Pythian Temple Recording Studio — New York City

On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" at the Pythian Temple recording studio at 135 West 70th Street in Manhattan — a session that would produce the song widely credited as the opening shot of the rock and roll era. The record was initially a B-side and charted modestly on release, but when it was used over the opening credits of the 1955 film "Blackboard Jungle," it ignited a cultural firestorm. It spent eight weeks at number one on the Billboard charts and became one of the best-selling singles in history.

Bill Haley had been recording country and western swing before pivoting to the uptempo jump blues sound he called rock and roll. His Comets were a tight, experienced band and the Pythian Temple — a former Masonic lodge converted into a recording facility — was one of New York's busier mid-century studios. The building's ornate Egyptian Revival exterior, with its hieroglyphic friezes and stone sphinxes, made it one of the most distinctive addresses in the city.

The Pythian Temple was converted into residential apartments in the 1980s and the recording studios no longer exist, but the building's extraordinary facade remains intact. A plaque acknowledges its musical history. The site stands as a key address in the prehistory of rock and roll — the room where the clock started ticking.