Authorities in Bergen County New Jersey said
that a short circuit in a keyboard sparked the fire that burned the legendary
Sugar Hill Studios to the ground.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Milinelli said
that flames shot out of the keyboard and that it didn’t take long before the
fire spread throughout the entire building. According to investigators, the
last person left the recording studio around 11:30 P.M. and left the keyboard
on. The blaze that followed took firefighters nearly five hours to control.
The damage was so heavy that the Englewood Building
Department has ordered that the remaining portion of the building demolished.
90 percent of the studio’s master tapes were destroyed in the blaze, including
originals from Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, The Moments and The Sugar
Hill Gang.
The family said they will rebuild the studio
on the same site.