreyfus created a 423-foot lighting sculpture on the building’s façade, declaring that his design brought “poetry to a space that lacks creativity.”
COLUMBIA STUDIO B
49 East 52nd Street
Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
November 9, 1969
Paul Simon claims Bridge Over Troubled Water was inspired by his deteriorating relationship with Art Garfunkel. “I like the first lines of a song to be truthful, and those were. I was feeling weary because of the problems with Artie and other things. I was also feeling small.”
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“We didn’t really fight until Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon said years later.
The song’s emotional weight was refined in Studio B, where Garfunkel spent a week perfecting a demanding vocal performance. “The last verse I nailed because of the thrill of pole-vaulting over the high notes,” Garfunkel recalled. “But the first verse, in its delicacy, was the Devil’s business.”
Released in January 1970, amid the Vietnam War and in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the song resonated deeply, its message of solace and endurance reflecting the turmoil of the moment.
By the 1980s, the studio’s technology was obsolete, and the building was repurposed for commercial use. In 1988, a Duane Reade opened with a pharmacy on the second floor in what had previously been Studio B, where Garfunkel recorded his vocal tracks.
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A recent Yelp review of the Duane Reade gave it two stars, describing it as “nothing special.”
RECORD PLANT
231 West 44th Street
John Lennon, “Imagine”
July 1971
After moving to New York in 1971, the Record Plant became John Lennon’s studio of choice for much of his solo career. Receptionist Arlene Reckson recalls Lennon treated the studio as his “second home.” “I think he liked just hanging out there and making music.”
On December 8, 1980, Lennon and Yoko Ono were working late at the Record Plant on Ono’s “Walking on Thin Ice.” With a mix ready for mastering the following day, Lennon wanted to say goodnight to their son Sean before heading out to dinner. Around 10:45 p.m., their limo pulled up outside the Dakota building. As Lennon walked into the courtyard, clutching a handful of cassettes from the session, Mark David Chapman fired five shots.
Lennon was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m.
Today, the building has been rebranded as “The Plant,” with extensive renovations to lure tech, advertising, and media companies. A mural on the building’s east façade references its musical history, including the word “Imagine.”
BELL SOUND STUDIOS
237 West 54th Street
Dionne Warwick, “Walk On By”
December 1963
At its peak, Bell Sound Studios was the largest independent recording facility in the United States. More than 50 tape machines serviced three studios, four editing rooms, five mastering rooms, and a film room. Even records tracked elsewhere were often edited, mixed, mastered, and cut to lacquer at Bell Sound.
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Located just a few blocks from the Brill Building, it became the final step in a creative process where pop hits could be written, arranged, recorded, and released in just a few weeks. “It was like an assembly line,” said Burt Bacharach. “You’d go into a room, write a song, then go to the studio and cut it.”
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Bell Sound’s largest room, Studio A on the fifth floor, could hold a full orchestra, allowing Bacharach to experiment with unusual time signatures and complex harmonic structures, treating arrangement as composition rather than ornament. “I was trying to make pop records that had a little more musical substance than what was typical at the time,” he later recalled.
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“It was basically a performance—it wasn’t about punching in overdubs,” Dionne Warwick said. “We did every single recording full-out, and on about the 28th take… ‘I think we may have it.’”
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The building was demolished in 2011. A Hilton Garden Inn opened on the site in 2013. Online reviews mention stained bedsheets, lost pajamas, and an overpowering smell of marijuana.