"in Harlem, 2 Record Stores Go The Way Of Vinyl"

[Guest Juddy]

I searched and it looks like there was a thread about this when it was a possibility - now it appears to be happening...

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/nyregion/21records.html

I'd actually already pulled out a couple Bobby Robinson prod's to play on Saturday night, unbeknownst to me! Now I think I'll dig out a few more.

juddy

pixxburgh

January 21, 2008

In Harlem, 2 Record Stores Go the Way of the Vinyl

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMSOn Saturday morning, Bobby's Happy House, a music store in Harlem that opened in 1946, was in a state of chaos.

The store's owner, 91-year-old Bobby Robinson, who was wearing a dark blue suit and his trademark black fedora, seemed bewildered as he surveyed his store. Albums were stacked on the floor, photographs of him with Fats Domino, James Brown and others had been pulled from the walls and the store's glass display cases contained only a few scattered CDs and cassette tapes.

A few hundred yards northwest, at the Harlem Record Shack on 125th Street, an employee with a handmade sign was urging passers-by to sign a petition to keep that store from being evicted.

Inside, the voice of the store's owner, Sikhulu Shange, 66, rang through the Record Shack as he vowed not to go easily, even though he was under a court order to leave within a few weeks, after 36 years in business there.

Mr. Robinson and Mr. Shange, who have been friendly rivals for Harlem's music dollars for almost two generations, are on the cusp of being forced out of business here within weeks of each other as Harlem continues its uneasy transition from being a haven for some of the city's poorest residents to a place where apartments selling for $1 million and tripling commercial rents have become unremarkable occurrences.

Bobby's Happy House, on Frederick Douglass Boulevard near 125th Street, is closing on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Mr. Shange has been given until the end of March to vacate his store.

Each man represents a distinct generation of black men who arrived in Harlem as young men seeking to contribute to a neighborhood they had long heard about and had admired.

Mr. Robinson, originally from South Carolina, came after World War II. He speaks in the language of that time, using words like "colored," which has long been retired.

Mr. Shange, who arrived from South Africa in the 1960s, came of age during that era's tradition of protest. He wears dashikis and repeats words like "empowerment."

Each man said the runaway pace of change in the neighborhood during the past few years was unlike anything they had seen before.

"Everything you see here, I built," Mr. Robinson said, waving his arm around his store as friends and family members boxed up decades of mementos. "How do you think I feel?"

On the other hand, Mr. Shange, who was at the center of an eviction battle in the 1990s that culminated in gunfire and an arson attack that killed eight people, left no doubt about his feelings. He was angry.

"There was a time when everybody was running away from Harlem, but we stayed, keeping the culture alive," he said, as shoppers surveyed the small store's African, gospel, jazz and R&B selections that are kept in locked glass cases. "We don't have nothing to show for being in the community all these years and keeping it beautiful. Tourists are not coming here to see McDonald's and Burger King. They are coming here to see black culture."

The two stores have survived so long, the owners say, because they offer services and products customers cannot get anyplace else.

At Bobby's Happy House, those services included recording albums onto cassettes or CDs for customers and allowing visitors to pull up a plastic chair and chat with Mr. Robinson, who was a noted record producer. His work included Wilbert Harrison's No. 1 hit "Kansas City" in 1959 and groundbreaking hip-hop songs by Doug E. Fresh and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five during the late 1970s.

The inspiration for the name of Bobby's Happy House, which has had various names over the years, was a doo-wop song Mr. Robinson wrote for Lewis Lymon & the Teenchords in 1956 called "I'm So Happy," a hit in the Northeast. (Lewis Lymon was the younger brother of Frankie Lymon, best known for a song with the Teenagers, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?").

At the Record Shack, customers have found in Mr. Shange, a former dancer, an authoritative source on American soul music and hard-to-find African music. In a nod to their customers, both stores continued to sell records and cassette tapes, formats most other stores have not sold for years.

