After operating a store on the Sixth Avenue side of Rockefeller Center for just over four years, Rough Trade is now opening a second location in the complex, the retail chain announced Thursday (Jan. 23).
While the smaller existing store at street level will now be known as Rough Trade Above, and will expand its focus on new vinyl, the new location will cover 4,000 square meters and offer “a large selection of artist/band merch, audio hardware” incl. turntables and Bluetooth speakers, large selections of new and used CDs and vinyl records, plus movies, collectables and more.
As it will be housed in the below-street-level retail space that connects the world-famous Rockefeller Center to the B/D/F/M subway station, the new store will be known as Rough Trade Below. Like the high-traffic Sixth Avenue location that passes by the store, located between 49th and 50th Streets in Manhattan, the concourse has a constant flow of people from the subway. Also, the retail, also known as Under 30 Rock, draws office workers from the surrounding office buildings. In all, the Rockefeller Center complex — home to the annual televised Christmas tree lighting that draws heavy foot traffic during the year-end holidays — enjoys 35 million visitors a year, according to Rough Trade.
Rough Trade has yet to reveal a grand opening date for the new store, but says it will open sometime this spring, with the company likely aiming for an opening before Record Store Day in April.
“We are extremely excited to be opening Rough Trade Below this spring, helping us to further meet the huge demand from music lovers across the five boroughs and beyond,” Rough Trade co-owner Stephen Godfroy said in a statement. “Fortunately, creating a focus for counterculture in Midtown Manhattan has proven to be a wildly successful move, and we look forward to creating an even stronger creative community as the year progresses.”
One way Rough Trade hopes to do that is by bringing its famous performances back into the store thanks to the new location’s larger footprint. While the smaller 6th Avenue store has hosted acoustic sets — Green Day, for one — and in-store signings, the new store will be able to handle a larger capacity for performances and intends to bring in household names together with under-the-radar bands across all genres, the company says. Other artists who have held events at the 6th Avenue store include Coldplay, Charlie XCX and De La Soul, among others.
“It’s clear that the Rough Trade ethos – to narrow the gap between artist and audience – has struck a huge chord here in New York,” added Godfroy. “Creating an even bigger mecca for the music lover is an exciting prospect, especially for our intimate live events where the world’s most exciting artists perform in-store for access to purchase their new albums.”
In-store performances were an exciting element of the original New York Rough Trade store, which opened in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood in 2013 and will close in 2021. The store, housed in a 10,000-square-foot space, was split roughly equally between retail space and the club, with the latter hosting live concerts but also doubling as an in-store performance space, albeit in another space separate from the retail section of a wall.
The new store will have a performance space right in the store next to CD and vinyl racks on rollers which, when moved aside, allow for greater occupancy. According to Godfroy — who responded in an email — the setup will accommodate more “intimacy and magic” in the stores and “make performances even more unique, memorable and special for artists and fans alike.”
The aim, adds Godfroy, is to “replicate the successful model of our UK flagship, Rough Trade East,” in London.
Since moving to Rockefeller Center, Rough Trade has continued to curate public live events, including its annual iNDIEPLAZA music festival and a quarterly concert series in the complex’s Rainbow Room. The Rough Trade presence has helped Rockefeller Center’s management company, Tishman Speyer, revitalize the complex, allowing it to remain “a dynamic destination” for New Yorkers and visitors, according to EB KellyTishman Speyer’s senior MD and head of Rockefeller Center.
“We are thrilled to have Rough Trade expand to another location on campus, joining our Under 30 Rock collection of stores,” continued Kelly. “In just three years, the store has become one of Manhattan’s cultural touchstones and a pillar in Rockefeller Center’s dynamic transformation. New Yorkers have shown us how much they love the experience of the current store on Sixth Avenue, and the new space in our vibrant Under 30 Rock community will allow even more people to enjoy the musical flavors of this legendary store. “
The new Rockefeller Center location expands Rough Trade’s retail footprint to ten stores – seven in the UK (of which four are in London, along with outlets in Bristol, Nottingham and Liverpool); one in Berlin; and now two in New York.