Culture
Universal Hip Hop Museum will open in the Bronx in 2023
The Universal Hip Hop Museum will open in 2023, with exhibits that showcase hip hop artifacts and interactive displays where visitors can get the recording booth experience, among others.
The Museum will occupy 50,000 square feet in Bronx Point, the residential and retail project by L+M Development Partners and Type A Projects that will rise just north of the 145th Street Bridge along the Harlem River in the Bronx. The development’s official groundbreaking is set to happen this winter. The museum was originally set to open in 2022, when the first phase of Bronx Point will be complete. But the museum now has a new projected opening date that lines up with the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip hop.
The music style’s genesis is pinpointed to August 11, 1973 and credited to DJ Kool Herc, then Clive Campbell, who was DJing his sister’s back-to-school party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, a Mitchell Llama building in the Bronx neighborhood of Morris Heights.
At Bronx Point, the museum will span two floors and provide what Blow calls an immersive experience in ‘70s music history. Museum visitors will be able to create and spin their own records in an imitation DJ booth, visit a recording studio, and see their iPad drawings projected onto the building. A virtual reality theater will allow visitors to take the stage with some of hip hop’s biggest icons.
Among the hip hop relics on display will be handwritten lyrics from Tupac and Kurtis Blow’s gold plaque for The Breaks as well as thousands of vinyls and cassettes.
The museum has raised $20 million, but needs to gather $ 60 million more. The museum’s board is now accepting donations through Spotfund and through the museum’s website.