Sam Ash Row

I guess, with Manny's Music Shop having closed in June, building owner and onetime competitor Sam Ash wouldn't leave its big sign up there forever. Still, it was a shock to see this big red stripe against the sky on W. 48th Street the other night. Not exactly what I'd call in good taste. Other the other had, you can see it a mile away!

Inside, all the old photographs of famous Manny's patrons are gone and the walls and floors have been scrubbed to an antiseptic sheen. The only evidence this was Manny's in the store's name embedded into the sidewalk just outside the door. Music Row is truly Sam Ash Row now.

Manny's Long Death Scene Comes to an End

Last weekend was blacker than I knew.

Arnold Hatters threw in the top hat after 83 years. And, on Sunday, after much press coverage, Manny's music store on 48th Street gave up the ghost.

Not much left to say about this one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable store. Read all about its great history and sad fate here and here and here and here.

It will become another Sam Ash store.

Oh, the New York Times finally covered the story. On June 1. The day after the place closed. Thanks a lot, Grey Lady. Too little, too late.

Old Yellow

Many questions surround the upcoming closure of Manny's, the musical instrument institution on W. 48th Street's Music Row. When is the closing date? Is there a closing date? Will Manny's life be extended? Who controls whether the lease is extended or not—Sam Ash or Rockefeller Center? What's to become of the walls of photos of famous musicians?

The question that weighs most on my mind, however, is, what will become of "Old Yellow." Old Yellow is the nickname of a gnarled, tortured Danolectro guitar. For many years, it was Manny's tester guitar. It has been held and played by every great guitar players you can mention from Clapton to Hendrix. Both George Harrison and John Lennon wanted to buy it. Someone accurately described it as the Blarney Stone of the Music Industry.

The headstock broke off some time ago, and now the guitar sits on display in a Plexiglass case. Surely, this must be donated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It is doubtless the most valuable artifact in the store, and one of the most valuable in New York music history.

More on Manny's Music

AMNY has an article on the fate of Manny's Music today, quoting yours truly. Here it is:

Manny's May Be Saved

By Emily Hulme

For weeks, it looked like Manny’s Music was singing its swan song, but the midtown staple might keep selling guitars for years to come.

The landlord of the Music Row business, the Rockefeller Group, said yesterday it has been in negotiations with Sam Ash Music, the owner of Manny’s, for up to a year to extend the lease for the shop, a staple on 48th Street since 1935.

Manny’s did not respond to calls for comment.

Earlier this month, Manny’s owner Paul Ash retracted a statement he made to the New York Post saying that the Rockefeller Group failed to renew the lease.

“We were surprised and disappointed by Paul Ash’s statements in the NY Post on April 6 saying that the landlord has chosen not to renew the lease for the property occupied by Manny’s Music,” said Sandra Manley, Rockefeller Group spokeswoman. “As the landlord, we would be happy to have Manny’s Music continue as a tenant in the building.”

In his retraction to the Post, Ash said: “We have not made a final decision regarding whether to continue the Manny’s business or to use the location for a Sam Ash store. Any decision regarding the future of the Manny’s business will be solely our own.”

Regardless of Manny’s fate, other owners on Music Row fear the strip, where stars as big as The Beatles and U2 shopped, fear the stores will one day be gone.

“There was nothing but music when I opened,” said Rudy Pensa, who opened Rudy’s Music in 1978. “It was 15 music stores, now we are four.”

The culprit, of course, has been rising rents in around Times Square.

Pensa hasn’t been pressured to move yet, but expects it any day.

“I think it’s getting close to the end of an era, not just for Manny’s but for all of 48th, which is really, really bad, for the heart of the city.” He said. “But what are we going to do? I’ll be here until I can be here.”

The blogger on Lost City, who writes under the name Brooks of Sheffield, first reported on Manny’s troubles, and agreed that Music Row is on life support.

“It’s fairly inevitable, since Manny's and much of the other music-related stores on the street are owned by Sam Ash,” he said. “And Ash management, in their comments, have been pretty fatalistic about Music Row's future. If Ash won't
fight for Music Row's survival, who will?”

But not everyone is predicting the worst.

“Obviously [Manny’s is] an institution so people are curious as to why it’s closing,” said Mike Rock, a manager at the Sam Ash guitar store said before the latest news of Manny’s possible survival. “But as far as I know, we’re not going anywhere.”

I'm sorry, but every time I read something new about Manny's, I get more confused. Now, who actually holds the fate of Manny's in their hands? Sam Ash or Rockefeller Center?

Old Media Faces the Music

Hey, that only took six weeks.

After consistently reporting on this blog that Manny's Music—the hallowed instrument store on W. 48th Street's Music Row—was closing for good in May, and that the rest of the block may soon fall into the hands of expanding Rockefeller Center, Old Media finally noticed.

Following my most recent, April 5 post—in which I reprinted a selection of the dozens of heartfelt comments I've have received from Manny's-loving readers—the dailies, radio and television spring into action.

