An inside look at New York City’s best independent record stores

On the corner of Jamaica Avenue and 170^th Street in New York City’s Jamaica, Queens neighbourhood lies a record store with a humble, retro blue and yellow frontage. ​“VP Records: Miles Ahead in Reggae,” it reads. Named after its founders Vincent ​“Randy” Chin and Patricia ​“Miss Pat” Chin, the store was first opened by the pair in the Jamaica area in 1979 after they relocated from their home country of Jamaica.

Inside, reggae, dub, soca and dancehall records fill crates lined across the walls, sitting alongside flags featuring the Rastafarian red, green and yellow colours, t‑shirts, books on reggae and Jamaica (the country), and music photography. Yet the old school signage and relatively small interior belies a rich history, and continuing influence on the music industry. Today, VP Records is the world’s largest distributor of reggae and Caribbean music, as well as featuring a long running record label arm, with offices in several cities across the world including London, Miami, Tokyo, Johannesburg and of course, Kingston, Jamaica.

The Jamaica Avenue shop one of the oldest record stores featured in Vinyl NYC, a new book by husband-and-wife photography duo James T. and Karla L. Murray, with its text penned by music journalist Hattie Lindert. ​“When you think of Jamaica, Queens, you might actually think more of hip hop – it’s always been a melting pot,” says Karla. ​“VP Records is run by Miss Pat, who is a legend in that world, and it’s gorgeous. It’s a community centre – she holds record store events, block parties and has a foundation for kids that are interested in becoming musicians.”

• Read next: A visual history of reggae culture in the UK

The NYC staple is one of 33 and a third independent record stores featured in Vinyl NYC – the extra third referring to the Academy Records Annex in Greenpoint, Brooklyn – with the title paying homage to the revolutions per minute that LPs are usually spun at on record players. Taken across the five boroughs, the photographs feature vibrant photographs of store frontages, as well as zoomed in shots of their densely packed vinyl collections and idiosyncratic interior designs, printed alongside texts and interviews that contextualise their stories and histories.

It’s also a celebration of the diversity of independent record stores, and in turn, New York’s rich music culture. There’s Generation Records in Greenwich, which specialises in punk and metal, long running Latin music specialists Casa Amadeo in The Bronx, A‑1 in the Lower East Side for hip hop and jazz, and Chinatown’s Paradise of Replica, which offers up all manners of offbeat jazz, prog rock, and even East Asian rarities. Wrapped within the sleeves and etched into the grooves of the records are decades of NYC history and culture.

Karla and James are vinyl lovers themselves, and the book pays homage to the art of crate digging and a different, offline form of music discovery – away from algorithmised playlists and recommendations. ​“We enjoy the dig because you never know what you’re going to find,” explains James. ​“It’s the thrill of the hunt, finding that gem in the dollar bin. We listen to the records and in the dig you lose yourself and the outside world ceases to exist.”

• Read next: Documenting the vibrant frontages of New York’s last remaining ​‘mom-and-pop’ stores

For much of the 20^th century, vinyl was the dominant format for music, until CDs, cassettes, and eventually online streaming eventually supplanted it. The situation created a tough landscape for record sellers, and over the years several city staples have shuttered as business waned, rents rose, and margins shrunk. Creating the book was a way to archive the stores’ existences, while also celebrating their roles in local neighbourhoods.

“The whole project is about making people aware that if they’re into vinyl, they should go out and visit one of these amazing, independently owned shops and help support the vinyl community,” says Karla. ​“New York’s neighbourhoods are defined by its shops, and record stores in particular are like mini community centres – they are a great place to get away from life, listen to music and find out more about music that you maybe hadn’t heard before.”

Yet in the wake of the digital boom, recent years have seen a resurgence in the popularity of the format, with 2024 marking the 17^th consecutive year of vinyl sale growth, as consumer tastes are increasingly appreciating the value of owning and playing physical media. Karla and James describe the process as akin to a ​“tea ceremony” for appreciating music, with the act of carefully placing a needle down onto wax and letting it spin encouraging listeners to slow down and listen more deeply to the music.

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“Vinyl is definitely back, and when we first started documenting vinyl record stores, we thought that it was just people our age still collecting it,” says Karla. ​“But speaking to record store owners, now it’s a lot of young people. The future is obviously young people and it’s bringing in a new generation – in Generation Records they hire young people to work in the shop, and they can say ​‘this is cool’, or ​‘that is what’s cool now’.” 

In a world of perennially online youth, new research is finding that young people are spending less time online and on social media. According to the FT, time spent online has declined by 10% since 2022, and offline experiences – such as sitting down to put on a vinyl or digging in a record store – are forming an antidote to the infinite stream of content online.

“It’s exciting to see the appreciation of physical media. We still have film cameras, typewriters – we’re all about analogue,” James adds. ​“And just to see young people getting out from behind the computer and enjoying being in a shop with other like-minded people and enjoying holding the artwork in your hand, that’s great.”

• Read next: Coming of age in New York’s ​’70s punk heyday

Vinyl NYC: 33 1/3 of the Best Record Stores Across All Five Boroughs, photographs by James T. and Karla L. Murray, words by Hattie Lindert is published by Prestel.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

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