The album was recorded over a period of three months. Sting has said of the tight deadline: "Artificially reintroducing that pressure gave the album a kind of urgency it wouldn't have had otherwise."[5] The album title is a reference to the New York intersection Sting crossed every day to get to Avatar Studios in Hell's Kitchen where much of the album was recorded.[3][4] From late 2015 and throughout the first half of 2016, images of Sting working in the studio were periodically published across his various social media outlets. The resultant album was eventually announced on 18 July 2016. In a teaser video published subsequently, Sting described the album as having a spontaneous feel, featuring "a lot of rock 'n' roll" with themes of searching, travelling, the road and the pull of the unknown.