ROUGH TRADE NYC, Manhattan, June 1st
Following seven successful years in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Rough Trade NYC is excited to make its much anticipated move over the East River...
Our new Rough Trade NYC will be located at Rockefeller Center (30 Rockefeller Plaza, on Avenue of the Americas between 49-50th Streets), just steps from the iconic Radio City Music Hall.
“Following the impact of COVID-19, Rough Trade’s decision to relocate reflects a wider reimagination of cities worldwide”, says Rough Trade Co-Owner, Stephen Godfroy. "Manhattan has a glorious history of great record stores. Now there’s an exciting present as well. The opportunities afforded by the pandemic in the reconfiguration of central city districts have brought us, counter-intuitively, to the heart of New York, an area barren of record stores for years. But Rough Trade’s instinct has always been to surprise!”
Since opening our first NYC store in 2013, we followed in the footsteps of an illustrious list of iconic New York record stores, from Bobby Robinson’s Bobby’s Records, The Commodore Music Shop, Time Square Records, Record Mart, Disc-O-Mat, Crazy Eddie’s, Record Explosion, to Midnight Records, Venus Records, Rocks in Your Head, 99 Record, Other Music, Pantasia, and many more.
We loved our amazing Williamsburg store, but thousands of gigs and vinyl sales later, we couldn't resist the opportunity to move over to Manhattan, downsizing on scale but upsizing on ambition and reach...
The new store will be typical Rough Trade, focusing on new and limited edition vinyl, with our staff on hand to share their passion for music. Despite having a smaller footprint compared to our giant Williamsburg store, the amount of vinyl to browse in our new store will be similar, so Rough Trade NYC will continue to offer what we strive to make the finest curated selection of vinyl in the city.
When it comes to events, we'll be hosting more 'artist signing' events than you can shake a stick at, and in addition, we're super excited at becoming Rockefeller Center’s latest programming partner, staging live events at the iconic (65th floor!) Rainbow Room and outdoors in the world-famous Plaza, showcasing exciting new talent as well as more familiar legends, in what are two remarkable locations.
We hugely appreciate the patience shown by our New York customers since bidding farewell to our Williamsburg store, back in March. We very much hope this brave, bold and exciting new adventure will be worth the brief wait, and we look forward to sharing more details (inc. exclusive releases, merch, giveaways, etc) with you in coming weeks, leading up to the store opening, June 1st. If you haven't already, be sure to sign-up to our Rough Trade USA newsletter and follow our New York store Instagram to receive the latest info and not miss out)...
See you soon, Rough Trade
PS - yes, this means we'll be open for Record Store Day...