Sam Ash, the iconic family-owned music store chain that attracted everyone from rock stars to wannabe guitar heroes, has announced it will be closing all of its stores after 100 years in business.
Derek Ash, great-grandson of founders Sam and Rose Ash, said the company has struggled to attract customers to its 42 brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, including three in New York City. Ta.
“It’s very difficult to maintain a store with this much selection because there are so many choices,” said Derek Ash, the company’s chief marketing officer. told the New York Timesfirst reported the closure.
“A lot of that is due to the shift to online shopping.”
The Post has reached out to Derek Ash for comment.
Sam Ash, a professional musician born Sam Ashkinase, opened his first store in Brownsville, Brooklyn in 1924 after immigrating to the United States from Austria.
His wife pawned her engagement ring for $400 as a down payment on what would be her first store. According to the company’s website.
At the time, the store sold wind-up phonographs, as well as limited sheet music and some violins.
Quickly gaining a following, Sam Ash expanded to Long Island and Manhattan, and other outposts popped up across the country over the next few decades.
Luis Infantas, who worked as a manager at Sam Ash on 34th Street, told the Times that he had sold instruments to the likes of Stevie Wonder and the late “Sopranos” actor James Gandolfini.
Music fans mourned the loss of the facility.
“I would trade all 100 million songs from that pathetic AI to keep Sam Ashe’s job,” author Ted Gioia wrote on his X account.
Indie singer Kate Stanton writes that she bought her first microphone at a Sam Ash store in Cincinnati.
“I walked in with a million questions and left feeling like a ‘real’ singer,” she wrote to X, adding, “It was heartbreaking.”
The company currently operates stores in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Nevada.
Some stores are expected to close by the end of this month, and the rest by the end of July.
Sam Ash’s famous flagship store on West 48th Street closed in 2012.
At one point, there were about 30 music stores and music-related businesses on West 48th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues.
Sam Ash himself owned six stores there.
By 1990, Sam Ash boasted eight stores in the New York metropolitan area alone, and later expanded across the country.