In the New York Post:

"The 48th Street scene is changing drastically," said Paul Ash, president of guitar-store chain Sam Ash, which bought Manny's a decade ago and owns several other music stores on the block. "The whole industry is down."

But he said the biggest challenge has come from the Rockefeller Group, a real-estate developer that has bought up most of the small buildings housing the shops with the aim of tearing them down to build office towers. The company chose not to renew Manny's lease.

And in Crain's, a contradictory report:

The New York Post reported on Monday that the musical instruments retailer, a rock ‘n roll fixture at 156 W. 48th St. for 75 years, would be leaving its Big Apple digs because landlord Rockefeller Group Development Corp. would not renew the company’s lease.

But Rockefeller Group said in a statement that it has been in negotiations with Manny’s, which is owned by the Sam Ash chain, for over a year in order to extend the music store’s lease. In fact, the landlord has offered Sam Ash a lease extension through 2013.

“As the landlord, we would be happy to have Manny’s Music continue as a tenant in the building,” Rockefeller Group said in a statement.

What's going on here?

And, also from Crain's yikes!:

Real estate insiders speculate that the company will build an office tower or retail restaurant or superstore. Restaurants such as the Cheesecake Factory and Houston’s, and even the International House of Pancakes, have been looking for space in the neighborhood. Apparel tenants are also drawn to the bright lights near Times Square, hoping to follow in the footsteps of teen retailers American Eagle and Forever 21, both of which recently leased large spaces in the vicinity.

There was no mention of Lost City breaking the story in either of these accounts. I guess it would be too embarrassing to lead your April 6 story with, "The blog Lost city reported on Feb. 20...."

Apparently, there was also a story on Channel 11, and I know that CNN is working on something.

A Sampling of Manny's Mourners

Though New York mainstream press continues to ignore the story of the Music Row legend Manny's coming closure this May, the many devotees of the W. 48th Street store continue to mourn the store's end on a daily basis. My original posting, on Feb. 20, has now logged dozens of comments, with one or two arriving each day as musicians around the nation awake to the unsettling news.

I thought, given the sincere regret which which many of these comments are invested, it might be worth spotlighting a few of the more remarkable. Quite a few stories here. Here follows a sampling:

Through the years, met Peter Frampton (before "... comes alive"), Chris Squire, Bo Diddley, Pete Townshend, Leslie West and more, at Manny's back in the 70's ... a thrill for a kid aspiring to play guitar! Very sad indeed!—Todd Wolfe

Very sad indeed. As a kid I worked for Buddah /Kama Sutra records just a few blocks away at 1650 Broadway at that time. I would go there with the Kelly Isley of the Isley Brothers. It was as much as a meeting place as it was the store to purchase an instrument.—Ian M. Marlowe

I grew up in Hackensack, NJ . We used to play hooky and take the bus to NYC and spend the better part of the day at Manny's. I can still visualize Henry walking around the store and calling out to one of the employees to bring down a guitar from upstairs. How about that beat up yellow Danelectro (?) solid body guitar that everyone would play when trying out different amps. I bought alot of equipment there in the 60's, my first wah wah pedal (Vox), a Maestro fuzz tone, after hearing Satisfaction on the radio. I remember buying a used 63' Gretsch Country Gentleman from Henry for $325 in 1967. The store is a musical landmark for sure. I met Elliot Randall and Gene Cornish there. One time I remember seeing a new set of drums up against a side wall with Ringo Starr's name stenciled across each case. I think we waited at least two hours hoping he might pick them up himself. I'm sorry to see it go. Hey, the Stones live in the city, maybe they could buy the building and preserve it as piece of musical history.—Rob Heinick

Ed Pomerant was at Manny's the day the Beatles Crew came in to pickup the Ludwig Drums and A Zilgan Cymbals for the Ed Sullivan show the next day. I decided to get the identical set of Gray Pearl but they only had the Blue Pearl left. Manny himself waited on me.—Ed

I was playing at the Lone Star Cafe in 1981...forgot a bag of guitar cables & stompboxes at our previous gig in Baltimore. One call to Manny's, and they set me right up, then wouldn't take back the gear afterwords...said it was their contribution to our band!!! Let's see a music store do something like that today!!! What a bummer!!!—Mike Armstrong

In 1972, my fiancée took me to Manny’s to buy me an engagement present, where this cool little Jazz Guitar playing dude sold me a Baldwin Ode Banjo. 18 years later I went there to find something special, and the same Jazz Guitar playing dude sold me a white Gibson J-200 guitar that I have never seen any other place.—Eric Hilton

Back as an early teen, my late brother and I would hop on the A- Train from the Heights and 'go aching' (a semi-rhyming slang thing for 'forty EIGHTH') meaning we were going down to 48th to 'ache' for the gear we couldn't actually afford in the windows of Manny's and the other music shops on the street. Topped off with an Orange Julius, it made for a fun afternoon.

The thing about Manny's was back then you couldn't actually touch the guitars. You'd come in the store, point to a guitar you wanted to see and say 'let me try that one'. Billy, the old jazz cat who worked the counter back then, would reply 'You gonna buy it today'? Of course you weren't, so that would be that. The policy got more relaxed in later years (or maybe we just got older and looked like we had some coin).

