Instances Sq.’s hidden music mecca continues to be hitting all the precise notes.
Lengthy earlier than soulless glass towers and blinding LED billboards reshaped one in all NYC’s most infamous neighborhoods, some of popular culture’s largest names strutted, sang and even slept within the halls of The Music Constructing — one in scores of recording studios across the Crossroads of The World chargeable for pleasuring the world aurally over a interval of a long time.
This one not solely survived a long time of gentrification — it’s nonetheless thriving.
Hidden behind a nondescript grey metallic door at 584 Eighth Ave. between thirty eighth and thirty ninth streets, amps are nonetheless cranked, drums pound, and the spirit of rock and roll by no means dies.
Immediately, younger musicians and up-and-coming bands proceed to battle for house on the legendary stronghold.
“It’s a vital piece of NYC music historical past,” longtime tenant Chris “Tomato” Harfenist, lead singer and drummer of early aughts alt-rock group Sound of Urchin, informed The Put up. “This constructing is the final little bit of actual rock that’s nonetheless functioning in Manhattan.”
Madonna as soon as lived and rehearsed there in room 604 — with out sizzling water.
Billy Idol wrote what grew to become “Insurgent Yell” and “White Marriage ceremony” in studios 1001 and 1006, and The Strokes lower their enamel in cramped areas like 404.
Simply steps from the scuzz of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the graffiti-splashed Music Constructing has sheltered generations of dreamers since 1979 — outlasting one-time space icons just like the Report Plant (321 W. forty fourth St.) and Brill Constructing (1619 Broadway), now bland workplace blocks commuters hurry previous every day, hardly ever if ever appreciating the significance to rock historical past.
The foyer is plastered with shiny band stickers and tabloid-esque flyers. Its lone, nonworking pay cellphone — additionally decked out in colourful stickers — stands as a shrine to the previous.
“Each musician from the ’80s and ’90s remembers this well-known cellphone,” Roget Lerner, the constructing’s president and chief catalyst, informed The Put up.
“We’ll by no means eliminate it — Madonna used it, and just lately her drummer Stephen Bray and [Oscar-nominated] composer Carter Burwell stopped by and stated, ‘The cellphone sales space continues to be right here!’ Again then, everybody used it to plan their gigs.”
A 12-story maze of 69 rehearsal studios, the constructing is full of musicians who typically bunk collectively to maintain hire low cost — and as soon as they transfer their gear in, they stick round, solely leaving after three to 5 years on common.
“We get inquiries each week, and we usually run 95% to 99% occupied,” Lerner stated of the excessive demand for house.
A sister website in Jamaica, Queens, residence to Metallica, Anthrax, Run-DMC and LL Cool J, burned down in 1996.
He’s now increasing to Chicago with a 115-studio spot he scooped up final yr.
Reside and Lerner
Roget’s late landlord father, Jack Lerner, handed in 2024. He was recognized for his massive smile, cowboy hat and supportive, music-loving spirit.
“The tenants all beloved him — I at all times joke he was in all probability the one NYC landlord whose tenants got here to pay their respects after he handed,” Roget stated.
Jack acquired the constructing in 1979 to create a 24/7 house the place musicians might rehearse, retailer gear, and make noise with out restrictions.
Since then, Patti Smith, Joey Ramone, Carlos Santana, Cyndi Lauper, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Lenny Kravitz, and members of Interpol and The Fleshtones have walked the halls, heading to their very own studios or dropping by a buddy’s jam.
Areas hire for $1,800to $2,500 a month, with many tenants sharing or subletting rooms as mini-studios, typically biking 5 bands by means of a single house.
“Carry as many individuals as you need, so long as everybody’s making music,” Lerner stated of the flexibleness that has helped launch careers.
Whereas Lerner has stored his father’s legacy alive, he has one specific rule.
Don’t stay like Madonna.
“There’s no sizzling water right here. This place is for making music, not shifting in,” he joked.
“When you stroll in, you’re simply right here to jam, and that protected house retains many alumni coming again,” he stated.
Sustaining the CBGB spirit
Veterans share flooring with newcomers, indie bands with jazz gamers, and the halls nonetheless buzz across the clock with each style — however the insurgent spirit endures.
“This constructing jogs my memory a lot of CBGB, however you possibly can’t go there anymore,” rocker Harfenist stated of the legendary membership that closed almost 20 years in the past.
