Music Trade Review

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Columbia Music & Appliance Store
Has Modern Quarters in Rochester
Morris E. Silver, young Rochester,
N. Y. record retailer whose merchan-
dising feats have won him many an
accolade in the music trade, has sunk
$150,000 in a new retailing enterprise
as modern as electronics and the atomic
bomb.
A convenient self-service display rack
The result is the new, streamlined
Columbia Music and Appliance Store,
strategically situated at Clinton Ave-
nue South and Johnson Street in a
busy Rochester business section a few
doors from the old Clinton Avenue
South stand where Silver's Columbia
Music Store made its first success mer-
chandising records.
The new store is much larger than
the old, which occupied one floor. The
new quarters combine basement, street
floor and second floor, making a total
of about 9,200 square feet of floor
space.
Design and architecture have made
it possible for the store to sell itself
and its merchandise from the outside:
Its bright lighting is carried into 70
feet of corner window display space.
Combined with heavy, transparent,
glass doors, the roomy windows give
the passerby a full view of the inside
of the store.
sheet, music, intends to build up this
department in conjunction with a vig-
orous promotion on instruments. At
present the main emphasis is and con-
tinues to be on phonograph records.
Designed 1o Sell More Records
The new store is designed to sell
more records faster and with the ut-
most of convenience to the public. Fea-
turing numerous self-service displays
it also has 275 lineal feet of single
record stock for sales-person reference,
reputedly one of the largest in the
country and including virtually every
make of record on the market.
The single record cabinets are sit-
uated in the center of the store and
are flanked, with a salesman's aisle
between, by a specially constructed
counter fitted with six "listening posts,"
furnished with chairs.
The "listening posts" are one of the
great selling features of the store. They
consist of record reproducers wired to
single earphones through which the
sound of the record is amplified for the
listener. The customer alone hears the
To Add Pianos
Besides major and smaller appliances
and some of the musical instruments
he carried in pre-war days, Silver is
also adding pianos. He also carries
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW, JANUARY, 1946
music, and he can make it as loud or
as soft as he wants to.
Supplementing the listening posts
are eight half-glass, sound-proof booths
with built in reproduction equipment,
leatherette seats and mirrors. They
are occupied most of the time by avid
record fans.
Lighting throughout is indirect and
incandescent spotlighting.
Acoustically Planned
The ceiling is constructed of acoustic
plaster, which keeps the notes of
"Chickery Chick" and Schubert's "Ave
Maria" from bouncing off and beating
one another over the head.
Gordon Poole of Rochester designed
and manufactured the fixtures, which,
with wall trim, are prima vera with
dark borders. The ceiling is light, the
flooring tasteful, the whole effect
streamlined, convenient and modern in
appearance and operation. The store
front is chromium trimmed, but the
main effect is one of bright open-ness.
Frank Frey was the architect and
construction was done by the D'Amico
Construction Company.
To give the business added push,
Silver will greatly expand his local
advertising budget.
The new modern quarters of the Columbia Music 6 Appliance Co. In Rochester, N. Y.
21