NYC's Last Classical Sheet Music Store Shuts Its Doors
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - The last store dedicated to selling classical sheet music has closed its doors.
At the Frank Music Company, it was last call at the store that's a sheet music lover's delight.
"I think it's very sad," Juilliard School student Isabel Hong said, who was looking for a violin piece.
"I think it's totally tragic," longtime customer and violinist Laura St. John told WCBS 880's Peter Haskell.
Heidi Rogers bought the spot on West 54th Street 37 years ago, and now it is the last store in the city dedicated to selling classical sheet music.
She's a kind of encyclopedia of scores and songbooks, CBS2's Dick Brennan reported, and without so much as a card catalog, she knows where they are stored in the stacks.
"It's a very simple system. I can teach you in two days how to do this," she said.
But now, sheet music buyers are marching to a different tune. For generations, the Frank Music Company was the place to come for sheet music like Bach and Mozart. But now the business is changing.
"You're pretty invisible online unless you're Amazon," Rogers told WCBS 880's Peter Haskell.
"I think people are ordering online. I think people don't have time to go to the store," pianist and organist Daniel Kirkfoster said.
And the old sheet music store can no longer compete. Rogers had a grim answer when asked what was next for the business.
"There isn't any next. It's over," Rogers said.
But Rogers knows that downloading can't replace the feel of fingers flipping through songbooks. She also really wants to tell the next generation where to go.
"If they can't get it here, they'll get it somewhere else, if they want to pay for it. If they don't want to pay for it, I have nothing to say to them -- go to hell!" she laughed.
The Frank Music Company's collection was purchased and will go to a Los Angeles conservatory.
Juilliard's bookstore does have some sheet music on their shelves.