"A lot of old people are ashamed to go to a store and ask them for cassettes," said Mr. Robinson's daughter, Denise Benjamin, who has managed Bobby's Happy House for her father in recent years.

Both Mr. Robinson and Mr. Shange said it was unclear what role the downturn in the record music industry has had on their stores, but HMV and the Wiz, two large retailers that sold CDs and other items, have closed stores on 125th Street during the past few years.

Mr. Robinson and Mr. Shange said they had been caught off-guard by their evictions and the transformation of the neighborhood. Each has a different landlord. Within a few blocks of their stores are more than a dozen construction sites for projects that include a 19-story hotel, office towers and luxury co-ops and condominiums.

Once the last of the old records have been cleared from Bobby's " and other tenants in the block-long building have moved out " the new owners, a partnership of the Sigfeld Group and Kimco Realty Corporation, have said they will tear down the structure and replace it with a four-story office building, including retail space on the ground floor. None of the old tenants, including Mr. Robinson, said they had been invited to set up shop in the new building. Several store owners have filed a lawsuit contesting their evictions.

Ms. Benjamin said family members decided not to join the lawsuit because they wanted to save their money to find a location nearby.

Representatives for Sigfeld and Kimco, which bought the building for $30 million in August, did not respond to phone calls and e-mail messages seeking comment. Mr. Shange's landlord, the United House of Prayer for All People, won a court order forcing Mr. Shange to leave the store empty and "broom clean" by March 31. The church has not announced its plans for the space, and a church representative at its headquarters in Washington declined to comment. David M. Grill, the attorney representing the church in New York, did not return a phone call and an e-mail message seeking comment.

Mr. Shange, who has been paying $4,500 a month " about $500 more a month than Mr. Robinson at Bobby's Happy House " said that he was willing to pay more, but that the church, which is above the store, had refused to negotiate.

Mr. Shange said the store was organizing a protest rally on Sunday at 11 a.m., when many of the church's parishioners will be arriving for services.

A flier at his store advertising the rally reads: "Protest Greedy Landlords! We will not be moved from Harlem!!! We must reclaim, preserve and protect our historic black community. If we do not, no one will!!!"

Eight thousand people have signed a petition opposing his store's eviction, he said.

When Mr. Shange faced eviction in 1995 during a dispute with a different landlord, who held the sublease for the Record Shack, weeks of demonstrations over the plans of the landlord, who was white, to evict the black-owned store took on a racial tinge. The dispute ended after a protester walked into the landlord's store, which was next to the Record Shack, carrying a handgun and a container of paint thinner. After shooting and wounding four people, he set the store ablaze before shooting himself. He and seven other people died in the blaze.

Mr. Shange said he expected the coming demonstration to be peaceful, just as others in support of his store have been in recent months.

Unlike Mr. Shange, Mr. Robinson's daughter said she did not particularly object to the changes occurring in Harlem, which have included new bank branches and grocery stores.

"I don't mind change, but when people have had to endure everything " and you know if you've been here 60 years you've endured a lot," she said, her voice trailing off. "This is everything to him."

[Gert Mark]

Heartbreaking.

Angering.

Heartbreaking.

Land of the free, so long as youve got money, so sad.

Saying that, we are just as soulless over here, every high street the same as every other.

[arnie j]

really enjoyed reading that, thanks for posting, sad situation indeed

[Hold Tight]

The real cost of progressive development - the loss of culture and heritage. Shame on them.

[Guest Juddy]

The real cost of progressive development - the loss of culture and heritage. Shame on them.

It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day here and I can't help but think of the irony that faces black American culture in this day and age - that the peace and stability sought for so long by black America should come at the cost of, essentially, the culture that fought for that peace and stability.

Everywhere in this country, traditionally black neighborhoods face the bizarre catch-22 that, as soon as a neighborhood becomes stable enough that a white population feels safe investing in it, the black community that worked so hard to get it to that point gets driven out by the economics.

