Where This Hand Embroiderer Finds Rare Music on W. 18th St.

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New York City has more stores than anyone could physically tackle, but somehow we always keep returning to the usual suspects. To break out of the rut, we've asked some local shopping and fashion gurus to provide their hidden retail gems—those unique stores around our fantastic city that we might not all know about. Cue the Beatles: We're about to get a little help from our friends.

Image via Academy Records/Facebook

Richard Saja is an artist and designer who has studied textile design and the great books of western civilization. The two coalesced, and Historically Inaccurate Decorative Arts was born. Richard explains that he usually "interferes with toile" through embroidered embellishment, but occasionally feels the need to explore avenues of expression beyond that of the sewing needle. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Elle Decor, and ID magazine. In his spare time, Hhe's an avid music collector; here, he points us toward Academy Records & CDs, where the prices of discs have actually decreased.

As a hand embroiderer, I spend a lot of time listening to music while I work but I'm very particular in my tastes and admittedly have hoarder leanings. This being the case, I still scour record shops looking for rarities or to fill in gaps of my over-6,000 CD collection. Academy Records on 18th Street is consistently a treasure trove of the obscure, conventional, and everything in between, and never ceases to surprise. Where the digital age signaled a death knell for nearly all the great record shops in NYC, this spot continued to be one of the best and, additionally, has only become better as time goes on. Prices have actually decreased considerably and the catalog has grown as the demand for discs wanes and collectors weed their own collections.

· Academy Records & CDs [Official Site]
· Historically Inaccurate [Blogspot]
· All Shopping Confidential Posts [Racked NY]

Academy Records & CDs

12 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011