The studio where David Bowie recorded his final album has been shut down.
New York’s The Magic Shop Recording Studio was set up by Steve Rosenthal in 1988. Based in the Soho area, it’s where Bowie recorded both 2013’s ‘The Next Day’, and this year’s ‘Blackstar’. Lou Reed, The Ramones and Arcade Fire have also used it in the past, while it also featured in Dave Grohl’s HBO series Sonic Highways.
Rising rents due to gentrification of the area have been blamed for the closure. “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,” Rosenthal wrote on Facebook when the closure was announced last month.
“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.”