New York always had its share of "Waiter, There's a Fly in My Soup" type 
stores and restaurants.  Their staff (staves?) was adept at disdain and 
insult.

I worked on Discophile where, if the customer approached the owner wanting 
Rimsky-Korsakov, he would be handed over to me as being unworthy of the 
owner's attention, the owner being a Bach fanatic.  And if you wanted Joan 
Baez, he'd sneeringly be sent to my cohort salesman, Paul Rothschild.  It 
made for an interesting work environment.

Steve Smolian

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cary Ginell
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 9:55 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Photos of The Colony NYC

Colony: Serving the 1%.

Cary

On Sep 18, 2012, at 6:53 AM, "Steve Smolian" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> In the days before credit cards, one important feature that Colony shared 
> with Liberty and a few other list price and up shops in NYC was that they 
> allowed charge accounts to businesses and celebrities.
>
> Steve Smolian
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Barton, Matthew
> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 9:43 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Photos of The Colony NYC
>
> I'm glad to see that Footlight is still operating on the web. The website 
> shut for few months ca. 2008-9, after the bricks and mortar store closed 
> in 2005.
>
> Colony was once less weird and surly, but the records were always 
> overpriced in my experience and I first checked them out as an NYU student 
> ca. 1980.
>
> I think they thrived largely because of their proximity to the theater, 
> film and TV world in New York. In the mid-1990s, before the internet 
> really got going and before Virgin Records opened in Times Square, a 
> friend who edited commercials for a company in that neighborhood told me 
> that Colony was their first stop when they needed music. Convenience was 
> much more important than price for them.
>
> Colony always seemed to have a deep stock of original cast CDs, and 
> tourists from overseas were used to paying more for CDs anyway. They also 
> got over by being a store of last resort. When you price records as high 
> as they did, you're likely to be the last one in town with a copy, 
> although it might be beat to hell from all the time it spent in your bin.
>
> Rockit Scientist on St. Mark's Place, which closed earlier this year, was 
> a much greater loss. A lot of the best shopping for used vinyl is now at 
> the record shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
>
> Partners & Crime, a wonderful bookstore in Greenwich Village specializing 
> in mysteries and who hosted live dramatizations of classic radio detective 
> shows, closes this Thursday. l've been in there a couple of times 
> recently, and people there said that the store has been a break-even 
> proposition for all of its 18 year history, but now they lose money 
> consistently. The landlord likes them and wants them to stay, but they say 
> they would have trouble covering costs even if the rent were only a 
> thousand a month, and this has been the case for other independent and 
> specialty bookstores in New York. Its probably the same for record stores.
>
> Matthew Barton
> Library of Congress
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Michael Biel
> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 8:54 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Photos of The Colony NYC
>
> From: Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
>> Yes, one can see how they go out of business. Now that I see the
>> photos, I was there once and walked out laughing at the ridicu-prices.
>
> LAUGHING!!  Yes, that has always been our reaction.  The first time we 
> took Leah to NYC in her junior year in high school, I took here there and 
> we laughed and laughed and laughed.  They still had some of the LPs 
> upstairs, and even then she knew prices and recognized things in my 
> collection.  And now that she lives there she went in every once in a 
> while when she needed a good pick-me-up and a giggle.  Looking at all of 
> the fading memorabilia was sad that they were destroying it in their 
> ignorance, but listening to the abusive staff made it all worthwhile --  
> they DESERVED it!
>
> She'll go back in a day or two to photograph closed signs and laugh over 
> the carcass.  When Footlights closed a few years ago we all mourned them
> -- as well as getting GREAT bargains. They went on-line.  I wonder what 
> the Colony will do with its stock.
>
> From: "Jim Sam" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> The reviews are interesting.
>>> http://www.yelp.com/biz/colony-records-new-york
>
> That they are!!! Such as: "The thing I HATE WITH ALL OF MY SOUL about this 
> store is that the guys who are hired to help you find music obviously sign 
> agreements in blood stating that they will be as
> unhelpful, rude, and curt to you as possible."   When Leah wanted a
> price on Saturday, she waited to find the friendliest looking guy but he 
> sent her to another guy who when asking a third guy she overheard "Who is 
> asking?"  You NEVER are supposed to be so BLATANT that you are basing your 
> prices on who the customer is.
>
> I also love the long one with the dialog between the customer in the 
> basement and the weirdo -- which turned out to be the owner.  These 
> comments fit this place to a T.
>
> Mike Biel  [log in to unmask]
>
>
>> They didn't even have any must-have-at-any-price items, at least
> not for me. There are still several excellent used vinyl stores in the 
> Village, and why would anyone buy a new (or used) CD at any retail outlet 
> when there is Amazon "new and used" and almost anything can be had for $5 
> or less, usually shrink-wrapped? As for used vinyl, I usually look but 
> don't buy in Manhattan. In its favor, culturally, NYC is a place where 
> people tend to love their music. So what ends up in these stores is mostly 
> too-well-loved for me to crack open the wallet. That said, what I have 
> found in superb condition in NYC are more-obscure spoken-word records, and 
> "status"
> stuff like the Reader's Digest/RCA/Decca sets and the Time-Life jazz sets. 
> What also pops up from time to time are still-wrapped records from the 
> 70's and early 80's that have tricked down from the bankruptcies of larger 
> stores and chains. Usually these records are stamped with dollar price 
> tags (which is NOT the current price) and have a hole punched or a corner 
> cut off, literally cut-outs.
> The best score I ever had in that regard was a bunch of still-wrapped 
> Mercury Golden Imports and Decca Jubilees for $1 each. The guy said he had 
> them for several years, got them as part of a larger buy of bankruptcy 
> detritis, and was happy to see the floor space cleared up. For a buck a 
> sealed record, I'll buy anything that's within my taste parameters, that's 
> as cheap as a single song download.
>
> -- Tom Fine