Tower Records Memories

I shopped at the Tower Records in DC, 2000 Pennsylvania Ave NW, on the George Washington U. campus. I was in the neighborhood most Friday nights, and would stop in at Tower before walking home to Dupont Circle. It opened earlier than the one near Lincoln Center. I don't remember exactly when it opened, but I used to shop there with a friend who died in 1992.

I actually shopped at Olsson's and Serenade more than Tower.

I liked Tower more for the socializing than the shopping. I’d often meet and converse with like-minded people with similar interests.

I preferred the Tower on Broadway, because it was only a block away from the Tower outlet on Astor Place.

When I lived in San Diego, I’d frequent all 3 Towers, as well as their separate video store, across the street from the Tower on Sports Arena.

And the one in L.A. on Sunset was across the street from a great bookstore, Book Soup, which had a great section of art books. (As for music stores in L. A., Aron’s on Highland was always the best. After they closed, Amoeba took the crown, and they’re still there, though they moved from Sunset to Hollywood Blvd.)

The first Tower Records in NYC was downtown on E. 4th St. and Broadway. I saw Stevie Wonder shopping there.

Quite frankly by that time the Virgin Megastores were opening in NYC and my allegiance quickly switched to them. I especially liked the ones that had cafes and they had a very liberal policy of allowing one to read magazines at the cafe and they had the best spread of Brit magazines that I loved like The Face. They also had a better selection of books, only challenged by the Tower Annex book store downtown near the Lower Broadway store once it opened.

There's a nostalgic 2015 documentary tailor-made for you, OP. It's called "All Things Must Pass," and it's about the history of Tower Records.

It's streaming for free in lots of places, including Youtube.

There was a huge one in San Francisco in North Beach. Closed in 2006. Incredible selection of record albums. I remember how the cashier would comment on my record selection, as if I wanted his approval. I remember when they started selling CDs a cashier telling me they had to add extra security because people were stealing them by the handful.

I visited Tower Records all over the US, as well as London. I used to travel a lot for work and, if the city had a Tower, I would visit in the evening. Working at Tower was always my dream job and I'll never forgive Steve Jobs for killing off retail music stores with freakin' iTunes. I met so many interesting people and learned about great new music hanging out in record stores. Hard to do that now.

[quote] The Tower Records store at 66th & Broadway by Lincoln Center in Manhattan opened on November 16, 1996. Were you there?

Sweetheart, Tower Records at 66th and Broadway opened several years prior to 1996. I worked there for two years as a teenager in 88-89. They expanded the store in the 90s to several floors, but it was a two floor store for many years before.

Thanks, R5!

Thanks for the info, R8! The ad didn't specify that it was an expansion/remodel, so I thought it was a new store opening.

I wish I could edit it!

If anyone else corrects you, OP, I'll kick them in the cunt bone.

Now... Ask Me Anything

R5 Failed to mention the Tower doc was directed by the Hanks progeny Colin, I would have like to have seen what Chet would have done with it.

The Tower doc is okay, no great shakes. Worth a watch while you're busy with something else.

My boyfriend worked at the Boston Tower Records on Newbury counting hundred of thousands of dollars daily for Ticketron. It was a three hour job every day and he got a full salary. He had previously been the video rental manager. We set every gay bartender up with free video rental and never paid for a drink for YEARS.

They pack the money in giant duffels and one time a homeless guy managed to get through both sets of doors to the counting room and ran off with one, trailing 1’s and 5’s behind him.

You haven't lived until you've browsed Tower's little Classical Music room as Chopin's piano music plays over the speakers -- so peaceful.

Their generously endowed porn section would’ve made even the most jaded Datalounger blush!

[quote]There was a huge one in San Francisco in North Beach.

On the corner of Columbus and Bay.

I loved saving my allowance money & driving 20 mins to Tower in Campbell, CA. I loved their Hot 100 singles & the new cassettes, as well as free copies of Metro magazine. I felt so grown up going there, especially since I’d just gotten my license. As an adult they built another Tower down the street from me, but it wasn’t the same experience (that one is a BevMo now). I used to rent VhS porn & copy them, I remember being blown away that I found Dirty Pool there, not to mention Idol Country. The clerks were so cool, I didn’t feel judged for renting it.

Check out the sales from that November 1996 grand reopening at 66th & Broadway!

What a snapshot of the era!

Is there no Tower in store playlist guy to tell us what the music was for each month?

There was no playlist at Tower. We used to fight over what we'd put on in the booth. Many times, blood was drawn.

[quote] I saw Stevie Wonder shopping there.

He didn’t see you

I do miss Tower and other stores like it, it was like going to the library and finding new subjects. I found a section of French imports of singers from the 20s & 30s, they had complete recordings by Big Bands by years. I suppose Youtube does a similar thing by suggesting music based on what I play, but the physical store was better.

R1, Me too. Once my nephew was visiting for the summer and he'd stay up late on vacation - well that was probably more due to me the night owl. I live in Georgetown and one night we were discussing music or maybe a movie - so we jumped into my car and raced down to Tower about 20 minutes to midnight. We parked and raced across the park on Pennsylvania in front the its little mall. Made it into the store and got what we were looking for minutes before it closed. My pre-teen nephew thought that was the coolest thing ever.

