The Hit Factory Condominium (New York City, New York)

 condominiums, commercial building

7-story residential/commercial building completed in 1928 as a 6-story commercial building. Designed by Frank A. Rooke, it was converted to condominiums in 2006 by architect Arpad Baksa, with a recessed penthouse level added to the top. The procession of famous music artists who came through its doors comprises true rock royalty – The Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Paul Simon, Madonna, U2 and Mariah Carey. In 1994, The Hit Factory made recording history when 41 Grammy nominations were awarded to songs that were recorded, mastered or mixed on the state-of-the-art equipment for which the Hit Factory became internationally famous. The Hit Factory was started in 1968 by Jerry Ragavoy and was purchased in 1975 by Eddie Germano, who moved it to this location in 1991. The last album to be recorded at The Hit Factory was Octavarium by Dream Theater.

The building has a commercial space on the bottom two floors, with residences above. The commercial space is occupied by Gibson Guitar Recording Studio. There are six penthouse duplex units with terraces, and a 2,000-square-foot roof deck atop the new upper roof.

The front facade is clad in red brick above a polished granite ground floor (reddish-grey at the base and around the main entrance and a former-garage entrance near the west end, and dark-grey with bands of light-grey on the upper part of the ground floor). The main entrance is near the east end, with a revolving glass door flanked by two single glass doors, slightly recessed below a segmental-arch with silver metal lettering spelling "THE HIT FACTORY". At the far east end is a recessed secondary entrance with glass double-doors. To the west of the main entrance are two four small, square windows, followed by a metal garage door, a commercial entrance with glass double-doors, a former-garage opening now filled in with grey stone blocks, and recessed metal double service doors at the west end. There is a grey-painted stone band along the top of the ground floor, and four projecting flagpoles along the east half.

The brick upper floors have end bays and a middle bay with double-windows. The commercial 2nd floor has three bays of tripartite windows between the middle bay and the east end bay, and between the middle bay and west end bay there is a tripartite windows flanked by single-windows (and separated by thinner, secondary brick piers), and a double-window bay. All of the 2nd-floor windows have three rows of transoms at the tops. At the 3rd-6th floors, there are a similar arrangement between the middle bay and the west end bay, except with a double-window instead of a tripartite window. To the east there is a triple-window, a double-window and single-windows combined in one bay (separated by a thin secondary pier), and two double-windows in one bay (also separated by a secondary brick pier). There are simple stone sills at each bay, except for the three bays between the middle and east end bay at the 3rd floor, where there is a broader stone sill underlined by a row of dentils. These three bays also have wide, splayed stone lintels at the 6th floor.

All of the bays set back above the 6th floor, except for the middle bay, which extends up one more floor, with a very short triple-window. The set-back upper levels of the penthouses are faced in white smooth-stucco, and there are mechanical penthouses rising up at the center and east end. The building contains 27 condominium units.