[Dixielandjazz] The Effort to Save Tin Pan Alley

[Stephen G Barbone]

Yes, Virginia, there is a Tin Pan Alley. Five 19th Century buildings  
on West 28th Street where George and Ira Gershwin and many other  
American Songbook Composers lived and wrote the music. But now,  
development threatens. Folks might want to visit the Alley if in the  
New York area. It may still be torn down in future.

Being a romantic, I can see the street being renewed thematically (the  
total jazz experience)  with night clubs and speakeasies on ground  
level playing American Songbook, OKOM and jazz, plus a bordello or two  
up top. <grin>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

NEW YORKERS TRY TO SAVE HISTORIC TIN PAN ALLEY

Place where many iconic American Songs were written threatened by  
development.

New York NY - Associated Press

A group of New Yorkers is fighting to save Tin Pan Alley, the half  
dozen row houses where iconic American Songs were born.

The four story, 19th century buildings on Manhattan's West 28th Street  
were home to publishers of some of the catchiest American tunes and  
lyrics - from "God Bless America" and "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" to  
"Give My Regards to Broadway."

The music of Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, George M. Cohan  
and other greats was born on Tin Pan Alley.

The buildings were put up for sale earlier this fall for $44 million  
with plans to replace them with a high rise. The construction plan  
fell through amid the turmoil of the economy, but the possibility of  
losing the historic block hastened efforts to push for landmark status  
for Tin Pan Alley.

"The fear of those buildings being sold for development crystallized   
their importance and the need to preserve them," said Simon Bankoff,  
executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a nonprofit  
preservation organization aiming to secure city landmark status for  
the buildings which would protect them from being destroyed.

The Landmarks Commission is "researching the history of the buildings  
and reviewing whether they'd be eligible for landmark designation,"  
said Lisa de Bourbon, a spokeswoman for New York's Landmarks  
Preservation Commission.

No date has ben set for a decision, which she said depends on "a  
combination of historical, cultural and architectural significance.

The block is sacred to Tim Schreier, a great great grandson of Jerome  
H. Remick whose music publishing company occupied one of the houses  
and employed a young sheet music peddler named George Gershwin.

"I'm not opposed to development in New York, but we have to balance  
development with history - and this is definitely American cultural  
history," said Schreier.

 From the late 1880s to the mid 1950s the careers of songwriters who  
are still popular today were launched from the buildings at 45, 47,  
49, 51, 53, and 55 West 28th. Nearby high rise condominiums have  
pushed out old brownstones. The four story Tin Pan Alley Buildings  
house street level wholesale stores selling clothing, jewelry, and  
fabrics; eight apartment units fill the upper floors.

It's a noisy neighborhood, with trucks beeping as they back up amid  
street hawkers selling bootleg movies and knockoff perfumes. A century  
ago, the windows of music companies broadcast a cacophony of competing  
piano sounds that earned the name Tin Pan Alley to describe what one  
journalist said sounded like pounding on tin pans.

Leland Bobbe, a 59 year old photographer, has been renting his  
apartment at Remick's old building since 1975. He says it's important  
to salvage the buildings in a neighborhood "that has lost its  
uniqueness. It's just another symbol of what New York was and what it  
will no longer be."