Earlier this week, someone posted an image by one Ernst Haas from 1962 of a cool cat sitting on the hood of a vintage car. While a striking photo by any standard, I immediately gravitated to it because of a bit of location-specific signage in the background, that being Googie’s Bar on Sullvian Street. While never a particular favorite of mine, I did indeed darken the doors of Googie’s on more than a couple of occasions. I had no idea it had been around since (at least) 1962. This all said, the only reason I really liked Googie’s was because it was directly next door to Second Coming Records.
Now, having been updating this silly blog since … god help me … 2005, I have devoted an inordinate amount of bandwidth to documenting the lost record and compact disc shops of Manhattan. I have scoured ever corner of the internet looking for photographic and/or video evidence of several such businesses that have mostly long since gone the way of the wooly mammoth. From Freebeing to 99 Records to Subterranean Records to Venus Records to It’s Only Rock N’ Roll to Rocks In Your Head to Footlights to Lunch For Your Ears and virtually all points in between, I have, for the most part, managed to find visual evidence of many of my old favorites, rounded up in sprawling photo-driven posts like this one. Then, of course, there have been ventures like Mondo Kim’s, Sounds and, yea verily, Bleecker Bob’s that have closed up shop more recently. Whenever possible, if I find a photo that I’ve never seen of these places, I usually go out of my way to share it here.
But after almost fifteen years of this stuff, I cannot say I still spend that much time searching. Here in 2020, I sort of feel like any remaining pictures of these places would have surfaced by now. I don’t want to say that the well is dry, in that capacity, but it’s pretty rare that I find anything new, these days.
Until today, that is.
Inspired by that Haas photo up top – and having just walked down this very street on my walk to work, this morning – I started sifting around. I don’t recall what configuration of terms I used but up popped the photo below. Allegedly uploaded eight months ago and originating from a book about cats of all things, herewith a super-rare shot of the interior of Second Coming Records on Sullivan Street, with …. I guess… Vladimir the Cat pictured front and center.
I love this picture in that it totally captures what it was like to be inside that cramped little shop. It also showcases another defining feature of Second Coming, that being the ceiling covered in posters. Unlike Sounds across town on St. Marks Place, you could actually buy the posters on the ceiling, and I duly outfitted my college dorm-room walls accordingly with treasures procured from the ceiling of Second Coming.
Given key promo posters pictured behind little Vladimir of Mothers Milk by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mind Bomb by The The, I’m going to suggest this photo was taken somewhere between 1989 and 1990. The circular neon sign in the very back (next to Elvis Costello) hung originally in the window of the shop (see below), but would move again as the shop expanded, later hung above the doorway between the two storefronts, where it remained for some time even after the shope closed, only to sadly vanish one day.
As detailed elsewhere, later during its tenure at 235 Sullivan Street, Second Coming became a hotbed of bootleg live recordings. Towards the front of the northernly wing on the right had side, they had a crucial case of cassettes. If memory serves, for about six or seven bucks a pop, you could procure any number of live recordings by likely artists like The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, R.E.M., Siouxsie & the Banshees or U2. That may sound entirely quaint, now, but it was a bit of a risky racket, at the time – one that eventually led to the store getting in a significant amount of trouble, as reported here.
I can’t remember if it was because of this that the store eventually shut its doors, but shut they did, breaking my heart in the process. Since Second Coming split, the spaces it formerly occupied have been various ventures like a Mexican joint, a Thai bistro, a tattoo parlor and sushi parlor.
In the process of writing this, I found another new shot, this of the old storefront. Below that, I’m resurfacing the other old pics of it.
It’s 2020, and I still miss Second Coming Records. I imagine I always will.
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