It was a pretty sweet gig while it lasted.

IMAGINE what they had: cheap space in Manhattan, where they could pound on a drum set or crank a guitar amplifier any day, at any hour. Rooms were $500 to $1,000 a month, sometimes split as many as six ways. The city has other rehearsal studios, but most charge by the hour, and musicians often cannot leave their gear in them.

One of the biggest spaces, the Music Building on Eighth Avenue off 39th Street, is hard to move equipment in and out of because of the parking problem in Midtown. Rivington musicians speak disparagingly of it as a noisy supermarket with many amateurs.

And 106 Rivington was so much more than a cheap studio, especially for drummers needing sonic latitude.

“We had a place to go,” said Tony Mason, 44, another drummer. “A lot of people called Rivington the most consistent thing they had in their life for 20 years,” Mr. Mason said. “It was a place you could count on and go to — yes, practice — but you could walk out and there’d be someone there. Some deep friendships have really come out of that place. It’s been more than just a rehearsal studio. It’s just been a big hang.”

It was also part clubhouse, part job bank, part support group.

Musicians would recommend one another for jobs or find substitutes for engagements when they were on tour. They discovered inspiration walking down the hallway, hearing skilled musicians practicing. “When I’m at Rivington Street, I’m like, ‘Damn, I have to suck it up and start wood-shedding more,’ ” said the drummer George Coleman Jr.

He, like several other musicians using the studio, grew up in Manhattan and went to the old High School of Music and Art (now LaGuardia). His father, a saxophonist, played with Miles Davis. Mr. Coleman played with Dakota Staton and Don Braden, and even had a trio called the Rivington Project. Father and son still perform together.