The Record Store Day After: New York’s Iconic Bleecker Bob’s Closes
by Mitch Myers
What becomes of the vinyl faithful now that the Greenwich Village mainstay — in business since 1967 — has shut its doors?
File under: just another nail in the coffin.
Downtown New York City’s Bleecker Bob’s Golden Oldies Record Shop closed on Saturday, April 13 — just one week shy of Record Store Day. I didn’t get there before its unceremonious final hours, but I did stop by on Sunday, and, with the door unlocked, there was plenty of activity.
“Are you open?” I asked the guy inside.
“No, we closed yesterday,” he said. “But if you want to come in and browse and buy something, you can. I’m just busy taking care of things.”
As I examined the depleted bins of plasticware, a slow trickle of middle-aged men came into the dilapidated store asking the same thing and getting the same answer.
Bob’s “cleaner,” as it were, is Chris Wiedner, and he helped every person who walked in while struggling to tie up a multitude of loose ends and take care of his own personal business. Chris, along with John DeSalvo, JK Kitzer and a small cadre of others, have kept Bleecker Bob’s going since namesake Bleecker Bob Plotnik suffered a crippling aneurysm in 2001. Bleecker Bob and friend Broadway Al first opened Village Oldies Records in late 1967. They moved a few years later and then again, and by that third time, Broadway Al and Bleecker Bob had parted ways, and Bleecker Bob’s could be found in Greenwich Village on West 3rd Street between MacDougal and Sixth Avenue.