Empire Rehearsal Studios

The low star rating is influenced by the fact that I got another parking ticket there last night.
I rent a room from Empire, along with some friends. We signed a 2-​year lease and we’re halfway through it. We combined two rooms together. If you’re thinking of renting long-​term, as we are, be aware of two things:
1) in the summer, the rooms’ air conditioners vent directly into the hallway, with no exhaust. This makes the hallway roughly 130 degrees (no joke). As such, you must leave your a/​c unit on ²⁴⁄₇ during the summer to keep the room an acceptable temperature.
2) there is, unexplainably, almost no legal parking on the blocks around the studio. Every once in a while the precinct gets a bug up their ass and blankets the area with tickets. The owner does not talk to the precinct about this.

it was a last ditch effort to find a place to jam, since our two Go-To’s were booked (What IS GOING ON, PUMP!!!)…
it got one star because the website allowed you to book/​check avaiability online.
I am not a big fan of putting my credit card down in advance on a studio, but for lack of other options, i did it anyway. The rates were cheap…15/hour…i got nervous right away… red flag…
Fuck it, no other place to jam, so it is what it is…
I was the first one there… right near the Manhattan Bridge, easy to get to. Parking stinks, if youre driving.
knocked on the door… saw an angry old man sitting at a chair throough the door window, pissed off that he had to get off his ass to answer the door. Mentioned about 4 times who i was, and why i was there…
takes me through a maze of storage units (yup, this place doubles– or leads– as a storage unit), with twists and turns… and I am thinking, Bread crumbs, anyone?
Opens the door to our room, and seriously, my bath room is larger. The first thing i see is this beaten up kit caddy cornered with a Paiste Alpha cymbal that was chewed up and a no-​name ride cymbal… one rack tom, one floor tom, one snare with skins older than me. There was another rack tom on the floor with the hardware missing– rendering it useless… floor was a mess.
There were two Line 6 amps that were crap. Signal kept going out and changing tones automatically. Two microphones only. When i asked for a third, it was met with a loud, NO!
I had to sign two pages of information to start playing… checking off the gear that was in there, and filling out information like my address (why?), my drivers license number… etc…
really? seriously? Go fuck yourself…
the PA system? oh yes, forgot to metion that lil ditty… i thought it was missing from the room…
why, you ask?
because it was the size of my shoe, sitting on the floor in the corner of the room…
yup…
one star.