‘Hung Up’ singer moved to New York City aged 19 to pursue her music career, and spent time squatting between abandoned buildings until she struck a record deal
Madonna has shared a glimpse into her hustler lifestyle from when she first moved to New York City to establish a music career at 19.
The seven-time Grammy-winning singer, 67, discussed her tenuous living situation in her early 20s in conversation with Bilt founder Ankur Jain, revealing that she once resided at an abandoned synagogue in Queens and squatted in a building in Manhattan’s Garment District, which she had to leave after she accidentally set fire to her bedroom.
Speaking about her forthcoming dance album, Confessions II — a sequel to the Grammy-winning Confessions on a Dance Floor album from 2005 — Madonna said it will feature a song titled “Lower East Side Girl,” which chronicles her coming-of-age experiences in New York.
“I was grinding, hustling everybody, nothing was beneath me,” she said. “Well, some things were beneath me.”
The singer shared that while she was living illegally in a building in the garment district, she accidentally started an electrical fire in her bedroom.
“I was sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag and I surrounded myself with some space heaters, and I started an electrical fire. But I was sleeping, so I woke up surrounded by flames,” she said.
Without anywhere else to live, Madonna moved to the now-iconic music rehearsal space called the Music Building at 584 Eighth Avenue, which became her home for the next year.
“I was living in an abandoned synagogue in Queens; my boyfriend at the time was in a band [and] we broke up because he wouldn’t let me be the singer in the band. So I was like, ‘I’m out,’” she revealed.
At the Music Building, she met with other budding musicians and started networking.
“There was probably two to three bands per room, and you time-shared the rooms,” she told Bilt. “I put my pillow where the bass drum is. That’s where I slept.”
The singer left the temporary accommodation after she got her first record deal. She was discovered in 1982 by prominent New York DJ Mark Kamins at the nightclub Danceteria.
As part of the new collaboration, Bilt — a company that lets renters and homeowners earn points on monthly payments — is covering one month of studio rent for every musician currently leasing space at The Music Building, the same legendary rehearsal facility where Madonna forged her music career.
“Artists arrive every day to New York, with a dream and more often than not with little else,” Madonna said about the collaboration. “As much as I struggled when I showed up here with nothing, I look back very fondly on this time in my life.
“The creativity, diversity and community of artists all supporting each other while having the freedom to experiment is something I would have never experienced in another place,” she said.
Madonna previously opened up about the hardships she faced after moving from Michigan to New York, revealing in a 2013 essay that she was held up at gunpoint and robbed during her first year living in Manhattan.
“New York wasn’t everything I thought it would be,” she wrote in a piece for Harper’s Bazaar. “It did not welcome me with open arms.”
“This wasn’t anything I prepared for in Rochester, Michigan,” she added. “The tall buildings and the massive scale of New York took my breath away. The sizzling-hot sidewalks and the noise of the traffic and the electricity of the people rushing by me on the streets was a shock to my neurotransmitters. I felt like I had plugged into another universe.”
Madonna’s early days serve as the inspiration for her new album, which is due to be released on July 3, with a limited-edition vinyl being made available exclusively to Bilt members.
The singer has since made New York her permanent home. Her primary residence is a mansion in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which she purchased for $40 million in 2009. It is known as one of the widest houses on the Upper East Side, stretching 57 feet.
