Rough Trade New York moving to ?

Discussion in 'Music, Movie and Hardware Store Guide' started by Mazzy, Jan 19, 2021.

  1. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    They bit off more than they could chew with expanding the store to cover virtually all of Park Row. Plus they never quite recovered from 9/11.
    Still quite an achievement to go from that tiny, narrow store they started with to what they became.
     
    mooseman likes this.
  2. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    One thing I enjoyed about his work is that he often write about the sound quality of the CDs in adition to the music.

    I have a vague memory of him coming on here, at least for a little while
     
  3. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    And now Joe and Rochelle (J&R) are multi-millionaire real estate developers LOL !
    Their gain is the loss the NYC's music and movie lovers....Hey, I'm not gonna hate (Well, maybe a little...)
     
    ralphb likes this.
  4. RageRomano

    RageRomano Idiot

    Location:
    NJ
    I never liked buying CDs at Rough Trade because of the prices. I don't know if this is common all over, cause Rough Trade was the only shop I frequented that sold new CDs, but seeing a CD for like $17.99 back in 2015/2016 felt absurd. Was much happier going to Academy Records and buying the same CD used for $3.99.
     
    JuanTCB and mooseman like this.
  5. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    [​IMG]
    Here's a photo of the original store, the entrance is right under that Zenith sign and the record store entrance is just to the right. The records were in the basement, and the stereo equipment was stacked floor to ceiling on the street level.
     
    McLover, DJ WILBUR and footlooseman like this.
  6. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I see my dad getting his daily lunch.

    He is in the front left, leaning into the garbage can... ;)
     
  7. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    Back in the "good ol' days" (1990s-early 2000s), I usually never spent more than $10-$12 for a new CD in NYC. Unless it was an import, which were pretty hard to find in those pre-Internet times , and then I would splurge.. Because of the competition between the big stores, and the Wiz and Best Buy and Circuit City and even Sam Goody , you could always find a decent price on almost any CD with a little hunting. If it was something you knew you wanted that was coming out, like a new Bruce or Prince or GnR, grabbing it the first few days of release, you could often end up paying less than a tenner...
     
    AlmanacZinger, ralphb and RageRomano like this.
  8. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Do you know what year this is?
     
  9. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    God, I love this...I relish photos of the "old New York"...I remember when there was a Blimpie's in every neighborhood

    Slowly, they took over the entire block . I think the hardware store was the only one they couldn't get

    Do you remeber another CD store on the block in the 90s early 200s, probably about where Blimpie's is in this picture ? They had a lot of stuff m but really specialized in R&B and Hip-Hop and gospel ?
     
    AlmanacZinger and JuanTCB like this.
  10. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    My guess is mid to late 70s. When I started going to J&R in 1981, they had already more than one store on the block
     
  11. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    The first J&R store opened in 1971.
     
  12. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    New Yorkers- I have a question: does anyone remember a local mini-chain of CD and VHS stores, they had about 5 or 6 locations in the City in the 80s to about 2000. I recall that they had a store on 34th Street, directly across from Macy's, and a store on Fifth Avenue and 37th Street, and one on lower Broadway, near Fulton, and and one on Fulton. I used to get a lot of cheap catalog titles there, about $8-$10. I can't remember the name of this place for the life of me...maybe Record Something
     
  13. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    "Record World".
     
  14. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    Actually I think it was Record Explosion...it just hit me

    There was a seperate chain called Record World, they had a pretty big store on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, and I think a couple other stores
     
    BNell, ralphb and Arnold Grove like this.
  15. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    I'm thinking early-mid 70's. I started working on Pine Street in 1974 and I recognize every store in the photo.. The pool hall you see above Tinker's Paradise was where folks went to buy pot to smoke on their lunch hour.:)
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
    Bingo Bongo and mooseman like this.
  16. ralphb

    ralphb "First they came for..."

    Location:
    Brooklyn, New York
    It was actually the block before, nice little shop that even carried promos. Bondy's was the name.
    Yeah, the hardware store was the only hold out, still there when I retired in 2016.
     
    listner_matt and mooseman like this.
  17. jjhunsecker

    jjhunsecker Senior Member

    Location:
    New York city
    That's right....they were in the next block. I used to hit J&R and that place at least once or twice a week
     
    ralphb likes this.
  18. mooseman

    mooseman Forum Resident

    Bondy’s was down the street, I worked across the street at 225 Broadway for many years. I was a long time customer of J&R. I still have my 40” plasma TV from 2008. Still functions beautifully and hundreds of cds and records I bought at that location. My favorite was when they were located on the three floor building, the basement level had all the dvds. They also had they’re own rentals.
     
    ralphb and jjhunsecker like this.
  19. Lemon Curry

    Lemon Curry (A) Face In The Crowd

    Location:
    Mahwah, NJ
    Maybe I'll go there. I just don't like the neighborhood very much. In general I don't go to midtown.
     
    brownie61 likes this.
  20. Tommyboy

    Tommyboy Senior Member

    Location:
    New York
    The Brooklyn Rough Trade store is/was a far cry from those stores
     
    jjhunsecker, Cronverc and Mazzy like this.
  21. funhouse

    funhouse Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Record World was out in the burbs too, malls and shopping centers… when CDs took over they renamed it Square Circle.
     
  22. Tommyboy

    Tommyboy Senior Member

    Location:
    New York
  23. Mazzy

    Mazzy Sir Mazzy Thread Starter

    Of course but it a good store for new records. Few and far between in New York these days.
     
    Tommyboy and Cronverc like this.
  24. Tommyboy

    Tommyboy Senior Member

    Location:
    New York
    Yes, agreed. I never said it was bad, just not in the same league as the others that you had mentioned.

    We have next to nothing in NYC. The Academy Records stores are decent but they also carry a lot of “filler”. New Jersey has better record stores than NYC.
     
    elgoodo, jjhunsecker and Mazzy like this.
  25. motionoftheocean

    motionoftheocean Senior Member

    Location:
    Circus Maximus
    I hadn’t been to Rough Trade is quite a while but while it had improved over the years, it wasn’t anything special. Frankly, I’m happy at the notion of another record store in midtown (how long have Tower and HMV been gone from the neighborhood?) but it’s hard to imagine something like this thriving anymore. It’s also a real sign of the times that it’s more cost-effective to eschew Williamsburg in favor of Rockefeller Center.
     
    AlmanacZinger and JuanTCB like this.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine