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Tag Archives: 1520 Sedgwick
NY Daily News: “Birthplace of Hip Hop gets new landlord after battle to keep building affordable”
The Bronx apartment building where DJ Kool Herc emceed the world’s first hip-hop party was sold at foreclosure auction last Monday to a reputable investment group backed by the city.
Workforce Housing Advisors has vowed to fix up 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in Morris Heights, keep it affordable and build an arts and culture center in the recreation room where Herc famously pioneered the “break beat.”
The graying deejay returned to 1520 Sedgwick Ave. last Thursday with John Crotty and John Fitzgerald of Workforce to reopen the rec room and celebrate.
The room was locked and used for storage under the old landlord Mark Karasick, who bought the 102-unit building in 2008 and then went bust.
Now tenant power, government pressure and music history have saved the Bronx landmark.
“Hip-hop can solve a lot of problems,” said Herc, surveying the rec room with a nostalgic smile. “It all started right here.”
Part of the middle-income Mitchell-Lama housing program when Herc lived there, in the 1970s, 1520 Sedgwick Ave. left the program in 2008 when it was sold to Karasick.
Karasick planned to flip the building for a profit, said Dina Levy of the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, an advocacy group. But he fell behind on his $7 million mortgage instead and let the high-rise deteriorate.
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The New York Observer: “Word Up! Hip-Hop’s Birthplace Gets New Mortgage on Life!”
The hallowed ground on which “b-boys” and “b-girls” first found their groove will be saved from (a non-allegorical) wrecking ball crew.
1520 Sedgwick Avenue in The Bronx is often referred to as “The Birthplace of Hip-Hop” owing to the musical sound that was pioneered by DJ Kool Herc (nee Clive Campbell) in the building’s recreation common room during the late 1970′s. Mr. Campbell’s music influenced other progenitors of the hip-hop scene, including Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, who made their way to the Morris Heights section of the Bronx to attend parties at 1520 Sedgwick, before bringing Mr. Campbell’s DJing style back to the more Southern boroughs.
Read more at the New York Observer.
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Crain’s New York Business: “Sold! Birthplace of Hip Hop Beats the Rap.”
A Bronx building famed for its role in the origins of the musical phenomenon escapes the clutches of a “predatory equity” scourge the tenants feared would lead to its demise.
Read more at Crain’s New York Business.
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New York Times: “For Birthplace of Hip Hop, New Life”
After a long struggle, ownership of a Bronx building known as the birthplace of hip-hop, which had fallen into neglect and foreclosure, was taken over on Monday by a group that specializes in preserving working-class housing.
The building at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Morris Heights neighborhood was, in the early 1970s, the home of D.J. Kool Herc, whose community room parties were pivotal to the early development of hip-hop.
Read more at the NY Times.
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