After "60 years serving Broadway, New York, and the World," the venerable Colony Music in Times Square is closing down. That's the word from JVNY reader Charles Hutchinson, who works at Academy Records. A call to Colony confirmed the bad news. They'll be around for a little while longer, but not too long.
Charles writes in: "Colony Records is closing next month. I'm heartsick when any unique business that promotes music, books, and culture in general gets forced out of this city. As someone who has spent some of his most joyful hours browsing in such shops, I dread the day when rents and the Internet flush them all out. No website that I can conceive of could possibly fill the role played by the late lamented Gotham Book Mart or (should it be forced to close) Downtown Music Gallery in this city's cultural life. Record Stores, despite all the vinyl-is-back hubbub, are proving to be as vulnerable as the next mom-&-pop in the Bloombergian Era."
I used to buy sheet music at Colony, and I could always go there to find a Broadway kind of soundtrack (Judy at Carnegie Hall was my last purchase), but what I love best about it are its dusty vitrines filled with faded memorabilia.
Girlie magazines, bottles of Elvis perfume, ticket stubs from forgotten Sinatra concerts, all of it is crammed behind glass, to be looked at but never touched.
While die-hard vinylists might see Colony as a tourist trap, overpriced and understocked, I always found it to be a respite from the Times Square stupidity, from the crowds of tourists hungry for the next Disney fix.
I could step inside and step back in time, to a quieter, more unusual place--where I might run into something odd, like a Sal Mineo Fan Club button.
One time, heading to Colony, I looked up at the Brill Building in which it stands to see Woody Allen at a window, looking down at me. It was a bit of a thrill, I must admit.
And I always loved the neon Colony girl. With her perky mid-century breasts and flippy skirt, she holds a record aloft (red and ringed, it looks like the burner on an electric stove--it is hot). With jubilation she proclaims, "I found it!"
Sometime in the mid 2000's Colony took down their wonderful old neon sign. As Lost City explained in 2007, "Colony took it down at the behest of an old landlord, who said it was violating some building code or other, one that had long been ignored. Colony did so. Then the building was sold and the new landlord didn't give a hoot if the sign was up or down. So Colony went to a lot of bother for nothing. Now Record Girl sits neglected in the basement."
A new version of the girl came back, but now she'll be vanishing for good.
old sign
I don't know why Colony is closing, but I can imagine. Times Square is not for antiques anymore. Everything that's not a global brand must go. Even a place loaded with our cultural history. As Colony's owner once told the Times, "James Brown took one look around and said, 'This smells like a music store.'" It still does.
Sixty years (and more) is a long time, but in the new New York, age matters nothing. Everything solid must be plowed under and replaced with something hollow. Imagine what will come next to this prime corner space. I can see the signs already: "Flagship Opportunity!"
really old sign
40 comments:
Yet another reason to leave New York. This town is such a disappointment.
When I was but a lad, I discovered a musical called "The Apple Tree." It was from 1966 and long forgotten/out of print, some 20 years later. I flipped through my Grandmother's phone book while visiting her in the Bronx and I came across an ad for The Colony. I called, my hopes high. Not only did they have a record of the original cast, but they gladly held it until I could get into the city. Over the years I braved Times Square to visit them nearly bi-monthly. I taught musical theater and acting using the scores and selections I would find there. I would marvel at the oddities that looked great there, but would be out of place anywhere else. A very sad day indeed.
Ugh. I hate to see so much history vanish.
I can see the neon Colony girl get a new gig — holding a cupcake or sprinkled fro-yo treat.
This is very sad. I live in Scotland and I find it really difficult to think that Colony Music won't be there when I am next in NYC.
One of my favourite possessions came from Colony:
https://skitch.com/throwoutyourarms/eqjjk/photo-on-23-08-2012-at-13.30-2
:(
Very sad to read. We visited on Monday.
