Our staff and contributors share their cultural enthusiasms. The salesmen glared at you as you walked in. They hung from the walls, a profusion of colors and styles. But the guitars, in the store as onstage, were the show. As I recall it, one first encountered huge stacks of amps upon entering. I went for supplies: sticks, a cymbal stand, felt for cymbals. The music stores, like the support of a seesaw, were the point at which that character made its pivot. In my own private atlas of the city, that street was also notable for the degree its character changed in the course of one block, from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue. The names that stand out for me are Manny’s and Sam Ash, but there were several others, packed together, one next to the other, each a world unto itself.
Those stores catered to musicians of every stripe, but the vibe was very rock and roll. If that wasn’t surprising enough, the space directly across the street, on the north side of the block, which had also been home to several music stores, was also rubble.įorty-eighth Street was once famous for stores that sold musical instruments. The municipal version of a tooth that has been knocked out. In the middle of the south side of the block, where a clutch of music stores had once been, was rubble.
The other day, I biked the length of Forty-eighth street from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue and encountered an unusual view.
