The Magic Shop, Where Music and History Were Recorded, Is Closing

There was a time when Manhattan was the center of the music recording world. Artists great and small booked time – often huge blocks of time – in recording studios to make their next albums. But the digital revolution decimated record companies’ bottom lines, and at the same time put recording technology in the hands of anyone with a laptop, and the studios began to disappear. The Record Plant and the Hit Factory are gone, and on Wednesday, March 16, the Magic Shop will close too. The Magic Shop was founded in 1988 by Steve Rosenthal, in the unlikely neighborhood of Soho – a seedy, at times dangerous area in those days before gentrification. The list of clients who recorded there includes Lou Reed, the Ramones, Norah Jones (who came out of the music scene at the club called The Living Room, which Rosenthal also owned, and which closed in December), Suzanne Vega, Coldplay, and David Bowie. Bowie made his final two albums at the Magic Shop, relying on the staff’s abilities to both get the sound right and to keep everything a secret.

Steve Rosenthal offered us a guided tour of the Magic Shop’s two floors: the ground floor where all those records were made, and the basement level where Rosenthal’s archiving and remastering work has brought the music of Elvis Presley, Errol Garner, the early Stones, and the archives of The Bottom Line to a new generation of listeners.