The deal is done.

The west Bronx apartment complex dubbed the Birthplace of Hip Hop was sold last week to real estate developer Mark Karasick for a reported $7 million.

The apartment complex rose to fame in August 1973 after DJ Kool Herc, aka Clive Campbell, and his sister threw a house party that gave rise to the now popular music genre and culture.

A bitter fight between the owner and tenants ensued to preserve 1520 Sedgwick Ave. as affordable housing fizzled out after a recent state Supreme Court decision cleared the way for the sale of the 100-unit apartment building.

Alarmed tenants and housing advocates now fear that either their rents will skyrocket to cover the sale price or that the building conditions will deteriorate.

“Either [Karasick's] going to have to get rid of the tenants to raise rent so he can get his investment back or he’ll get into trouble financially and not be able to operate the building,” predicted Dina Levy of UHAB, a nonprofit group working with the tenants.

But Karasick’s attorney, Steven Holm, called those concerns unfounded. Any future rent increases must comply with rent stabilization rules, so there’s little room for rapid hikes, he said.

“I’m sorry they’re upset about the outcome,” Holm said. “I think [the tenants] might be pleasantly surprised by how the building will be operated. And I would certainly give the landlord an opportunity to prove himself before jumping to any unfounded conclusions.”

Former owners, 1520 Sedgwick Associates, had long sought to buy out of the Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program in a bid to end the city’s regulatory power over the building.

Tenants’ efforts to buy the building for $10 million had been rejected.

In February, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development rejected the proposed $9 million sale to Karasick, saying the price exceeded the value of the building, estimated at $7.5 million.

Local politicians also had jumped into the fray, holding several rallies to urge banks and mortgage lenders to keep out of any proposed deals involving the building.

Residents vowed to stay on task. “We did not achieve our ultimate goal of buying the building, but we are not defeated,” said Gloria Robinson, president of the 1520 Sedgwick Tenants Association. “We intend to keep fighting to preserve our homes and to preserve the historical significance of our building.”

A Fordham University professor has been tapped as an expert for the popular PBS show, History Detectives.

Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of African and African-American studies, provided commentary for an upcoming episode in which the show’s hosts attempted to find out if 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx was the birthplace of Hip-Hop.

“I had a great time with the crew for this show and am proud we had a chance to showcase the work we do before a national audience,” said Naison, the principal investigator for the University’s Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP).

Naison was interviewed on the Rose Hill campus for an episode set to air in August. Tukufu Zuberi, Ph.D., one of the show’s “detectives” and chair of the sociology department at the University of Pennsylvania, led the interview.

“Professor Tukufu … asked some great questions which gave me a chance to showcase some of the information we have learned in BAAHP oral history interviews,” Naison said. “He asked what the Bronx was like before the 1970s … and what exactly took place in that community center at 1520 Sedgwick that sparked a musical revolution.”

Naison said the segment will feature background and commentary on the conditions that led to the growth of hip hop in the Bronx, including de-industrialization, urban renewal, middle-class flight, drug epidemics, the Vietnam War and arson by apartment owners.

Naison provided the show’s producers with BAAHP photos of the South Bronx before the fires, when it was burning and when President Jimmy Carter toured the area in 1977.

“I definitely had my say over and over again,” Naison said of the two-hour shoot. “Hopefully, some of the more sensible things I said will make it on camera.”

As for whether 1520 Sedgwick Ave. can be referred to as the birthplace of Hip Hop, Naison says yes.

“This is confirmed by virutally every account of the origins of Bronx hip hop, including the latest memoir by (veteran Hip Hop deejay) Grandmaster Flash titled, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash, (Broadway, 2008),” Naison said. “Flash said parties (held at that location) captured his imagination of Bronx youth, and inspired him and other deejays to begin holding parties of their own exciting dancers with pounding beats made from instrumental fragments of records.”

According to the show’s website, History Detectives is devoted to “exploring the complexities of historical mysteries, searching out the facts, myths and conundrums that connect local folklore, family legends and interesting objects.”