Sam Ash to Leave Historic 48th Street Address

“Yes it’s official, we are moving,” said Sammy Ash on Tuesday, July 24th, just hours after news first broke that the Sam Ash Music Stores would be vacating the company’s flagship location(s) on 48th Street for new digs at 333 West 34th Street. “The parking lot, my drum store, my brass and wind store, everything is coming down some time in 2013 to make room for condos.”

The timeframe for the big move is still a little up in the air, though. “We can’t say when, exactly, because we don’t know when, right now,” Ash continued. “I can tell you that we are absolutely at 48th street through the holidays.

Sam Ash’s departure from 48th Street is yet another – though certainly the most significant in recent years – sign of changing times for the former “Music Row,” as it was once known. “It’s absolutely the end of an era,” Ash conceded. “48th Street had music stores for over 70 years. We remain a draw, Rudy’s [Rudy’s Music, with a location on West 48th Street] I think will do OK because he’s a destination store and he has customers who don’t go anywhere else. I don’t know what they’re planning for his part of the block, but his downtown store [on Broome St.] is one of the most beautiful guitar stores you’ll ever see, so I don’t think he’ll skip a beat.”

“Where we’re going is fantastic,” Sammy states. “I’m going to be half a block from the Lincoln tunnel, I’m right near Macy’s, right near the Javits Center, and Penn Station – traffic is great. The one bad thing you can say about 48th Street is that, since nobody lives in that neighborhood, once people leave their offices and go home, it’s dead. Also the new place will put our whole operation on one floor, plus everything will be brand new – new everything.”

While news of the move caught some a little off guard, Ash speaks with confidence of the industry’s – and his own operation’s – resilience and strength: “We are solid, we are strong, and we plan on taking advantage of some upcoming opportunities as they come along.”