A Record Player in New York

I’m living in New York for the summer. I got an apartment on 66th in between 5th Avenue and Madison … the “Gold Coast” of the Upper East Side. I’m a few steps from Central Park, and it feels like a million miles from the chaos of Manhattan. I have a back patio with a spectacular view of The Pierre that I’ve dubbed my cigar hideout. It’s a remarkable amount of private space in a city where the average square foot is worth $1,700.

I have two floor-to-ceiling brick fireplaces, a piano (where I took my first self-taught lesson this morning), and a lovely view looking down on 66th. Additionally, I have a washer and dryer, the equivalent of which, in Atlanta, would be a private tennis court in your backyard. And I have a record player.

66th & 5th Ave

I have never listened to a record player. I have also never bought a record. I love thumbing through records when I come across them, but in my 45 years of listening to music, cassette tapes, CDs, and an iPhone have worked perfectly fine.

The only record I grew up with was Dad’s, “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye. There was something about that record that left an impression on me: the collar on his jacket, the curious yellow font … there was a melancholy to it.

The reason this particular record is embedded in my memory is because my mother, bless her heart, sold Dad’s ENTIRE record collection at a garage sale, unbeknownst to him, when they were newly married. It’s still a point of contention (albeit minor), for no other reason than I would love to have the collection, as would my fifteen-year-old daughter.

Anyway, as I write this from the comfort of my summer apartment, I’m listening to a David Bowie record – and I’m loving it.

I had my last meeting yesterday around one o’clock at 57th and 6th. Afterwards, I walked up 5th Avenue to my place, took off my jacket and tie, and changed into shorts and tennis shoes. I then walked to Strand Book Store at 12th and Broadway to pick up a copy of Robert Caro’s The Power Broker and Hunter Thompson’s Gonzo Papers Vol. 2.

Strand Book Store - 828 Broadway, NY, NY 10003

I got an original 1974 hardback of Caro’s book, complete with a brittle plastic cover that’s held together with scotch tape from the Gerald Ford years. It also possesses that handsome old smell, sort of like my grandfather’s cologne - a mix of pipe tobacco, scotch, and drugstore aftershave, that books acquire after decades of aging on metal shelves in public libraries or, if they’re lucky, on wooden shelves in a private collection.

The damn thing weighs almost four pounds, which may not sound like a ton, but when it’s only supported by ten fingers and two wrists, all of which have spent a lifetime avoiding physical labor, it’s comically beastly.

Being a Friday afternoon in lower Manhattan, I followed the sounds of a jazz quartet to Washington Square Park, where I got a red, white, and blue popsicle, which, on a 94-degree day, was worth its weight in gold.

Homeless men were taking naps inside the fountain, policemen were sweating profusely, and the skateboarders had their shirts off. Everyone was suffering together, and though no one would say it, let alone act on it, the homeless guys had it figured out.

I walked a few blocks to Record Runner on Jones Street. If record shops could be dives, this would be one of them. It’s tiny, and the owner, who’s been there for 40 years and sits next to the front door, is the only person who can let you in. He’s a great guy. He helped me pick out a couple of Bowie records for Annabelle as I browsed through cardboard boxes of other people’s once prized possessions. To testify to his honest nature, he apologized when I said I’d take more than one record: “I wasn’t trying to sell you more than one, honestly.” Like I said, he’s a genuinely good man.

Record Runner - 5 Jones St, NY, NY 10014

Similar to antiquing, I see these records and think to myself that someone enthusiastically went to a record shop with this exact album in mind. They’d been obsessing over it for weeks, like any other music freak. They couldn’t wait to get back home and listen to it, maybe with friends at a cocktail party or by themselves on LSD with bulbous headphones. And now, all these years later, it’s in a Greenwich Village shop with thousands of others, each with its own story.

I like to believe they keep one another company and share stories of their lives in the middle of the night when the shop is locked up.

“I used to live in Leonard Bernstein’s place at the Dakota. I could write a book!”

“My owner was a depressed teenager who played me on repeat during the summer of ’78 when her parents were getting a divorce. She grew up to be a counselor and best-selling author.”

“I can top both of y’all… I was part of DJ’s collection. He packed us in milk crates while we traveled through every hip hop club in New York. I partied with the Sugarhill Gang and Basquiat.”

I took the West Fourth Street train back to my place after logging in another 20,000+ step day. After cooling down, I put one of the Bowie records on – and that is the reason why I’m writing this.

There is something comforting about listening to a record. First of all, it requires patience. You can’t flip from song to song, and I like that. You sort of have to listen to every song in its entirety. Time slows down a bit.

There’s also a uniquely mesmerizing aspect to watching the record slowly spin. It’s not in a hurry and I love it. 

These days, I’m a sucker for anything that slows life down. Be it reading a 1,336-page Caro book, watching a nine-inning baseball game on television, or listening to a record spin.