Tin Pan Alleyite
A “Tin Pan Alleyite” is someone who worked on the historical Tin Pan Alley on West 28th Street, or who works with a Tin Pan Alley-type of music publisher, or is a fan of Tin Pan Alley-type music.
“Now, ‘Tin Pan Alley’ is considered a term of reproach by the Tin Pan Alleyites” was printed in the St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch on May 10, 1903. “When it comes to writing a comic song there is no Tin Pan Alleyite who has anything on Eddie Moran” was printed in Variety (New York, NY) on January 9, 1909. “JAZZ SONGS LOSE PEP TOO SOON, SO TIN PAN ALLEYITES DECIDE TO GO BACK TO ‘SOB’ STUFF” was printed in the Pittsburgh (PA) Post on November 5, 1919. “He was a true Tin Pan Alleyite (although there is no such word) for he was typical of those who would constantly worm their way into a publisher’s office, or meet an associate at two in the morning at some dimly lit café to write a song” was printed in the book American Popular Song Composers: Oral Histories, 1920s-1950s (2012) by Michael Whorf.
“Broadwayite” is a similar term for the theater.
Wikipedia: Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City which dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the Flower District of Manhattan; a plaque (see below) on the sidewalk on 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth commemorates it. In 2019, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission took up the question of preserving five buildings on the north side of the street as a Tin Pan Alley Historic District. The agency designated five buildings (47–55 West 28th Street) individual landmarks on December 10, 2019, after a concerted effort by the “Save Tin Pan Alley” initiative of the 29th Street Neighborhood Association.
Newspapers.com
10 May 1903, St. Louis (MO) Post-Dispatch, pt. 4, pg. 9, col. 2:
“TIN PAN ALLEY?” WHY IT’S THE PLACE
WHERE THE POPULAR SONGS COME FROM
(...)
Tin Pan Alley is that part of Twenty-eighth street that lies between Broadway and Sixth avenue. Here center the song-publishing houses of New York.
(...)
Now, “Tin Pan Alley” is considered a term of reproach by the Tin Pan Alleyites. They prefer to designate it as “Melody Lane.” But this is a poetic fancy that those who go down that way to hear the “new, big, screaming hits” do not indulge in.
Old Fulton NY Post Cards
9 January 1909, Variety (New York, NY), “Tin Pan Alley Jingles” by William Jerome, pg. 11, col. 4:
When it comes to writing a comic song there is no Tin Pan Alleyite who has anything on Eddie Moran.
Newspapers.com
5 November 1919, Pittsburgh (PA) Post, pg. 5, col. 2:
JAZZ SONGS LOSE PEP
TOO SOON, SO TIN PAN
ALLEYITES DECIDE TO
GO BACK TO ‘SOB’ STUFF
Google Books
Bennett Cerf’s Bumper Crop
By Bennett Cerf
Garden City, NY: Garden City Books
1952
Pg. 229:
The Tin-Pan Alleyite who burst into the inner sanctum of a music publisher and cried, “Boss, I got a new song that will knock your eye out.”
Google Books
American Popular Music and Its Business:
The First Four Hundred Years (Volume III)
By Russell Sanjek
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
1988
Pg. 303
A large number of ASCAP publishers shared the attitude of an unidentified Tin Pan Alleyite who was quoted in Billboard: ...
Google Books
Tin Pan Alley:
An Encyclopedia of the Golden Age of American Song
By David A. Jasen
New York, NY: Routledge
2003
Pg. 395:
Two other Tin Pan Alleyites, PERCY WENRICH and ZEZ CONFREY, would later study at the Chicago Musical College.
Google Books
American Popular Song Composers:
Oral Histories, 1920s-1950s
By Michael Whorf
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
2012
Pg. 30:
He was a true Tin Pan Alleyite (although there is no such word) for he was typical of those who would constantly worm their way into a publisher’s office, or meet an associate at two in the morning at some dimly lit café to write a song.
Twitter
Luigi Speranza
@jlsperanza
The Tin Pan Alleyites - geniuses
1:32 PM · May 1, 2014·Twitter for iPhone
Google Books
New York Panorama:
Essays from the 1930s
By the Federal Writers’ Project
Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc.
2018 (Originally published in 1938)
Pg. 242:
Our Tin Pan Alleyites, sponsored for the most part by big business (the majority of popular songs today are published by companies under control of the large Hollywood film studios), tend to avoid the purely political, though a tinsel patriotism is often assumed.
Google Books
Madam:
The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age
By Debby Applegate
New York, NY: Doubleday
2021
Pg. ?:
The hall was packed with a motley audience of vaudevillians, Tin Pan Alleyites, highbrow composers and critics, stars of the symphony and opera, flappers, and wise guys.