24/02/2016
CLOSING TIME
After an amazing 28 year run, I will have to close The Magic Shop Recording Studio. March 16, 2016 will be our last day open.
Everyone knows why I have to close, so there is little point in rehashing my story. My eternal thanks goes to Dave Grohl, The Foo Fighters and Lee Johnson for stepping up big time last year to try and save the studio from this fate. I would also like to thank the late, great David Bowie for recording Blackstar and the Next Day at the studio. It was an honor to have him and Tony Visconti working here for the last few years.
To Kabir Hermon and my current staff, and to all those who worked here at the Magic Shop over the years, you have my warmest gratitude. It's because of your passion and gifts that the studio survived as long as it did. To the talented artists, producers and engineers who passed through 49 Crosby Street over the years, I know it was you who made the Magic that made it special.
To my first family, Franne, Tracy, and Graham who were there in the beginning and my wonderful family of the last 18 years, Jennifer, Addie, Cole and Paige, I love u all beyond words. To my mom, Frieda, my sister Adrian and her husband Michael, and especially to my 94 year old dad Murray, thanks for your encouragement and for the love of music you passed on to me.
One last thing, I get that New York City is always changing and adapting like the living city it is. Maybe what I believe in is no longer of value, but it was for us and we lived it .
As the city becomes more of a corporate and condo island, some of us wish for a better balance between money and art, between progress and preservation, and we hope that one day we will see a reversal of the destruction of conscience and community we are witnessing.
Or maybe not...
After all I'm just a guy from The Bronx.
Although the Magic Shop will be gone. I won't! I intend to continue my Restoration and Archiving Work. So feel free to email or call.
Rock on!
Steve Rosenthal