It was great store. There was also a good Italian pizza place there. Not sure if it exists anymore.

But the great thing about music stores, r23, is that you would hear music *not* based on what you already listened to. I bought so much music I never would have known about just because it was playing in the store when I happened to be there. It’s hard to replicate that in our current isolated online listening environment.

The 2000 Penn store in DC was great. It got cut down in size around 2000, which was the beginning of the end. The suburban stores closed by then and those locations were disappointing basically crappy mall-sized stores.

The one in Nashville was the first that I visited, actually better for video than CDs.

I also went to the Singapore store and the two they had in Bangkok (one larger than the other) where I found some CDs obscure enough to surprise me--what was lacking esp. in Bangkok at the very large World Trade Center store was the lack of jazz and classical recordings---those weren't unknown forms of music in Bangkok. The Bangkok stores were shortlived--I don't know how long they managed in Singapore.

I liked the 2301 N. Clark St. location in Chicago. They had some legit album release parties with live music and autograph signings. Miss those days.

R13 busy FAPPING?

Once I discovered the Tower Records near GW univ in DC, I was hooked!

There was so much there I had never even known existed

In 1997 I had just finished my Master’s degree and was struggling to find a job in my new field. To tide me over, especially as Christmas approached, I took a job at the Rizzolli Book store in Battery Park City’s Winter Garden. The back right section of the store was a big music area, for the store’s square footage, and the person who worked the register there got to be DJ and choose the in store music. It was a small, but amazing selection of hand curated titles strong on Opera, Jazz, World Music, Soundtracks and unique finds. There was no restrictions on what you played as long as you had a few of the CDs that you could hand sell as there were about five to six people a day who would purchase it based on what they heard. I guess they really liked my choices as I got assigned that register a lot, which was cool with me as it didn’t have the hectic nature of the ones up at the front of the store. I discovered and expanded my musical interests extensively in that nine months and Etta James especially takes me right back to the job in only a few notes.

I used to work at Tower. It was lit.

The one by Lincoln Center had everything! Broadway shows I had never even heard of. And recordings of cabaret acts.

The one downtown on Broadway was a weird space. That second floor was all chopped up. But it did have a nice East Village vibe to it.

I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. He was very obvious about trying not to be noticed. I thought, “Gurl, nobody in this store knows who you are.” I wanted to go over to him and ask if the music he was looking at was what he was planning to steal for his next show. 😂

R3 I lived nearby and I used to shop there at 11PM or so on weeknights and I once saw Rob Camiletti there. Cher lived nearby in The Silk Building then and he was living with her. Good times!

Tower Records L.A. 1996. Bernadette Peters signing for I'll Be Your Baby Tonight. Stood in front of her thinking she had the palest skin I've every seen on a human. Very sweet.

I visited the Tower stores in Phoenix, Seattle, Portland and LA (Sunset Blvd.). They were my go-to places to browse when I was in town and had the time. I was into laserdiscs back in the day and they always had a wide assortment. I still have those discs.

I saw Melanie Griffith in the Sunset Tower Records browsing one night. Thin and well-dressed but her skin was terrible, like she just had microdermabrasion or something.

I remember in 1988 at the Lincoln Center location, we kept the store going for Madonna after we closed at midnight so she could come in and shop without being bothered. They kept a skeleton crew on and I worked downstairs and was closing so I stayed in that department. She came down briefly to the soundtracks area, but did not speak to me and I was told ahead of time not to bother her, so I stood a the counter spinning an album on my finger and trying to affect a bored, vaguely annoyed attitude, while inside my 16 yr old self was queening the fuck out.

I loved visiting New York City from Toronto in the late '90s and '00s when record stores were still there. It's weird to visit NYC and there's no Tower or Virgin.

I loved that you could shop until 11, 12, sometimes even 1 a.m. It was like heaven.

I truly miss the days of record stores. Luckily, Toronto still has a few left.

Was it a mini Tower Records that was in Trump Tower at one point?

I was in the UWS Tower Records and saw Pavarotti sitting, waiting to sign records for his throngs of fans. He looked totally depressed and had thick makeup on, especially over his eyebrows. He smiled when I waved to him from the escalator though.

Tower often was great but there were equal or better local chains like Rose Records in Chicago---the downtown store (I think it was on Wabash) was great.

NYC had a lot of little independent record stores that were fun to browse through. I often saw the creator of Forbidden Broadway flipping through the stacks in Footlight Records in the East Village.

WE SAID TOWER RECORDS, R42.

I remember one opera queen clerk at the DC store loudly judging my purchases one by one as he rang them up. Who asked you, girl?

R44 Was there a particular rating system she was using? Do you remember the high and the low?

[quote]I remember one opera queen clerk at the DC store loudly judging my purchases one by one as he rang them up.

Was it Terrence McNally during the time that he was writing The Lisbon Traviata?

R44 I remember the queen approving of my St. Francis d’Assise and sneering at my Kiri.

R30 I lived near there at the time and although they were kind of reviled at the time, in retrospect I liked the pre-9/11 stores and restaurants of the Winter Garden. I loved that Rizzoli and wasn’t there a store next door that sold autographed letters, like the kind in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”