I always loved browsing at Colony before a show, but browsing isn't the same as buying. Almost every time I saw any item that interested me, I sadly realized that their price was far, far more than I'd pay...even if I had to pay postage from overseas. I wouldn't mind paying a little more to buy it in person and support a unique business, but not at such an extreme mark-up. That said, I will really miss this place. I loved the familiarity of it just always being there.
The studio where I studied tap in the early '70s was a few blocks uptown from Colony. I'd often stop into Colony on the way home, my tap shoes hung conspicuously from the shoulder strap of my backpack. I so wanted someone to notice the shoes and say, "Pardon me......are you in show business?"
That never happened! But I've spent many happy afternoons at Colony. Its closing (while hardly surprising, given what the city has become) is a real heartbreaker.
Please dear god just not another Red Lobster or other stupid chain restaurant...
This is very sad. Colony Music has been an institution, but I really enjoyed your thorough history of the store. Thank you for this article!
I never really understood this store...so am not super disappointed.
The sign and location are classic NYC, though...go and watch Midnight Cowboy and you'll see Joe Buck waltz by Colony.
But as a store in 2012...I didn't understand its place. I think a store showing Broadway and sheet music can probably survive on a smaller scale somewhere...but otherwise, it really WAS understocked, overpriced, and mostly for tourists.
Don't get me wrong. It will probably stay vacant for a year with some Marc Jacobs ads slapped on the facade while the landlord collects tax break money, waiting for the next chain to come along.
Frankly, I'm amazed Colony was still open...in fact, I walked by last week and did smile to myself that it's still there...and I thought about going in...but didn't.
So sad to see this wonderful NYC institution go. I would always go to Colony to wander through all the sheet music and records. I hope all the memorabilia finds a new home.
I was there yesterday and overhead employees talking about the closing. I hate watching my city disappear and become more sterile and bland w/ every passing day.
This makes me sad. I love shopping for sheet music there! Of course, I always passed on the $25 CDs.
Wow, I completely disagree with a lot of these comments. While I will miss seeing this place, I sure as hell will not miss shopping here, because everything is at 200% mark up and the place caters to and is swarming with tourists. How people can bitch about fat midwestern tourists all day and then turn around and boo hoo over one of their long time traps disappearing is beyond me. Er, no, wait, it isn't - you lamented Bleecker Bob's too (also overpriced with an A-hole owner).
Terrible news, I loved that store, tons of records, books, posters and tchitchkes in there, I need to go again before it closes for good.
Oh those glorious vinyl 70's:
King Karol
Sam Goody
Korvette's Dept. Store
Colony
I used to get dirty fingers from browsing through their racks.
Good Riddance!!! This town has too many people that dont love it!
The real disappointment to me isn't that it's closing- stores close all the time. The real disappointment is that whatever pops up in its place won't even be remotely interesting.
The problem is the place was super overpriced. Business needs to make sales and to spend $43 for a Sarah Brightman album available (at the time) at Virgin for $12? A joke. I have the album & price tag to prove it ... oh, plus tax! Considering when I used to work in one day I made $40 so that's a days plus salary for me. That's why they close. It was a hangout with no sales.
I wonder what will happen to all the memorabilia when they go. I hate that we won't have a place to get sheet music but the historian in me worries as much or more about how the irreplaceable artifacts will be distributed.
What I will miss about Colony is the ability to browse. Yes, you can get it for less on the internet, but nothing beats the experience of discovering something new that you never set out to find but discovered, nonetheless. There were so many times that I popped into colony, sometimes late in the evening, and discovered something rare and wonderful. I won't miss their prices, but I will miss the store.
First Sam Ash moving to 34th Street and now this?!?!?!?!?! This is wrong. Yes, the prices are 10% higher than everywhere else, but it was the one store in NYC where you could buy big band arrangements, piano/conductor scores, opera scores, and everything else they had. It's horrible, and honestly hard to believe, that they're closing.
Okay people. Let's stop our moaning and simply create our own spaces. It was overpriced and once you start trying to make a buck off of nostalgic artifacts, you are neither vibrant nor terribly relevant. The spirit of the thing is about creating cool spaces for people to exchange cool shit. And get thee to Brooklyn, the Bronx or Queens.
