BEAT STREET RECORDS R.I.P.
tonyphrone
1,500 Posts
I cant believe this... I guess Vinyl is really dying out. It's really sad - I loved Beat Street - a good percentage of my collection is from there.NY heads - is this old news?
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On a related note, i heard that Tower Records is about to close too. 2700 stores shut down. Is that accurate???
to quote h.claufield
"it's sad as hell"
a bklyn hip hop institution fades
when you were in that shop it just felt like the epitome of New York hip hop
my homie's brother did security there forever,calls himself the brown hornet
they have been keeping sporadic hours the last year
the dvd section was a huge source of kung fu/horror/action on the cheap[3.99-9.99]
new hip hop/mixes/remixes for days
i made it a point to cop almost all of the dusty fingers joints @9.99 there.
soemone on fulton will step up they game to fill in the void...........?
Before it turns into this...
Edit: Also, from a view of the rights of the average citizen vs. the wants of big business, the eminent domain abuse that has made this development possible is really disturbing.
I lived in Prospect Heights from '96-01, and i definitely saw this coming. Maybe Beat Street closing is more about the gentrification of Brooklyn and less about the death of record stores.
Either way it's very depressing. This has almost made me give up and buy a microwave...
What was that bar on the corner of Flatbush and Park Pl.? Back then, it was the only spot to grab a drink for miles...
I was more of a smoker than a drinker back then. Me and Paychecks spent alot of time buying questionable brown "weed" on Franklin Avenue. Once we couldn't get anyone to serve us so I hollered at my boy Teflon who grew up in the neighborhood and he got some chick to serve us nickelbags from a stash that she kept in her baby carriage, under the baby's head!
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That's true.
I hate to hijack this thread, but thinking about this has made nostalgic for weed spots. The days when you could cop trees in all sorts of places was so integral to my youth. Top 5 weedspot stories (without blowing spots up too much):
1. In 1995 there was a big ass blizzard. Me and my roommate decided we needed trees regardless. So we went up to that incense spot on 116 despite the 2 feet of snow on the ground, hoping that if anyone was open it would be these cats. Got in there, got our little bags and Redman and his sister were taking big ass bags of tree to the car.
2. There was a record store uptown that sold sweet jars of dro from a booth in the back. At the register they had an autographed picture of Jaleel White aka Urkel that basically said "thanks for having the best weed, I smoke this til I get high as shit and pass out". Hilarious.
3. There was a place uptown that was literally just a hole in a wall inside an empty storefront and a line would form outside and you could cop your shit off a "menu".
4. There was a whole building on Creston that used to serve...the little kids, old ladies, retarded dudes, everyone was holding.
5. Used to hit up a spot where you went upstairs in the elevator after punching in a code and there were all these dudes with uzis and shit upstairs. The weed was really good, but I always wondered why they had so much security just for pot. I stopped going because it killed my buzz to see all those guns when I just wanted some weed.
Bonus: Any bodega or candy store with one box of cereal or detergent pr whatever and just barren shelves. It was amazing how little people did to hide what was going on in their establishments.
so what was that area between Park Slope and Crown Heights called before? And how come "east williamsburg" isn't on any maps yet?
And as for Beat Street, they've been on a somewhat slow downward spiral for a minute. They are always grossly overstocked, and there was very little organization in the store outside of what was on the walls and the reggae room. Even on a busy day for the last few years, there would only be about 5-6 heads in the vinyl section. And a lot of times they were tourists that were visiting. They never technically 'closed' - the upstairs area where they sold all the electronics got sold/rented/whatever and they consolidated to just the downstairs. They might have been closed down temporarily while they moved their stock out and whatnot.
Here's the thing. So does the social interaction. Gone are the good ol dayz when everyone would hit up the stores on shipment day to see what was up. Hang out... Big dudes & Lil dudes. Talking about music face to face.
Today it's being replaced by talking to who knows who about non-tangible & non-existent products.
Thats a small part of the reason I got out of the record selling biz.
New vinyl is on it's last legs and in the next 5-10 years I'd be willing to wager, so will be the DJ. Atleast in the form of how we know it.
i thought it was going to be S/SW of flatbush/atlantic leaving Fulton Mall still intact?
as much as i love fulton mall, i used to work right off Fulton, i know a good majority of the buildings are going to waste. i know the store fronts are on lockdown with shoe/clothing spots, but most of those offices in the higher floors have been empty for a long time.
and while i do respect Frank Gehry, and i do think nyc/brooklyn is set apart from most cities because it can adapt to change well, it will be pretty odd to see downtown bk go through a major redevelopment.
That's what i'll miss the most. Getting put on to new shit.
Record stores that only sell new releases are on their last breaths. Stores that cater to collectors will be around for awhile. There is a market for it. But making $1.00-$3 bucks off a new single or LP without the ability to sell in quantity is DONE.
I'm not hating on dildo mind you. I'm a huge believer in technology advancement. But the social implications down the line will be a minor factor to the death of the DJ IMO.
Business 101... Don't fight change, adapt to it.
its exactly that . makin a $1 or $2 on a record is over .. plus you got a lot of dj's and collectors buyin on the net , which would not have helped stores any . on that note we are shuttin down on december 16th which may not mean anything to some as we only been open for 2 and half years and we are in australia dealin in secondhand records , but sellin on the net / markets and record fairs is the same thing as havin a shop believe me .
The stadium itself will be more to the Atlantic center side of things, but this is part of a plan for the re-vamping of downtown brooklyn that was supposed to begin with the ill-fated Metrotech. All of downtown will change.
co-sign on all of this. The new stadium will be right across the street from Atlantic Center where the LIRR is currently. And it is part of a larger on-going 'redevelopment' of downtown that so far has been a bit of a bust. Check this related article I found last month:
http://brooklynrail.org/2006-10/local/fury-on-the-streets
I used to live right up the street from the strip they are talking about in this article, and it's totally f-d up that they closed all those shops down right across from TWO housing projects.
HAHAHAHA!
Did you ever go to Beat Street?
I have no pity for a store like Rock & Soul or a guy like Joe Abejian losing business because he can't sell 100 copies of a wack 12" anymore. Sorry.
Beat Street didn't lose its business because of technology - it was well on the way down back when I was raiding the underbins for Rawkus deadstock gold 8, 9 years ago.