13 March 2009

Who Cares About Manny's?


Lost City has been getting an extremely different class of reader since posting that news that Music Row legend Manny's is set to close at the end of May. Musicians care deeply about the fate of this legendary store, which has sold instruments to just about every famous player you can name.

While I am saddened by the loss of this business, I am amused by some of the websites that have joined the chorus of woe in mourning its departure, sites I never knew existed until recently. Among them:

Acoustic Guitar

Walrus Comix
Les Paul Forum
The Fender Forum
Soundhole
Premier Guitar
Pro Sound Web
Harmony Central
The Gear Page
Stage to Rage
Rickenbacker

That's just a handful of the sites who care that the irreplaceable 48th Street shop is shuttering. Who doesn't care? Well, based on their absolute absence of coverage, the New York Times, the New York Post, The Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday—basically every single paper in town.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly why I started this blog. The editors who control the flow of official news in this town wouldn't know a story that strikes at the heart of what New York is if was sung to them in three-part harmony by the ghosts of Horace Greeley, H.L. Menken and Arthur Brisbane.

4 comments:

Johnny Pierre said...

Howdy--- I enjoy reading your blog. I spent many happy hours at Manny's and the overwhelming silence at its closing by all of the major news outlets in town is just another example of the cultural ghost town that NYC has become under the Bloomberg (Guiliani) watch. Other cities celebrate their culture on a regular basis, NYC no longer does.

Vince M said...

Journalists like Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hammil would have written about the coming extinction of Manny's and Music Row, as well as the people who will soon be out of work.

Anonymous said...

As you can imagine Brooks if you
are witnessing the destruction New
York City and Brooklyn's landmarks
which made our city different at your
younger age,just think what we older folks have witnessed and not usually
for the better in the loss of so many
places of business and pleasure and
the fine art we once had in mid-town
NYC long gone as are the buildings
what we once called "stoop sitting.

Brooks of Sheffield said...

I can only imagine, Anonymous.