I lived just north of Harlem for 14 years. We were between the George Washington Bridge / Bus Station and Columbia Hospital on Broadway directly above a Cuban restaurant. Needless to say, it was quite noisy and small, but you make it work. To adapt, I invested in the best plugins I could find to make my in-the-box recordings sound like the real thing: console emulators, IR reverbs, vintage gear modeled with digital control and repeatability. I also learned quickly make best use of noise reduction softwares like RX and Audition to kill extraneous sounds like buses, sirens, and air conditioner hum, among other sonic chaos. These skills have come in handy when anything needs restoration or a quick repair if tracking doesn’t go as planned.