Hoagland Howard Carmichael was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first singer-songwriters in the age of mass media to utilize new communication technologies such as television, microphones, and sound recordings.
Carmichael in 1947
Carmichael's house in Bloomington, Indiana (2011)
Carmichael, Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews and Theresa Wright in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Carmichael sharing the Saturday Night Revue duties with George Gobel, 1953
Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally, it referred to a specific location on West 28th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Flower District of Manhattan, as commemorated by a plaque on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth. Several buildings on Tin Pan Alley are protected as New York City designated landmarks, and the section of 28th Street from Fifth to Sixth Avenue is also officially co-named Tin Pan Alley.
Buildings of Tin Pan Alley, 1910
The same buildings, 2011
These buildings (47–55 West 28th Street) and others on West 28th Street between Sixth Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan housed the sheet-music publishers that were the center of American popular music in the early 20th century. The buildings shown were designated as historic landmarks in 2019.
Plaque commemorating Tin Pan Alley