In the early 1900’s a painter named Henry Ward Ranger selected a block of West 67th Street in New York to establish a building with studio apartments with ample space and good natural light where artists could work and live comfortably. Over time, this block, located between Central Park and Columbus Avenue, became a hub for artists and creative types. The block was built up over a period of thirty years and most of the buildings maintained architectural consistency with Ranger’s original apartments. Between 1916 and 1917, the architectural team known as Shape & Brady led the effort to complete the eight-story building at 50 West 67th Street. This building has since been dubbed, “The Musician’s Building” due to its 60 soundproof apartments that were each large enough to accommodate a grand piano. Learn more about the historic West 67th Street Artists’ Colony, the Musician’s Building, and a neighborhood controversy involving ABC with former New York Times writer and current editorial director of cityrealty.com, Carter Horsley.

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View the Musician’s Building and the West 67th Street Artists’ Colony in Google Street View:

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Check out some additional photos of the West 67th Street Artists’ Colony in New York:

Special thanks to Jeff Emtman from Here Be Monsters for his help on this episode.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York is presenting their first group exhibition highlighting sound art from August 2013 through November 2013. Soundings: A Contemporary Score highlights the work of 16 artists from around the world that combine elements of art, architecture, science, music, technology, and numerous other disciplines. Learn more about how the exhibit developed and some of the pieces on this week’s show featuring Barbara London, the Associate Curator of Department of Media and Performance Art at MoMA.

A teen grew up in the Bronx in the 70’s when violence, drugs, and poverty were rampant. He was swept up in the gang lifestyle until he went on life-changing trip to Africa after winning an essay contest. He adopted a new name, Afrika Bambaataa, and devoted himself to encouraging peace and positivity through hip hop music and culture. Nearly forty years later, his enormous record collection was briefly on public display in an “Open Archive” before landing in the Cornell University Hip Hop collection. Learn more about Bambaataa’s influence on hip hop culture and the open archiving process in this week’s show featuring Johan Kugelberg.

Note: We discovered after publishing the episode that Afrika Bambaataa’s real name is the subject of debate. Bambaataa legally changed his name years ago and his birth name is actually unknown in the public sphere. According to Johan Kugelberg, It is often incorrectly cited as “Kevin Donovan” based on a printing mistake on a record label that was released years ago. We attempted to confirm the information in advance, but we also included the apparently incorrect “Kevin Donovan” moniker in our episode based on multiple other sources that erroneously contain that information. According to Wax Poetics, this record’s label is the source of the confusion. Kevin Donovan was the leader of the band on the record and not Bambaataa. We regret the error.

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Click here to see a visualization of how many records can be stored on an iPod.

Here are some additional photos from the Open Archive: