Nostalgia Break: R.I.P. Tower Records

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Though it was a chain store, the now-shuttered East Village/Noho Tower Records had a lot of fans. Their fond remembrances of pre-MP3 shopping trips were stirred up yesterday when we broke the news that the currently empty space on East 4th Street that had housed Tower will soon reopen as a Toys "R" Us. Jeremiah of Jeremiah's Vanishing New York states what many seem to be thinking when he writes, "I feel a bit of ambivalence memorializing a chain store here, but Tower was sort of special." The arrival of Toys "R" Us is yet another indication of just how drastically the East Village has changed in the past two decades—a transformation that people aren't too happy about.
· East Village Decline Update: Toys R In at Tower Records Space [Curbed]
· Tower Records: Vanished [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]
· Toys "R" Us Popping Up In Old Tower Records Space [Racked]
· Storecasting: Village Tower Space Getting Toys "R" Us-ified? [Racked]

"If you have to ask what's so different between Tower Records or a Toys R' Us, you probably shouldn't be living here."

"This is wrong on so many levels...I think I spent at least 14% of my teen years sifting through the records there, and now instead of walking past in a dreamy state of nostalgia, I'm going to have to duck and dodge a fleet of Bugaboos. Sick, just plain sick."

"I think we're all in agreement, without my adding yet another adjective. R.I.P. NYC- 'they' won."