From time to time, technology makes major sweeping changes to our lives. The internet is certainly one of the largest transforming technologies in recent history, with fallout of course, like the CD/record business which is being eliminated. Just recently, Tower Records closed - when it opened in the 1980s, this was the largest retailer of records in New York. Its impact was huge with many stores affected in a large radius. CDs were a significant new technology - I remember when CDs started being introduced there in a small section at Tower - the transition from vinyl records to 100% CDs was remarkably rapid . And now with digital audio files such as mp3s, the iPod etc., the era of physical media for audio and video is coming to a close - at least seeing large retailers dedicated to these media. The demise of DVDs appears to also be on the way. Netflix has just announced the start of movie downloads - Instant Viewing - by June of this year. The photo was taken on St. Marks Place in the East Village. Although businesses go out for many reasons, I imagine declining sales of CDs was a major factor in this place's demise...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
End of an Era
From time to time, technology makes major sweeping changes to our lives. The internet is certainly one of the largest transforming technologies in recent history, with fallout of course, like the CD/record business which is being eliminated. Just recently, Tower Records closed - when it opened in the 1980s, this was the largest retailer of records in New York. Its impact was huge with many stores affected in a large radius. CDs were a significant new technology - I remember when CDs started being introduced there in a small section at Tower - the transition from vinyl records to 100% CDs was remarkably rapid . And now with digital audio files such as mp3s, the iPod etc., the era of physical media for audio and video is coming to a close - at least seeing large retailers dedicated to these media. The demise of DVDs appears to also be on the way. Netflix has just announced the start of movie downloads - Instant Viewing - by June of this year. The photo was taken on St. Marks Place in the East Village. Although businesses go out for many reasons, I imagine declining sales of CDs was a major factor in this place's demise...
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4 comments:
Bet there were some bargains to be had, unless all the good stuff & big names went back to the recod companies & the shop wase left with the dross. can't see anyone picking up a Beatles CD for three bucks.
The old Venus Records. I remember the cashier was this tall/Japanese hippster dude who never liked anybody else's taste in music but his own. I'll miss it anyway.
This is a post from Alec Baldwin on the Huffington Post website back in November. I thought he summed up Tower's closing well enough to share with you all...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/goodbye-tower_b_33470.html
The small music stores in the Village East and West were little pockets of interesting creativity, people working there were usually the fanatics, like in the movie "High Fidelity" so it's sad that it's the end of an era and there are no more places like this left in NYC...tho I guess there will be substitutions created somehow..
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