Brill Building

The Brill Building is an office building located at 1619 Broadway on 49th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, just north of Times Square and further uptown from the historic musical Tin Pan Alley neighborhood. It is famous for housing music industry offices and studios where some of the most popular American music tunes were written.The building is 11 stories and has approximately 175000sqft of rentable area. Originally named after the son of its builder, Abraham E. Lefcourt, the "Brill" name comes from a haberdasher who operated a store at street level and subsequently bought the building. The Brill Building was purchased by 1619 Broadway Realty LLC in June 2013 and is undergoing a significant renovation.The "Big Band Era"Even before World War II it became a center of activity for the popular music industry, especially music publishing and songwriting. Scores of music publishers had offices in the Brill Building. Once songs had been published, the publishers sent song pluggers to the popular bands and radio stations. These song pluggers would sing and/or play the song for the band leaders to encourage bands to play their music.During the ASCAP strike of 1941, many of the composers, authors and publishers turned to pseudonyms in order to have their songs played on the air.Brill Building songs were constantly at the top of Billboard's Hit Parade and played by the leading bands of the day: