I live in Tin Pan Alley!

For years, I’ve been living Tin Pan Alley and I didn’t even know it.

Tin Pan Alley, originally a specific place in New York City on 28th Street between 6th Avenue and Broadway, is a historic street where many big and famous music publishers chose to set up shop in 1885.

The exact years are disputed, but from 1885 to about the late 1930’s (maybe earlier, maybe later), Tin Pan Alley was home to the majority of the world’s music publishers who basically started the business of printing and distributing sheet music. Think of it as the earliest forms of the music industry as a whole.

From Parlor Songs:

Song composers were hired under contract giving the publisher exclusive rights to popular composer’s works. The market was surveyed to determine what style of song was selling best and then the composers were directed to compose in that style. Once written, a song was actually tested with both performers and listeners to determine which would be published and which would go to the trash bin. All of a sudden it seemed that music was becoming an industry more than an art. Once a song was published, song pluggers (performers who worked in music shops playing the latest releases, akin to playing new CD releases in a record store today) were hired and performers were persuaded to play the new songs in their acts to give the music exposure to the public.

It’s interesting that I live on a block that has so much musical history! There’s literally no sign of it today. Most of the shops on this block are now wholesale stores selling novelty items. Lost City shows photos of some of the store numbers that use to house music publishing giants back in the day.

Today, the closest thing to music that this block still holds on to is the widespread illegal bootleg sales going on at the corner of 28th Street and Broadway.