3rd-ave-music-store-1-2010.JPG
Mazzotti Music, the guitar shop on 3rd Avenue between Carroll and President, closed a few days ago. It had been in business for five years. One of the people who worked there said they just weren’t making enough money. GMAP


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

  1. In 2005, when Rumbleseat Music left Brooklyn, 7th & 5th avenue storefronts were at their highest retail occupancy on record. At that time we found 284 3rd Ave, with a wonderful landlord, who gave us a great lease, reasonable rent and was a pleasure to work with.
    We may not have had all the accessories everyone wanted all the time, but hey, with the advent of GC down the street 6 months post our opening – there was absolutely no way we could compete at their level. Our wholesale cost was Literally what they were Retailing the same products for. It’s economics of bulk, they bought 100,000 of something, we bought 50 of the same thing. It’s not that complex, so add on top of that the worst recession we’ve seen since the great depression = we didn’t stand a chance.
    Small businesses get shut down everyday behind the same principle, and it’s too bad – as small as we were we still managed to employed 8 people.
    Thank you to all of those who did patronize us and we’ll miss you all as well. We did our best to remain competitive in this tough market, and ultimately we lost.

  2. slopefarm & geekspice, I have to disagree with you. Mazzotti’s wasn’t the place to find an encyclopedia of accessories. Sarah Michaels is simply a superlative guitar and amp tech, conscientious and communicative beyond what one is likely to find anywhere, especially in NYC (as was the chap who had been there for the past year or so (can’t recall his name), an escapee from Matt Umanov, Michaels’ polar opposite. Try dealing him HIM some time.)

    She/they did all my amps and guitars (actually stretching back to the Rumbleseat Music days) and that amounted to many, many repairs and set-ups that I was thrilled to have done by them. Try getting ANYTHING that requires experience and judgement done at GC!! : ) Sarah is like the mechanic you covet who you can drop your baby off and say “Fix it, whatever you think needs to be done, do it” and she’ll do you right. I also sold several guitars through them and bought a few as well.

    They had a legion of faithful. They just got creamed by the economy hit. Location? Sure. Off the beaten path a bit. Niche? Sure, but they were filling it. They just couldn’t carry the nut. Businesses are tanking right and left if the pockets aren’t deep enough to tread water until the economy picks up.

    To me and my friends they were a treasure and we’ll miss them.

  3. I am the landlord. There was no rent increase and I tried to help as best as I could ( let them out of the lease, etc…)…Hopefully we have a new tenant coming shortly which will be a deli ( milk,juice ,baked goods) and a small kitchen that will prepare sandwiches and breakfast stuff. The new owner was previously with bagels on 7th ave.
    We are doing our best to keep this store filled with mom and pop shops by local residents and owners.

  4. agreed with slopefarm – the target demo for this shop seemed too small to sustain them. my husband is a fairly serious guitarist, but every time he tried this place, they didn’t have what he needed. he ended up having to go to guitar center anyway.

  5. fsrq — tons of Slope kids play music. This shop was in a bad location and catered mostly to indy rock wannabee guitarists. Nice folks but narrow marketing. I could see a more ecumenical music shop doing well — more instrument variety, music lessons in the back, sheet music, accessories (stands, stools, etc), 5th Ave or lower 7th Ave location. With commercial rents high, the most successful brownstone Brooklyn stores usually manage to cater to several market segments at once. An active community would form around a good music shop.

1 2