




49 East 52nd Street was built in 1908 as a guest house for the Vanderbilt Family whose “Triple Palace” mansion was a block west on Fifth Avenue.
In 1939, Columbia Broadcasting System purchased the building to house its radio operations. The building was extensively renovated, eliminating the Vanderbilt’s ornate exterior, and removing the windows for soundproofing. The interior was carved up into seven studios, the largest of which could accommodate a symphony orchestra and an audience of 300.
Studio walls were acoustically treated with perforated asbestos wall panels and “Acoustivans” - wing-shaped baffles that could be closed to provide a hard surface or opened to expose the more absorbent surface behind. Architectural Forum declared it “the last word in broadcasting design.”
As advertising revenue began to shift from radio to television, the demand for large radio studios declined, and by 1965 the building was used exclusively for recordings for CBS subsidiary Columbia Records.






Simon and Garfunkle in session at Columbia Studio B. © Douglas R. Gilbert/Redferns.
In early 1969 Paul Simon was alone in New York writing songs for a new album while Art Garfunkel was in Mexico filming Mike Nichols’ movie Catch-22. Production took longer than expected, leaving Simon feeling neglected and taken for granted.
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The song was written in just a few hours. “It just came. All of a sudden. It was one of the most shocking moments in my songwriting career. I remember thinking this is considerably better than I usually write.’’
The lyrics reflected the deteriorating relationship between himself and Garfunkel. “I like the first lines of a song to be truthful, and those were. I was feeling weary because of the problems with Artie and other things. I was also feeling small.”
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“We didn’t really fight until Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Simon said years later.
Simon presented a demo of the song to Garfunkel during a break in filming, saying “It’s written in your key, and I think you should sing it,” but Garfunkel hesitated, saying he preferred Simon’s falsetto demo performance. “He felt I should have done it. ” said Simon, “And many times I think I’m sorry I didn’t do it.”

Simon and Garfunkle with Engineer Roy Halee in session for "Bridge Over Troubled Water", 1969. © unkown.
In November 1969, Garfunkel spent a week in Studio B perfecting his vocal performance. Simon, at Garfunkel’s insistence, wasn’t in the room.
“The last verse I nailed because of the thrill of pole-vaulting over the high notes,” said Garfunkel. “Getting the middle verse was pretty easy too. But the first verse, in its delicacy, was the Devil’s business. That took a lot of sessions.”
When the song was released in January 1970, the US was at war in Vietnam, and the country was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” seemed to speak to the turmoil of the times.
The album became Simon and Garfunkel’s biggest success, staying on the charts for over a year and a half, spending ten weeks at number one, and winning six Grammys, including Song Of The Year, Album of the Year, and Record of the Year.






By the 1980’s the studio’s technology had become obsolete and much of the building sat empty or was used as storage space.
In 1979, the Fisher Brothers real estate company purchased the building's air rights to secure planning permission for the Park Avenue Plaza - a 44-story blue and green glass tower whose unique chevron shape allows for 12 corner offices per floor.
Several years later, they purchased the building itself and began restoring the facade. The windows were replaced, and the exterior clad in limestone reminiscent of the original Vanderbilt family guest house.
Today, the building is home to Fisher Capital Investments, the venture capital arm of Fisher Brothers, with investments in LGBTQ media companies, and the emerging cannabis industry.
In 1998, a Duane Reade drugstore opened on the ground floor, with a pharmacy on the second floor in what had previously been Studio B, where Garfunkle recorded his vocal tracks.
Several of the ‘Acoustivan’ baffles can still be seen above the shelves of children’s vitamins and nutritional supplements. It is one of the few places in the city that recognizes its rich musical history.
A recent Yelp review for the Duane Reade gave it two stars, claiming it’s “nothing special.”


