Electric Lady Studios

You are approaching 52 West 8th Street, a building with a history much older than the recording studio that defines it today. Before it became a sanctuary for rock legends, the basement level operated as a country-themed nightclub and dining hall known as the Village Barn, which served crowds from 1930 until 1967. The upper floors have seen equally diverse uses, including serving as a teaching studio for the renowned abstract expressionist painter Hans Hofmann. The building also functioned as the Film Guild Cinema in the late twenties, a site considered one of the earliest examples of modernist architecture in all of New York.