By Friday afternoon, the second of three days during which the New York Public Library is unloading 22,000 vinyl LPs at Lincoln Center, there was no New Kids on the Block to be found — presumably, some eager wax collector jumped on that gem early. In fact, the majority of the remaining offerings were classical records.
According to a volunteer, the library had sold 16-17,000 records from its Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. “It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “For all the people who haven’t been able to find anything, that’s a lot of records sold.” Earlier today, one man bought 50 himself; yesterday’s high was 90 (that guy brought a pushcart to carry all his vinyl home).
Bedford + Bowery was on the scene for a couple of hours today, flipping through dusty dollar LPs with bewildering cover art, chronicling the mild-mannered mayhem, and wondering whether NYC’s vinyl marketplace is about to be flooded with obscure classical records.
Tomorrow is the sale’s last day; doors open at noon.