Once I was in faculty within the mid to late Nineties, after I can be house for varsity breaks at my mother and father’ home within the suburbs of Philadelphia, I labored right here and there at a small, unbiased music store often known as Rock Palace. It wasn’t a giant retailer, primarily coping with new and used CDs in these days. When you’ve ever seen the film “Excessive Constancy,” you perceive the vibe of the place, although we weren’t almost as humorous, and had longer hair.
At the back of the store, there was a small report part that we’d generally add some band’s restricted launch albums to, although they have been uncommon on the time. And a couple of times a month, somebody would are available in with a field or two of data they have been making an attempt to unload that they’d discovered at their mother and father’ home after they have been shifting. However vinyl was not that large of a vendor. And within the early 2000s, Rock Palace went below as streaming and digital downloads took over.
However how occasions have modified. Vinyl is again, and in a giant manner.
Of their new ebook “Vinyl NYC: 33 1/3 of the Greatest Report Shops Throughout All 5 Boroughs,” husband and spouse architectural and inside photographers James and Karla Murray discover New York Metropolis’s iconic report retailers from throughout all 5 boroughs. The ebook weaves collectively the Murrays’ signature electrical exteriors, intimate interiors, environmental portraits, and a wealth of visible particulars together with texts on proprietors and their retailers penned by music journalist and critic Hattie Lindert.
“It felt very well timed as a result of despite the fact that shops have closed, there’s been a current resurgence of vinyl report retailers,” Karla tells me over the cellphone. “This felt like the proper time to convey folks’s consciousness that they exist, and so they’re actually vital to the group. I imply, not simply the vinyl group, however the group of New York Metropolis, the music group on the whole.”
Music has all the time been an escape for the Murrays, and so they have a protracted historical past of amassing vinyl themselves, spending many hours digging via report retailers all around the metropolis for that good discover. They wished to convey consideration to each the outdated and new areas in New York.
“We are able to affiliate completely different songs, completely different albums, the artists, with simply various things which have occurred in our life over time or the place we have been at a specific second after we first heard a tune, whether or not it was on the radio or after we have been in a retailer and one thing was taking part in,” Karla recollects. “As a result of that’s one more reason we all the time say ‘Oh, go right into a report retailer.’ As a result of we all the time inform folks, for those who’re sporting headphones, take them off whenever you go in. Hearken to what they’re taking part in on the decks since you would possibly uncover one thing that you’ll find yourself loving that you just by no means heard earlier than.”
The ebook contains locations like Casa Amadeo, the oldest repeatedly occupied Latin music retailer, which first opened within the Longwood part of the Bronx in 1941. There’s Technology Data in Greenwich Village, which has been preserving punk historical past since 1992. After which there’s VP Data, which opened in Jamaica, Queens in 1979 and is house to a report label that’s the most distinguished unbiased reggae imprint on this planet. New areas, like Blue-Solar in Williamsburg, Insurgent Rouser in Bushwick, and Manhattan45 within the East Village are newer areas.
And they’re extra than simply report retailers.
Pictures © James T. & Karla L. Murray, 2025
“They’re tremendous vital. So many locations will not be simply report retailers. They’re actually like advert hoc group facilities, Karla explains. “Lots of the house owners go above and past the decision of obligation as a report retailer proprietor. In that they collect collections for people who find themselves in want. They suppose whether or not they want clothes or they want meals, they’ll do this. They’ll open up the house for performers, for native musicians, or simply for folks within the neighborhood to hang around and sing alongside to the music. We’ve met a number of folks, simply by hanging out on the shops.”
Black Star Vinyl in Mattress-Stuy, Brooklyn is one instance. Initially began as Halsey & Lewis in 2017, the store was compelled to quickly relocate in 2021 when house owners Martin Brewer and Sonya Farrell came upon that their landlord had plans for the constructing. With donations totaling $35,000 gathered with the assistance of metropolis councilmen Chi Ossé, Brewer and Farrell have been in a position to transfer the store, and rename it Black Star Vinyl, a tribute to Marcus Garvey’s delivery firm Black Star Line.
The store additionally makes use of mutual support as one in every of its bedrock rules. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Brewer and Farrell, whereas the shop was nonetheless known as Halsey & Lewis, organized #ShareTheHealth, bringing collectively associates and retailer regulars to gather and donate masks, sanitary objects, and different primary requirements to native homeless shelters.
However whereas many of those retailers are vital to each the group that frequents them and the neighborhood the place they reside, additionally they want folks to come back and store. That’s how they keep in enterprise, are in a position to give again, and develop the group that surrounds them.
“Benefit from the dig. We actually hope that our ebook helps others uncover these locations and go to them, as a result of if we wish them to remain in enterprise for a lot of extra years to come back, they want clients, and never simply folks buying on-line,” Karla and James inform me. “That’s superb if that’s all you are able to do, however get out from behind the pc. Each report retailer proprietor, I’ll say, actually 100%, appreciates and actually likes it higher when someone can are available in.”
Vinyl NYC: 33 1/3 of the Greatest Report Shops Throughout All 5 Boroughs is printed by Prestel and might be bought at penguinrandomhouseretail.com. Extra of Murray’s work might be seen on their web site at jamesandkarlamurray.com, which additionally has hyperlinks to their social media accounts.