The old yellow Danelectro 'tester' guitar (which is now in pieces behind plexiglas in the store) should be donated to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Everyboy who is anybody in the business has touched that guitar; it's like the Blarney Stone of the music industry. —Glenn "G Man" Govier

In 1978, I met BB King at Manny's. I had seen him the night before at the Bottom Line. I was in the market for a guitar and was trying out the Gibson model that BB played (ES 355), when he walked in to buy a case. I got to say hello, shake his hand, tell him I much I loved the show. (Then I went down the block and bought a '63 ES 175 from Alex.)

That's the kind of place it was -- where you could see a show the night before, one that changed your life, and then run into the star buying a case. At Manny's. —Brendan

It's getting really bad as the other post states, CBGB'S , Roxy and on to the Studios. I started at The Record Plant on 44th in NYC then The Hit Factory on 48th st. As the trees fall now the last hold out goes away, MANNYS MUSIC its freaking bad. I bought my first Gibson ES-335 at Manny's in the early 70's. From the places to purchase to the places we made music in to the places to we had fun in. IT'S ALL GOING AWAY..SAD TIMES WE HAVE. What next US? As Frank Zappa said "here come the Brain Police" —Howie Lindeman

More Unsettling News From Music Row

The fates are steadily chipping away at Music Row.

Less than a month after news came that Manny's, the W. 48th Street music institution, was closing in May, and further scuttlebutt that Rockefeller Center intended to make the entire block between Sixth and Seventh its second home, we see that the Department of Building has taken a mortal swing at 163-165 W. 48th, an old building that was until last week the home of Sam Ash's Sheet Music and Brass and Wind store.


A vacate order from the DOB, dated March 16 (last Monday), is pasted in several places on the store's facade. And the telltale orange X-ed box, with an "RO" next to it, was painted on the building, indicating roof trouble. The DOB record indicates that that rear wall was bulging, there was a leaning parapet wall and mortar joints were missing. A scaffold, we're told, went up on March 17. (By March 23, a homeless man had already taken up residence outside the store.)

The store apparently acted quickly. A sign alerts customers that the Sheet Music department is now located across the street at No. 160. Inside, the place has been torn apart, with all things of value removed. Word on the street is that the hammers will start swinging away at No. 163 today.


I don't know how old the building is, but it dates at least to the early years of the 20th century, and was a restaurant for most of its time.

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.

The Fall of Music Row Further Confirmed

Lost City has recently learned more to confirm my earlier report of the coming demise of Manny's Musical Instruments as well as most of what constitutes Music Row, the block of W. 48th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue which has for much of the last century been a destination for musicians famous and not.

A source in the know reaffirmed the fact that Music Row as we know it will be gone in just a few years, and that Rockefeller bought everything on the South side of the street. It would also appear that it was Rocky Center that decided not to renew the lease on seven-decade-old Manny's, which was purchased by Sam Ash in 1999.

Perhaps the change was inevitable. From what we hear, the spreading of the Guitar Center chain around the tri-state area (not to mention suburban Sam Ash branches) caused business to drop off on Music Row.

All in all, a sad story. And a great loss to New York's cultural heritage.

Manny's to Close in May; Entire Music Row of W. 48th Street Endangered

Manny's Musical Instruments, a Midtown landmark since 1935, will close its doors forever at the end of May, and the remainder of the Music Row—as the block of W. 48th Street between Seventh and Sixth Avenues is affectionately known—may soon fall like a row of dominoes.

Following up on a reader's tip, I paid a call on Manny's today and was told by a staff member that the store would shutter at the end of the May. Manny's was bought out in 1999 by Sam Ash, the musical 300-pound gorilla of Music Row and the most visible merchant on the street. A man from Sam Ash called a meeting at Manny's last Saturday and dropped the bomb that, after 74 years, Manny's would be put out of business. Some Manny's employees may be taken on by other Sam Ash stores here and in Jersey.


According to the clerk, however, that may only be the beginning of it. The folks from Rockefeller Center have apparently been buying up parts of the block, included a mammoth parking garage that lies across the street, and aim to level the entire street so that the Center can expand across Sixth Avenue. Put simply, Music Row, one of the last real vestiges of Old Times Square, will cease to exist.

Comments made by Paul Ash, president of Sam Ash Music, to The Real Deal in 2008, do not encourage one to think that Ash will put up a fight. "It's inevitable that Music Row is going to end," said Paul Ash, "One day, both of these corners will be built up like [they are] on the other end of the block, and we're just waiting for the shoe to drop."

Manny's sits on property owned by its founding family. In the same Real Deal article, Ian Goldrich, Manny's grandson, said "I get at least a call a day from someone who wants to buy the building."

Over the years, Manny's has serviced such clients as Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Buddy Holly, the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix, U2, Eric Clapton and Nirvana. This almost hurts even more than the recent news that Tin Pan Alley might be torn down, because Music Row still exists. It's alive and functioning.