Not too dis-similar with that palatial staircase to the late, lamented Tower Piccadilly Circus.
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Never forget the day I was in New York in early 90s for the summer and I discovered this mega shop of Tower Records on Broadway. It was wondrous. One year before Tower Records collapsed it was a billion $ industry.
Its so great to see a lot of people buying entire albums again rather than relying on streaming. Nothing better than being attentive enough to play from start to finish and enjoying 
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That store on Broadway was amazing.
Luckily the news that Tower Records has gone south hasnât filtered through to Ireland. In Dublin I preferred the Wicklow Street shop and at the time Tower had a pretty big area over at Easons, on Oâ Connell Street.
Other favourite Tower stores London of course. Tel Aviv and Shibiya in Tokyo.
It should be noted that streaming (either from third party music stores or from oneâs own server) doesnât prevent the listener playing an album from start to finish!
Andy Iâm sure it blew your mind as it did with me. On top of that people were handing out flyers that summer to a huge party in some warehouse which I couldnât resist. At 17 from a 5,000 person town in Ireland, New York was like the Willy Wonka factory with nonstop thrills. Even today just watching people on the street is exciting. I will miss it when I return home.
I agree with you on the Wicklow Street location but to be honest, Iâm so happy it survives to this day. I believe the Easons one is still going too.
By the way, there is a decent documentary out there on Tower Records. Watching it made me sad that I didnât work in the New York location for the summer. It looked like one big party. It seemed like everything went as long as you did your work. That was your only requirement.
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I was on a business trip in early 90âs. First trip to New York. First stop (forget about the business meetings) off to J&R music - now there was a music store.
Later that evening down to Tower on Broadway a few people said youâre mad going that far down Broadway itâs dangerous.
Oh I know that Clive but it does seem like peoples attention span is even shorter now that it has ever been so thatâs why I mentioned that. Although I have no interest in social media such as facebook (i.e. devil) I do find my focus all over the place these days (not saying my attention span was always up to scratch in the past) with nonstop media input with texts, emails, news, streaming tv, etc so it helps to slow down and pop on a record. Thatâs my little social inside and it could be a load of horseshit 
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My time period is â86-87.
I would agree. The Broadway location was close to Washington Square and you could get anything there. Not sure what age you are but at 17 I didnât care about danger. I practically lived in Washington Square for 3 months listening to these amazing musicians and meeting crazies.
One woman told me not to go to Times Square. Of course, I went there right after she said that. While there a random fellow came up to me and asked:
âWhat to you want. Guns, drugs, knives, women?â
âNothingâ
âThen what are you doing hereâ
I learned a lot that summer.
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My reply was a bit tongue in cheek, but I share your concern. It can be difficult to find time to pursue simple pastimes these days without the constant intrusion of technology.
The last time I had a total outage of any media was in Cuba 5 years. No phone for 10 days. The first day was hard but after that it was nice .
Anyone remember âSecond Coming Recordsâ and âRocks In Your Headâ both in NY? Havens for bootlegs, on my visits to our Connecticut office I would always take the train to NY and spend a day there combing the record stores âJR Music Worldâ a favourite of the big stores.
The greatest record shop in the universe was this one, now sadly defunct, but where I worked from the mid to late 1980s, and where I was a member of the the legendary Piccadilly opening crew. Music retailing was a licence to print money in those days, there was so much cash sloshing about, it was incredible.
Best job I ever had, working at Tower. It really was sex, drugs and rock ânâ roll (plus armed robbery, floods, computer malfunctions, mass theft and shoplifting. Everyone was in their teens or early 20s, senior management all under 40, and all almost as irresponsible as the rest of us. some of the stories of what went on and what us young nippers got up to back then would get me banned from this place 
Of course the best thing about Tower Piccadilly (L-101 as it was known) was the huge selection of records, tapes and those new fangled CDs â especially in specialist areas like jazz, classical, world and soundtracks; and the knowledge and passion of the people who worked there.
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I spent a lot of money in there. Those were the days when those ânew fangled CDsâ were ÂŁ15 each!
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Loved that store - you jammy beggar having got to work there Kev!
After every stude London gallery visit, I always popped into Tower after, and a record accompanied me home - pawing over the sleeve notes on the Victoria to Brighton evening train - wistful sigh at those innocent times. Never brave enough to nick anything from Tower though!
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Plus the good thing about Tower Piccadilly was that you could wander in there late on Sat night after a beer/gig and pour over their extensive jazz CD racks. Heck, I remember they even had a full rack of Jazz 625 videos at one stage.
Always got queasy with those first floor transparent glass floor tiles though.
My favourite Tower was probably the one on Sunset Boulevard, LA. Huge selection, usually some nice âspecialsâ and even free car parking at the side !
Tower Santa Monica was good too. Remember seeing Tom Scott doing a free Saturday show there, very enjoyable.
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I spent many hours in there hunting through the cds. If you couldnât find a cd there you wouldnât find it anywhere.
Bought quite a lot of stuff in Tower on Broadway, between 94 and 04. Had to go to NY once or twice a year and the Hotel we used was walkable. Good memories.
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Hahaha, remind me Barcelona in the mid-90ÂŽs, i was 16 : didnât know the city, didnât know the hot spots and frankly didnât care, so while roaming in narrows streets not so far from the Rambla, Iâve been asked exactly the same question by a gentleman, answered as you did but I was gently and firmly invited to leave the neighborhood. I left the place while lyrics of the Velvet Underground fuzzed in my head :
« Hey, white boy, what you doinâ uptown?
Hey, white boy, you chasinâ our women around?
Oh pardon me sir, itâs furthest from my mind
Iâm just lookinâ for a dear, dear friend of mine
Iâm waiting for my man »
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Brilliant. Didnât know Barca was like that. I was there for 5 days in â96. Walked everywhere. The only messed up thing I did was not go to the Dali Museum when invited by this unbelievable South African girl. Headed to Granada instead. What was I thinking. Still kicking myself.
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Iâm so jealous. If I compare the documentaryâs interview with former staff and founder you are right on the money in what it was like to work there. Pity I didnât know. What a summer job it would have been in New York. I might have never left and gone in a different direction.
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