I'm not a New Yorker, but I remember record-hunting on my visits in the
'seventies and how great it was. So many places indeed. There was also a place on
(I think) 81st Street just west of Broadway that dealt in 78s. It was run by
Mr. and Mrs. Hirsch. I'm having a memory lapse and can't remember the store's
name ("The Opera Box"?), but they specialized in vocal 78s. Friends
(especially Andy Karzas from the early 'fifties onward) and I got some good things
there. They advertised and were nationally known; a friend of mine in Chicago
bought from them regularly through the mail.
Steve Smolian mentioned Ernie LeMire and his wife on 7th Avenue. Would that
have been the Seventh Avenue Record Exchange? I remember it, Ernie, and his
wife well. Steve also mentioned that his wife was "a real toughie." I was in
Ludus Tonalis (another neat place) in the mid-'70s after Ernie was murdered by a
robber. I asked about an out-of-print LP. They didn't have it. The clerk said
"have you asked The Spider Woman?" When I asked who that was, he said only
"Seventh Avenue." Not a nice thing to say to a stranger about the widow of a
murder victim I guess, but evidently Steve's opinion was widely shared.
Don Tait
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