Other Music NYC to close...

Not necessarily. For improvised music, Jazz Record Center has a great selection of CDs.

 

I find the selection at Academy to be pretty anemic myself. These days, the best bets for CDs in NYC are some of the bigger Barnes & Nobles stores. Or if it's a new mainstream release, perhaps Best Buy (where I recently picked up The Beatles live CD and Lady Gaga) . With all the great stores of the past, big and small, just a memory, I do a lot of shopping on-line now

 

Happy to loan you Amoeba in LA and Rasputin in Berkeley any time you'd like.

 

I'd love it ! I saw some pictures inside Amoeba recently, and it made me nostalgic for the days that we had such huge stores with all types of music here in New York

 

Perhaps more than ten years ago, they were good, but it just wasn't my experience.

 

I've copped a lot of good records at A1 over the years. In fact I'm often surprised to see the little orange stickers on so many of my favorites, almost all from the floor boxes..hate those price tags by the way. Last few years unplayed mono original of the Sound of Johnny & Ride this train, Analog Bubblebath 1

 

When they moved to their new location in 2013, that's when they went downhill. Prior to the move, they were pretty good.

 

At least Second Hand Roses is still around.

 

Well, I'd been there prior to 2013 and wasn't impressed. But at the time, I was working at Princeton Record Exchange, which is a store many NYC folks took the train to visit instead. I'm sure I had a bias.

 

Now I understand why you feel that way. Makes sense. I've only been to PREX once, many years ago, before getting back into vinyl. I need to make the trip.

 

How did you get from train station to PREX?
I know that area well and I know PREX is a couple miles west of the Princeton Junction train station.

I've thought about going there by train instead of driving 200 miles from DC. I could take Amtrak to Trenton and then transfer to Jersey Transit. I know it's expensive but wear and tear on a car also adds up after a while. I have made that drive many times, but not so much the last few years.

 

You can take the "Dinky" shuttle train into town from Princeton Junction.

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

Remember when you could walk into J&R or Tower or Virgin and just walk out with a copy of any CD (at least domestic releases) that you wanted ?? Sigh .....

 

Dinky schedule
http://www.gmtma.org/pdfs/bustrain/mercer/apr2016/freeB_commuter_web.pdf

 

Indeed, the glories of paying more than list price


Just go to Discorama

Discorama Overstock »

 

Any store closing his like losing a old friend.

 

I went to one in Manhattan in the mid nineties, seemed to specialize in soundtracks, lordy the prices.

 

FOotlights? EXpensive, but beautiful vinyl, nice location, East Village, internet only now

 

Yeah, could have been.
Eyes a popin prices.

 

J&R, three Tower locations (don't forget the Upper East Side), HMVs Upper East, West, and midtown, the Tower annex on Lafayette St...

 

There was even a small Tower records store in Trump Tower...and at one point there were HMV locations on W72nd St, E86th St, W42nd St, W34th St, Fifth Avenue, and 125th St...and I forgot Virgin records in Times Square and Union Square...and Tower not only had thee annex on one side of Lafayette Street, but on the other side had a video and book store

 

I used to go to Discorama as well....

And I NEVER paid list price at any of these stores...J&R consistantly had the lowest prices. Elsewise , I would buy the CD on the first few days of release (when most stores would have lower prices) or just wait for a sale... The only time I would pay full price was for an import (in those pre-Internet days)

 

Yes, Footlight was insane !

 

J&R was a great series of stores. When I went classical CD shopping for the first time in 1990 I was overwhelmed by the three floors of inventory. The J&R trip downtown would sometimes include clothes shopping at Century 21 and lunch in Chinatown (usually Wo Hop, 17 Mott St. downstairs).