Few perceive that higher than John Conte, the bassist, guitarist and half of the Conte Brothers, who, together with his brother Steve — a six-year member of the legendary New York Dolls — spent a long time shaping NYC rock.
As tenants for over 30 years, they watched the constructing “unapologetically holding its floor,” John stated, whilst Midtown “gentrified round it.”
It’s an important hub, he stated, for composers, songwriters, producers, recording studios and music lecturers.
“The Music Constructing has been the one place to bang out a loud rock rehearsal within the metropolis for so long as I can bear in mind,” Steve Conte shared.
“I might guess that with out this place, most of the struggling bands to come back out of NYC would possibly’ve by no means occurred.”
Even an elevator journey from the foyer to flooring 12 can sound like an “outdated FM dial,” John stated, “with every flooring pumping out a unique musical style.”
And whereas veterans just like the Contes gave the constructing its spine, it was the following technology — scrappy upstarts like The Strokes — who gave it its edge.
“They had been at all times inflicting bother. I needed to yell at them typically, however I beloved them,” stated Aziz Ahmed, the constructing’s tremendous since 1994, of The Strokes, the rambunctious storage rockers who began in room 404.
Lerner added that “each musician who’s ever been within the constructing” is aware of Ahmed — the Strokes’ favourite sparring accomplice.
A should for critical musicians
The constructing “permits you 24-hour entry to your artistic house and equipment in midtown Manhattan, which isn’t simple to seek out,” John Conte stated of the “magical place to work and create.”
Within the a long time he and his brother have utilized the constructing, “it has retained the identical no-frills allure it had after I first encountered it,” John stated.
“With the makes an attempt at gentrification in that neighborhood that started over 30 years in the past and nonetheless proceed, many people really feel that The Music Constructing is form of the final bastion of ‘Down & Soiled New York,’” he continued.
Lerner stated town has modified “quite a bit over 50 years,” recalling how Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral period noise rules (1994 to 2001) focused nightlife venues.
Whereas there was some strain on the constructing, he stated officers finally determined to “let The Music Constructing be” because it was a widely known hub the place “musicians should make music.”
How the following generations preserve punk alive
John Conte has heard fellow tenants creating “rock n’ roll, reggae, jazz, soul, hardcore, metallic, punk, rap, hip-hop, ambient experimental music” — and “even wedding ceremony bands working towards.”
However the place oozes what it “means to be punk,” regardless of the sound, Ziarra, a “poetic punk” singer who moved her gear into the constructing in 2022, informed The Put up.
“Punk isn’t useless. It’s not only a style of music — it’s a way of life and mentality,” stated the millennial, who recorded her 2025 album, “Human Type,” on the tenth flooring.
“I like figuring out that Madonna began out on this constructing. She’s particularly inspiring to me due to her origins as a punk artist earlier than she advanced into pop,” Ziarra continued.
With many iconic NYC music spots gone, her technology and youthful ones now “have to assist create new venues — and have fun this constructing,” she stated.
Her inspiration, the “Queen of Pop,” signed the constructing’s Twelfth-floor wall in 1998 to mark her early ’80s days in short-lived bands like Breakfast Membership and Emmy & the Emmys, a legacy “etched in NYC historical past.”
“Punk artists like her helped form town’s sound — and by taking part in right here, we’re a part of it too.”
Ziarra’s keyboardist and saxophonist, Mario Castro, known as writing music there a crash course in inspiration — from Eighth Avenue’s many honks to heavy metallic upstairs and classical piano under.
“With the ability to hear different musicians taking part in round you and take in that vitality actually shapes how we method our recordings.”
He’s additionally struck by the constructing’s historical past.
“It’s wonderful that Billy Idol made music on the identical flooring we play on now. We had been so fortunate to get a room right here. We love Manhattan, its noise and this unimaginable historical past,” Castro informed The Put up.
Tenants typically speak in regards to the constructing’s magic — and the way you by no means know which musicians, well-known or under-the-radar, would possibly pop in.
Living proof: to Castro’s shock, Billy Idol confirmed up on the tenth flooring on a random Tuesday whereas The Put up was there.
He signed the wall by the rooms he and guitarist Steve Stevens as soon as rehearsed in — 1001 and 1006 —leaving Castro and Ziarra starstruck as he reminisced about his early days within the constructing and met the following technology of punk rockers.
“There’s a mixture of totally different timelines all crossing paths,” Ziarra informed The Put up. “You by no means know what’s occurring in every studio, and that’s what makes it so cool.”
