Mapping Tin Pan Alley

Additional documentation and data can be found here in OneDrive.

Publishers

The original dataset used for this map was comprised of the complete metadata for the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, representing approximately 30,000 songs. This dataset was reduced to the final list (~6,000 songs) by eliminating the following:

• Any songs published outside the island of Manhattan
• Any songs published before 1880 or after 1940
• Any undated songs, or songs without a listed publisher
• Songs published as supplements to newspapers, such as the New York American & Journal (less than twenty-five songs fell into this category)

Addresses were then determined for songs missing a specific location, using the sources listed below. Please see the documentation in OneDrive for the most detailed metadata. Addresses were also standardized for easier ingest-- for example, "West" was replaced with "W" or "B'way" was replaced with "Broadway."

Venues

The venues included were built in Manhattan between 1800 and 1940 that survived to at least 1880. I was unable to find any venues built before 1800 that survived to 1880.

• Venues were not included if found in only one source. For example, Ewen lists "Gus Edwards Music Hall" which could not be found in any other publications
• For the first iteration of this map, a field for venue types was not added (vaudeville, broadway, burlesque, cinema, minstrel, etc.) as the venues were constantly evolving or hosting multiple forms of entertainment simultaneously. This may be reevaluated for future iterations of this project.
• The display name chosen for each venue is the latest name used. Previous names are listed for each venue as well. 
• For this iteration of the map, I chose not to seek out venues that were built as cinemas. However, venues that were built for live entertainment and were converted into a cinema remain on the map until they were closed completely or demolished.
• Black-controlled/owned venues do not include predominantly white owned/patronized venues that hosted all-black performances. For example, the Casino Theatre hosted the first musical produced and performed completely by African Americans: Clarindy, or The Origin of the Cakewalk, 1898 (Lane 24).
• If multiple venues with different names were found at the same address during the same year, they were both included separately to account for the likelihood of one address housing multiple venues simultaneously (for example-- a large theater, small theater, and rooftop garden).

Transportation Networks

• Subway lines
  • Lines and stations were not plotted outside Manhattan
  • The Q line between 57th street and 96th street was not opened until 2017
  • The Sixth Avenue Line (orange) North of W 4th St. was not included as it opened in December of 1940. The modern extensions over the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges were constructed in the 1960's.
  • The Flushing Line (purple) was not extended to 34th street until 2015
  • The 1904 IRT Subway map was created from this map. I chose not to plot the Eastern branch past 145th street, as it lay outside the scope of this map.
• For the Manhattan Elevated Railway Line and Stations, this c. 1881 map was used. Some sections of the line are approximated, as the city's geography has changed.
  • As much of the development of the elevated railway occured before the scope of this map, I did not add individual 'opened' years for individual stations. Instead, I named the field 'opened by' to reflect that these stations were open at the onset of the map's scope (1880)

Challenges

• It was difficult to choose a start and end year for this map. Most sources put the beginning of the Tin Pan Alley era in the mid-1880's, enduring during Prohibition and the Great Depression. Therefore, I chose 1880 for the start year and 1940 for the end year.
• Multiple publishers were often listed at the same address, and many worked together in collaboration
• Publishers such as Harms, Inc. published with multiple name expressions (Harms Inc., T.B. Harms Inc., Harms Incorporated, etc.) at multiple addresses simultaneously. These large publishers also may have had office addresses separate from their printing addresses.
• Publishers often worked in multiple cities simultaneously, listing multiple cities on the cover page. The city of publication printed in larger type, in the center of the page was chosen for this map.
• Publication dates printed on songs can often be inaccurate, as publishers often reprinted from a single plate without altering the copyright date. Publishers also sold their printing plates when they closed or were bought, allowing the new publisher to reuse them without alteration.
• Some publisher addresses were unable to be found, and were therefore not include on the map. A list of these can be found in the Excel document in OneDrive.

Sources

• View additional data and documentation in OneDrive
• Historic newspapers & magazines
  • New York Times
  • New York Amsterdam News
  • Music Trade Review
  • Billboard
• Cahn, Julia and Leighton, Victor R. The Cahn-Leighton Offical Theatrical Guide 1912-1913. New York: New Amsterdam Theatre Building, 1912.
• Ewen, David. The Life and Death of Tin Pan Alley : the Golden Age of American Popular Music. New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co, 1964.
• Goldberg, Isaac and Witmark, Isidore. The Story of the House of Witmark. New York: Lee Furman, Inc, 1939.
• Goldmark, Daniel. “Creating Desire on Tin Pan Alley.” The Musical Quarterly, vol. 90, no. 2, 2007, pp. 197–229. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25172869. Accessed 11 June 2021.
• Lane, Stewart F. Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way. New York: Square One Publishers, 2015.
• Mathieu, Jane. “Midtown, 1906: The Case for an Alternative Tin Pan Alley.” American Music, vol. 35, no. 2, 2017, pp. 197–236. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/americanmusic.35.2.0197. Accessed 11 June 2021.
• Peterson, Bernard L. Jr. The African American Theatre Directory, 1816-1960. Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997.
• Snyder, Robert. The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.