They had a wonderful collection of celebrity-themed metallic lunch boxes. Always wondered what they sold for. Nothing like browsing in a record store.
I wish I could say that I'm sorry to see them go. I gave them a lot of rarely valuable vinyl before the advent of CD on consignment. They did make a few payments to me but after a year they just stopped and they allegedly lost any record of my consignment. Not very credible or honest, I fear.
This used to be where actors and actresses could buy the demo to a workshop production of a show to study for auditions. This is where Mandy Patinkin brought the demo for his Evita audition where soon after the show would make him a legendary star along with Patti Lupone! End of an era. I would but my audition sheet music here as well....sighhhh
To judge from many of the comments, maybe the issue isn't the loss of The Colony per se but what will probably replace it. Some chain store, very probably.
Which isn't to deride all chain stores, but there's gotta be some limit. Malls have been doing badly for some time now (even before le catastrophe), and that makes it even harder to figure why tourists would flock to what amount to mall stores. Maybe the combination of the familiar, chain stores, in the unfamiliar, NYC streets -- unfamiliar except from movies? How long will that tourist allure last?
So what is going to happen to that massive record collection that is in the basement at Colony?
And I do mean massive. Got to be tens of thousands of records down there easily.
Unless I missed it I don't see anyone commenting on it.
Do people not know it's there?
This is very sad news for NYC. I have good memories of going to Colony to find music for my student projects.
distroying all culture & history is what they did in china &other asian countries, right? they called it the communist revolution. now its more honest, & legal. right? & its world wide. i had always thought new york was partly exempt from this, i was wrong. as another commenter said, its not the closing of the store- but what will take its place that is the corporate revolution.
Not sad at all. They sell merchandise at an inflated price - usually $5 or more above suggested retail. There was no student discount. No local discount. No professional discount. They were rude. Terrible website. They didn't change with the times. Good riddance.
Why didn't they revamp the inside and leave the outside signs, etc. Lower the prices on the vinyl, carry current vinyl, leave all the cool stuff in the cases and on the walls, do something to make money and keep it open. They can't be making much money if any.
The Post says the landlord is raising the rent to 5 million a MONTH. WTF? What kind of business can afford that? In my opinion, NONE.
5 MILLION A MONTH? that cannot be real.
looking at the Post article, they don't say "month," so i think that must be the annual rent. still, $5 million annually is what per month?
$417,666 a month.
thank you. i thought my calculator was broken when i kept coming up with that insane fucking number.
This is where the "theater crowd" from my high school hung around for hours at time back in 70s. It was an oasis of sorts from the chaos outside. Broadway gossip central and you would always see famous people. But their prices HAVE been absurd for decades. This closing makes me sad for the reasons stated above but they really gave the average person no reason to shop there. The last time I recall buying anything was when they shrunk the LP department to make room for more CDs back in the 90s and had a huge sale. Otherwise, I would usually just go in there to laugh at the absurd prices in the comedy record section.
Back in the 80s, though, this was the only place where I could get hard-to-find albums by such jazz artists as Art Pepper, Shorty Rogers or Chet Baker, which were not available at nearby Sam Goody's. Once these things could be found online for much cheaper prices (even with p&h factored in), it rendered that aspect of the store obsolete.
What 200% markup? Colony typically sold music books at a $2 markup over the MSRP (and nearly all music stores sell sheet music at the MSRP and do not discount significantly). I didn't like it, but I chalked it up to the cost of doing business in Times Square. It was made up for by the sense of history in the shop as well as the knowledgeableness of its employees, who were always happy to stop and reminisce with you or otherwise offer valuable advice. One of my great pleasures was stopping by the Colony (open til 1 a.m., IIRC) after seeing a show and buying the scorebook of whatever show we'd just seen, which was invariably in stock. With the closing of Patelson's and now the Colony, what music stores are left in Manhattan? This is sad news indeed.
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