NYC's Last Classical Sheet Music Store To Close
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- It's a sad time for classical music lovers. New York City's last classical sheet music store is closing for good Friday.
Frank Music Company says poor sales due to scores being readily available online are to blame.
The retail store on West 54th Street, which opened in 1937, has supplied generations of instrumentalists, singers and composers with classical sheet music.
NYC's Last Classical Sheet Music Store To Close
Owner Heidi Rogers told The Wall Street Journal the number of customers she sees per day has dwindled from a high of 20 to two or three.
"They're voting with their dollars or their lack of dollars, and the only thing I wish is that Amazon would go bust," Rogers told 1010 WINS' Al Jones.
One customer said Tuesday he will miss "getting and flicking through it and putting your hands on it."
Some of the store's celebrity customers included pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Pamela Frank.
Its stock of hundreds of thousands of scores has been purchased by an anonymous donor as a gift for the Colburn School music conservatory in Los Angeles.
"They are my heroes," Rogers said. "I love them."
Rogers, a lifelong Manhattan resident, will head to the Catskills to raise chickens.
"I'm not going to miss the No. 1 train at rush hour, let's put it that way," she said.
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