Ellie Greenwich Songwriter Dies

Ellie Greenwich, a songwriter who collaborated with Phil Spector, Jeff Barry and others to create a greatest-hits list of 1960s teenage pop songs like “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me,” “Hanky Panky” and “Leader of the Pack,” died on Wednesday in Manhattan. She was 68.

The cause was a heart attack following a case of pneumonia, her niece, Jessica Weiner, said.

Ms. Greenwich was among the songwriters, music publishers and producers working at the Brill Building, at 1619 Broadway in Manhattan, which (along with 1650 Broadway, across the street) became a center of pop music in the early 1960s.

The buildings were home to the songwriting teams of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and Carole King and Gerry Goffin, among many others, and from their offices and studios came a flood of teenage anthems, story songs and achy love songs fraught with the hormonal angst of the young.

For a time Ms. Greenwich and Mr. Barry, who was then her husband, were the most successful of the teams, especially when they wrote for the girl groups the Crystals, the Dixie Cups, the Shangri-Las and others.

In 1964 alone, 17 singles by Ms. Greenwich and Mr. Barry landed on the pop charts, according to “Always Magic in the Air,” a 2005 book by Ken Emerson about the Brill Building days. They included “Chapel of Love,” a No. 1 for the Dixie Cups, and “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” which became a No. 1 for Manfred Mann.