Prehistory of Term "Tin Pan Alley"

[Gerald Cohen]

Fred's hypothesis  (last parag. below) is supported by a comment in the 1903
newspaper article spotted by Barry Popik (6/28/2003 ads-l message):
"...Now, 'Tin Pan Alley' is considered a term of reproach by the Tin Pan
Alleyites.  They prefer to designate it as 'Melody Lane.' But that is a
poetic fancy that those who go down that way to hear the 'new, big screaming
hits' do not indulge in."

G. Cohen

On 7/28/11 6:29 AM, "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Prehistory of Term "Tin Pan Alley"
>
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> Barry Popik has antedated the OED's first use of "Tin Pan Alley" (the district
> of New York housing many song writers and song publishers) by five years, back
> to 1903.  In  searching America's Historical Newspapers, I find that "Tin Pan
> Alley" was used to refer to a raucous street in New Haven, with no musical
> connotation, in five articles in the New Haven Evening Register in 1890 (also
> in an 1892 article and an 1894 article in the same newspaper).  The earliest
> citation is as follows:
>
> 1890 _New Haven Evening Register_ 8 Aug. 4 (America's Historical Newspapers)
> There was a rumpus among a number of women in Tin Pan alley on Wednesday and
> the result was that Mrs. Eleanor Church and Mrs. Mamie Arthur were before the
> city court this morning charged with a breach of the peace on each other.  Tin
> Pan alley branches off from Wallace Street and is, so a witness told Judge
> Pickett this morning, the worst place in town.
>
> I hypothesize that "Tin Pan Alley" was used originally to refer to any noisy
> street (from the sound of beating a tin pan) and the usage eventually morphed
> into a specific reference to the noisy piano-clanging district of New York.
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
>
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