Columbia's 30th Street Studio Revisited

The Morrison Hotel Gallery (Soho loft) has announced their latest upcoming exhibit, opening later this month on July 18th. The installation will explore the history of Columbia Records 30th Street Studio through photographs. The space, which was converted from an Armenian church, is where Dylan recorded Highway 61, Miles made Kind of Blue, and Leonard Bernstein created West Side Story.

Now long gone, the only way back inside is through the old images on display, which Sony BMG (through their Icon Collectibles arm) culled from a massive photo archive containing more than one million. The small exhibit is comprised of around 30 of these photographs, mostly taken by Columbia Records in-house photographer Don Hunstein at the 207 East 30th Street studio; Huntstein also took the photo that became the cover art for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

Built in 1949, the building was later demolished; The NY Times took a look back at its glory days and ponders how the photo archive could be a "gold mine" for the struggling recording industry...at least for Sony.