Downtown music and gadget store J&R Music and Computer World closed its doors on Wednesday for a renovation owners Joe and Rachelle Friedman hope will reinvent the store as an "unprecedented retailing concept and social mecca." The business, which opened as a basement record store in 1971, has grown to occupy a series of storefronts on Park Row between Ann and Beekman streets. While the store is purportedly closing for renovations, NYDN reports that some employees have been laid-off, and that J&R is seeking other retail partners to redevelop the site. "In order to facilitate this exciting new initiative," Joe and Rachelle Friedman write on the business's website, "the buildings that J&R occupies have to be totally reimagined and redeveloped."
A rendering of the future site imagines a portion of the triangular-shaped pedestal the retailer occupies as a glassy, modern structure. A spokesman for the Friedman's told the Times that the store aims to reopen in 2015, but a date has not been set. But fear not in these J&R-less months; in their physical absence, the electronics retailers will still sell products on their website and through Amazon.
· J&R shutting down New York City electronics store [NYDN]
· J&R Closes Manhattan Store for a Redesign [NYT]
· J&R Music and Computer World [official]
Loading comments...