Located in the basement of a Chinatown building, this shop is notable both for its collection of records and tapes for sale—an eclectic mix of genres that includes avant jazz, psychedelia, and prog rock—and its roster of live shows.

Though other Greenwich Village record shops have shuttered their doors recently (RIP, Bleecker Bob’s), Generation Records has managed to hang on on Thompson Street. It’s the place to go if you’re looking for rock records of all stripes—punk, metal, classic rock, hardcore, you get the idea—and there’s a good selection of used LPs, too. The shop also hosts the occasional live performance and signing event; punk pioneer Richard Hell did an in-store event there last fall.

This location was once home to Good Records, which dealt largely in used vinyl. But that shop shut its doors in March, and a new shop called Stranded Records—the brick and mortar arm of Bay Area record label Superior Viaduct, which issues archival records from artists like Spacemen 3, the Mekons, and Alice Coltrane—opened in its place.

As the name suggests, this East Village shop is the place for gear heads—there are walls lined with record decks, speakers, and all of your other audiophile needs. It’s cultivated a reputation among DJs as the best spot for gear, but the record selection (which encompasses electronic, hip-hop, and rock music, with plenty of new releases in the mix) is pretty impressive, too.

You don’t need to be a serious vinyl obsessive to fit in at this East Village shop, which opened in the summer of 2017. The owners want to appeal to “new collector[s], music fans, and record enthusiasts,” according to its website. They specialize in a few genres—punk, indie, hip-hop, hardcore, and ’90s alt among them—and you’re likely to find both new and rare LPs among its stacks.

Aspiring DJs would do well to check out this Midtown mainstay, which has counted Kool Keith, Funkmaster Flex, and a slew of other legendary artists among its clientele. There’s a wide selection of new LPs—along with digital vinyl systems, if that’s what you’re looking for—and the shop offers classes for those who dream of becoming the next Diplo.

According to Racked, this Astoria record store—now approaching its fourth anniversary—“buys old records and sells both your favorite top 40 hits and alternative artists on vinyl.” Be sure to follow its Facebook page, where the shop occasionally announces special sales as well as live events in-store.

Got a day (or possibly longer) to spend digging through piles of vintage vinyl? Then head to The Thing, a thrift store that also has a massive selection of old LPs—though whether or not you’ll find anything of value depends on the day you go, and what owner Larry Fisher may have recently gotten in stock. This is the place to go if you value the hunt of record shopping more than the finds themselves.

The location of Academy Record Annex may have changed—it moved from Williamsburg to Greenpoint a few years back—but the store’s selection of used vinyl, spanning genres and decades, remains as delightfully eclectic as ever. The shop also has a buy back program if you have some old LPs to get off of your hands.

There may be a bevy of record stores in north Brooklyn these days, but Earwax was one of the first to claim a spot in the borough; it opened in the mini-mall on Bedford Avenue in the 1990s, and recently moved to a new spot on North 9th Street. Come for the expertly curated selection of records, and if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, ask—the store boasts that it’s staffed by “very knowledgeable music obsessives whose goal is to find and share the best music in the world.”

The team behind Co-op 87, which has been closed for some time, recently opened Brooklyn Record Exchange in Bushwick. It’s larger than Co-op’s old Greenpoint space, and sells new and used vinyl, and the shop was founded by some of the folks behind local label Mexican Summer, so the selection of LPs by NYC artists is on point.

There are new arrivals, rare finds, and plenty of used LPs on offer at this Bushwick shop, which opened in 2013. But what collectors love about the space is the unpretentious staff, and the large selection of cheap vinyl—you’ll find plenty of records under $5 here, and there are likely to be some truly quality picks in there, too.