Here in Pittsburgh, it's happening in a neighborhood called East Liberty - where the likes of Billy Eckstine, Adam Wade, Mary Lou Williams, Dakota Staton, and Billy Strayhorn all grew up, and where amongst others a label called Star Shine Records existed, which produced at least one great single I've played off and on by Elva Bronson. Their address, according to the label, is right next to the club where we're launching our new soul night this Saturday ... hopefully we're not part of the problem, bringing in loads of white kids to dance to the neighbors' parents' records...

overcaffeinated,

juddy

[Dave Rimmer]

Everywhere in this country, traditionally black neighborhoods face the bizarre catch-22 that, as soon as a neighborhood becomes stable enough that a white population feels safe investing in it, the black community that worked so hard to get it to that point gets driven out by the economics.

overcaffeinated,

juddy

Hi Juddy, thanks for posting the article, it's probably something us Brits wouldn't normally have seen.

The situation you refer to above is not limited to the States, or Black communities either. Here in the UK, as what have traditionally been rough areas improve, mostly due to the work of the residents in the area I might add, you find that their childern are unable to remain in the area. Driven out by economics and demand from people outside the area. So the sense of community that improved the estate goes, especially as most of the people who did the work get older. You end up with an estate that has no soul, no sense of belonging, which will eventually lead to a downturn in the area's fortunes because if you have no sense of belonging, you have no sense of caring for the area or the future of it's children.

Sad, but a fact of these materialistic times. Or am I just viewing the past when communities cared about each other through rose tinted glasses?

[Steve G]

Mr. Shange, who has been paying $4,500 a month " about $500 more a month than Mr. Robinson at Bobby's Happy House " said that he was willing to pay more, but that the church, which is above the store, had refused to negotiate.

There's a surprise the church acting as ruthless landlord

Despite the emotion and obvious sadness around this, can't help thinking that record stores everywhere are becoming a thing of the past.

Wonder if they'll "find" a few Tolberts and Mark IV's tucked away at the back?

[jocko]

About 4 years ago we managed to jump on a tour of the Appollo theatre in Harlem and the guide was a small time actor, can't remember his name,but had seen his face in bit parts in TV films over years, so must have been in his 60's and had lived in Harlem all that time, he did all that guide stuff and other tourist type stuff free as there was concerted effort to get more tourists direct to Harlem, although this was proving difficult with the big tour operators offering things like the Sunday Gospel brunch etc etc. He was reasonably affluent I got the impression but he was predicting the time within 20 years there would be virtually no black residents in Harlem, including people like himself, much the same as the rest of Manhatten.

He was telling us stories about landlords invoking small print clauses all the time to evict existing tenants and then re-lease houses at 3 or more times original costs, one story was about little old lady having nephew to stay for weekend, as she had for many years, but there was somewhere in lease a clause about not lodgers and he invoked that, despite his knowledge of the nephew for many years prior.

I agree with Dave there is obvious gentrification in many cities in the world, but NY is any many ways sadder as 100 years of history.relevant to our musical tastes, is in danger of disappearing. It is very much a sympton of NY being made safer for people like us to visit. Mayor Guiliano's policy's had downsides as well as the many ups.

Edited January 22, 2008 by jocko

[Fdsoul6345789]

Got to agree with both JOCK and DAVE over this story but is it not typical of the American attitude to all things and as soon as they think it has outlived it's usefullness then it is disgarded --- vinyl had it's day get rid of it, cds in vogue then on to mp3s an so on. I think from that point that we have a lot to thank them for as we have in the UK and elsewhere benifited from they're throwaway attitude on all things cultural. Or is it a case that not having a history of any merit they haven't the same feeling for anything of a cultural nature. I just think that they will live to regret it in the long term but we have been the benefactors in that we have had the opportunity to bring over to this country since the early 60ts and to this day a wealth of wonderful music that is so very dear to us but isn't appreciated by the people right on their doorstep. I fear they will live to regret it bigtime.

fdsoul6345789