Just three years after moving off their namesake, Bleecker Street Records is closing for good. You may remember that, after leaving their long-held perch on Bleecker (originally held by Golden Disc Records), Bleecker Street Records decamped to West 4th (ironically into the spot formerly held by Disc-O-Rama Records). Well, that's all over shortly. Here's their announcement...
As of Halloween 2016, we will be making some significant changes at Generation Records.
After much deliberation, we have decided to close our sister store, Bleecker Street Records. A number of factors have contributed to this decision, most notably the proximity of our two stores and the realistic necessity of having more them both in a neighborhood that has seen a drastic rent hike in recent years. We realize that the loss of yet another record store in Manhattan seems discouraging, but our hope is to secure the future of Generation Records as a Village staple.
We will be consolidating all of the stock from Bleecker Street Records into Generation Records, and plan on making sure that we can pull all of our resources together for what will hopefully be a stronger and more focalized store.
As of Halloween 2016, the new store hours for Generation Records will be:
Sunday – Thursday: 12pm – 9pm
Friday & Saturday: 12pm – 10pm
We hope that revamping our store in the coming months, injecting a lot more product and making some major overall changes will allow us to take charge of the dwindling record store scene in Manhattan. Hope to see everyone for Record Store Day coming up this Black Friday, November 25th.
Honestly, Bleecker Street Records was never one of my favorites, but I was glad it was still there. I was frankly surprised it held on longer than superior places like Other Music and Rebel Rebel, but it is now succumbing. That leaves the Village with its sibling outlet, Generation, and the sporadically open Record Runner on Cornelia Street, and that's it.
Sure, we still have Academy on 18th Street, Downtown Music Gallery in Chinatown (albeit only for super-esoteric, adventurous music) and the mighty Rough Trade in Brooklyn. But it still sucks to be losing another.
GODDAMMIT! Here we go again, and what about the Bleecker Street Cat, where's he going?
I hate to see this place go, it's a great store but there's one grievance I had with it...great inventory but the merchandise was not priced to move. I get it though, you have to make rent so how can you meet that overhead. The prices, I'm imagining, had to be high. Outside of that this is yet again, another nail in the NYC/downtown cultural coffin.
Posted by: URLBrenner | October 16, 2016 at 10:40 PM
Another sad demise. For some reason I have always favored Generation; hopefully that can hang on.
Posted by: David George | October 18, 2016 at 05:38 PM
Sniff... Sad... I was there many years ago. Christmas 1976. I heard a radio show that mentioned Bleeker Street. Made me remember the record store. I looked it up. Sniff...
Posted by: Bill Bergee | March 26, 2021 at 07:13 PM
Used to go here when I worked in the city years ago. Everything has changed and not for the better. Too bad for another loss in the city
Posted by: Greg | December 30, 2021 at 03:38 PM