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LOWER EASTSIDE GIRLS CLUB INTRODUCES WSDG-DESIGNED AIRSTREAM TRAILER RECORDING, BROADCAST & TEACHING STUDIO

A classic Airstream Trailer (circa 1958) has been repurposed by Walters-Storyk Design Group as a teaching, recording, and broadcast production studio for LESGC’s WGRL Internet Radio Station and Recording Arts Program.

Who Says You Can’t Find A Parking Spot For A Recording Studio In NYC?

NEW YORK:  As the culmination of a nearly 20-year-long odyssey, the Lower East Side Girls Club has added a new component to its year-old Center for Community.    Prominently displayed in a second story window in LESGC’s recently completed $20 million sustainably-built 12 story building at 101 Avenue D, the studio was designed and configured by Walters Storyk Design Group cofounder/architect/ acoustician John Storyk,

The Airstream recording studio joins an eclectic assemblage of innovative LESGC educational and career training options for low-income teens and families. Spread across three floors and 30,000 sq. ft., these classes range from a digital photography/computer graphics /3D-printing lab, to hands-on BioBus labs, small business training and incubator space (commercial kitchen, bakery, gift shop, cafe) and, a 64-seat planetarium.

The recording studio was a pet project of Dave Pentecost, a career television editor and musician; his wife Lyn Pentecost co-founded the Lower Eastside Girls Club in 1996. In 2004, the Pentecost’s fell in love with an iconic 1958 Airstream trailer, and purchased it to park besides their Adirondacks cabin, in upstate New York. “When the LESGC  building became a reality we felt our Airstream could serve a better purpose in the community as a sound studio, and we brought it to Manhattan,” he says. “I’d met studio designer John Storyk years earlier, reconnected with him in 2010, and invited him to contribute his skills to retrofitting the Airstream as a recording studio.”

“We’ve built recording studios in a basement (Electric Lady), and a duplex penthouse overlooking NY’s Highline (Jungle City),” Storyk says, “but this is the first time we’ve had the chance to ply our trade in an Airstream Trailer.  As a visiting professor of acoustics and studio design for the Berklee College of Music and other schools, I have an abiding interest in educating young people. Dave Pentecost brought WSDG a compelling challenge, ‘was it possible to create a viable recording studio within the confines of a 140 sq, ft, Airstream Trailer?’ The obvious answer is yes, although the geometry, the equipment selection and the acoustic considerations did present us with significant design restrictions. If an opportunity to design a studio for a submarine ever comes up, we might take a pass,” he adds.

The Airstream Studio includes both a live room for radio, vocals, and instruments, and a control room. In that regard, it is one of a kind.  It will also be engaged to produce and mix Internet radio programming for the Girls Club’s new WGRL Internet Radio station, sound tracks for student videos and for the LESGC Planetarium’s constantly evolving educational presentations, and to record live student performances from the stage of the 2nd floor community room in which it resides. It can accommodate up to 3 students and an instructor in the control room, and another 3 to 4 people in the live room area. The space outside the trailer is a combination classroom/ live performance stage.

Ms. Pentecost and a diverse group of community, grassroots and financial supporters first formed the LESGC, when they realized there were no distaff alternatives to the city’s various Boys Club organizations.  The new building has over a dozen separate program sites, and can accommodate up to 200 members simultaneously.  The upper stories (accessed via a separate entrance), are allocated to mixed income rental apartments, approximately half of which are available at middle and low-income rates.

Though compact, the control room is 5.1 surround ready, and features an array of pro gear including an Avid C/24 mixing console, Genelec Speakers, outboard processing technology from Manley, API, Neve, Universal Audio, SSL, etc., and mics from Neumann, Royer, Shure and Sennheiser. A serious professional-level studio, the Airstream will provide LESGC members with a serious, realistic hands-on recording experience.

“In my teaching experience I have seen an increasing number of young women seeking

roles in pro audio production,” John Storyk concludes. “The LESGC Studio will serve as a valuable introduction to the field of audio recording and mixing.   It will be very interesting to watch (and hear) the skills they develop, and to see them transfer these skills to the real world.”

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Photo Caps.

1.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio Rear to Front

2.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio Interior

3.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio CR

4.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio with view to classroom

5.  LESGC Live Recording Booth

6.  LESGC Recording Workshop Classroom/Performance Stage

7.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio exterior

8.  Lower East Side Girls Club Airstream Recording / Teaching Studio (from Ave. D through 2nd floor window

Walters-Storyk Design Group  has designed over 3500 media facilities worldwide. Credits include Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios (1969); NYC’s Jazz At Lincoln Center and Le Poisson Rouge; broadcast facilities for The Food Network, ESPN, and WNET; major education complexes for NYU and Berklee College of Music, Boston (2014 TEC winner) and Valencia, Spain; and media rooms for such corporate clients as Hoffman La Roche. Recent projects include NYC’s Jungle City Studios and private studios for Green Day, Jay-Z, Timbaland’s Tim Mosley, film composer’s Carter Burwell and A.R. Rahman, Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen and Alicia Keys. WSDG principals John Storyk), Beth Walters, Sergio Molho, Renato Cipriano, Dirk Noy and Silvia Molho lecture frequently at universities and industry events, and contribute regularly to industry publications. WSDG has collaborated with such noted architects as Frank Gehry, Rafael Vinoly, Norman Foster, Oscar Niemeyer, Phillipe Stark and Nicholas Grimshaw. WSDG is a nine-time winner of the prestigious NAMM TEC Award for outstanding achievement in Acoustics/Facility Design. The firm maintains offices in NY, SF, LA, Miami, Buenos Aires, Belo Horizonte, Basel, Beijing, Barcelona, Mexico City, St. Petersburg and Mumbai.

Since 1996 The Lower Eastside Girls Club (LESGC) has been providing innovative, community-based holistic programs and services for girls and young women. The mission of LESGC is to break the cycle of local poverty by training the next generation of ethical, entrepreneurial and environmental leaders. The LESGC provides a place where girls and young women 8-23 can grow, learn, have fun, and develop confidence in themselves and their ability to make a difference in the world. In 2013 the LESGC moved into a permanent Center for Community on Avenue D – 30,000 sq. feet of new state-of-the-art program space dedicated to the advancement of girls, and the neighborhood at large. www.girlsclub.org

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