1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx

An unremarkable apartment building in the South Bronx, like many others, but in 1973 something magical happened here. Cindy Campbell rented out the building’s small rec room for a party on August 11, 1973. Her brother Clive, DJ Kool Herc, showed his new technique of mixing the beats from two copies of the same record to extend the break for the dancers. His friend Coke La Rock rapped over the beats. It was the birth of a new type of music that would become known as hip hop, and inspired Grandmaster Flash, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa and many other kids in attendance to run home and imitate the new sound. When a friend and I snuck into the building ten years ago, the rec room was sadly filled with snow blowers and maintenance equipment, but in 2017 Mayor de Blasio renamed the street Hip Hop Boulevard.