IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED NOT SO LONG AGO: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

1969 Ads Revisited: Other Venues and Miscellany, Part 2

It's one thing to mourn the loss of Bleecker Bob's, but quite another to deal with the closure of a shop where I actually dropped some significant cash. Yesterday JVNY and EV Grieve reported that Rockit Scientist is also due to close soon (though it may reopen in another location later in the year). After the initial--well, at this point I can't exactly describe my feelings about record store closures as shock, so let's just call it a numbing bummer--wore off, I remembered that Manic Panic had occupied the same St. Marks space for many years. I was about 99 and 44/100% sure that See Hear had briefly opened up shop there in the late '90s, but now I'm thinking it may have been in a different (but nearby) storefront instead, 'cause I'm having vague recollections of another record store in there...

No sooner did I type that last sentence than I went over to Flaming Pablum, and I see its author confirms that there was a CD store at 33 in the '90s and early aughts called Smash. I'm not dreaming about a short-lived St. Marks location of See Hear though, am I?

EDIT 2/1/2012: Someone told me that See Hear was in the storefront next door, so I guess I was just suffering from a bit of location dyslexia. I found a nice blog post about East Village bookstores of the '90s, which included a brief video tour of See Hear's 7th Street store. Dig today's JVNY post about Gem Spa--he's got some good news for once! And the Local East Village blog offers some more details on the rumored CBGB revival.

EDIT 2/6/2012: Big oops! In a comment below, Howie Pyro confirms that Manic Panic was also in the storefront to the right of Rockit Scientist. Please pardon my misremembering synapses!