Photos: Billy Stritch, Marilyn Maye, Klea Blackhurst & More Come Out to Celebrate Tin Pan Alley Day

On Saturday, the Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project in collaboration with the Flatiron 23rd Street Partnership presented a free, outdoor public concert at the Flatiron North Plaza featuring more than two dozen leading performers of Tin Pan Alley music and the Great American Songbook.

This event celebrates the official New York City landmark designation of Tin Pan Alley buildings at 47-55 West 28th Street and publicly launches the Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to the commemoration and continuation of the legacy of Tin Pan Alley, the birthplace of American Popular Music in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Tin Pan Alley Day featured appearances by stars of the American Popular Songbook, including Marilyn Maye, Danny Bacher, Aaron Lee Battle, Ken Bloom, Klea Blackhurst, Jim Brochu, Richard Carlin, Eric Comstock, Natalie Douglas, Cassidy Ewert, Willy Falk, DeWitt Fleming Jr., Eric Yves Garcia, Anita Gillette, Vince Giordano, Luke Hawkins, Robert Lamont, Gabrielle Lee, Larry Marshall, Sanborn McGraw, Jill O'Hara, Jeannie Otis, Jennifer Poroye, Steve Ross, Billy Stritch, TADA! Youth Theater Ensemble, Tony Waag & The American Tap Dance Foundation Ensemble, and Terry Waldo & The Gotham City Band.

Tin Pan Alley was designated a New York City landmark in 2019 based on its preeminent role as the birthplace of American Popular Music as well as the multicultural significance of contributions of Eastern European Jewish immigrant and African American composers, performers and sheet music publishers who worked there, notably including Irving Berlin, Williams & Walker, George Gershwin, J. Rosamond Johnson, George M. Cohan, and James Reese Europe, among many others. This history will be addressed on Tin Pan Alley Day in remarks by noted authorities including author Ken Bloom, Columbia University historic preservation professor Andrew Dolkart, and Harlem historian John Reddick.

The Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project promotes appreciation for the historic beginning of American Popular Music and the modern music business on and around West 28th Street in New York City. Through telling the stories of the songwriters, music publishers and the songs that formed the sound and industry of American Popular Music in the first half of the 20th Century, the Project connects people with the power of music as an essential element of New York City and American cultural history.

Photo Credit: Genevieve Rafter Keddy