The Brill Building is the New York meeting place May Wynn proposes when a recording commitment disrupts her plans with Willie Keith. Its brief appearance gives the scene a precise urban destination and marks the difference between May’s working world and Willie’s unfamiliarity with the music business.

Location and Identification

May identifies the Brill Building as a large gray building across the street from the Rivoli. When Willie asks what and where it is, she explains that the Sono-phono Studios are there and gives him those studios as the practical landmark to remember. Her directions make the building legible through its appearance, its position opposite the Rivoli, and the recording venue within it.

Role in the Meeting

May’s plan to see Willie is interrupted by an audition record she has to make that day. She works out that she can meet him at three-thirty, after asking when she can get away from the recording. The building therefore becomes the specific rendezvous point around a working appointment rather than an unplanned meeting.

Social and Narrative Significance

May’s reminder that Willie is not a song plugger lightly exposes the difference in their familiarity with the commercial music world: she knows the Brill Building and the studios as part of her professional routine, while he needs them explained. The exchange also shows her trying to preserve their meeting amid competing demands, turning a gray city building into the negotiated point where their separate schedules can converge.