Sam's Town

Goodbye, Sam. Today, the flagship Sam The Record Man store in Toronto closes the door for business 46 years after opening it's doors in 1961. I'll miss it. It's ironic that Canada Day is tomorrow and one of Canada's institutions will be gone by tomorrow. My earliest recollections of it were the mid to late 80's when I was in highschool and now I work right down the street from it. Other than the auction of Sam's memorabilia that happened this past Wednesday, Sam's seems to be going out with a whimper. I was there this morning and although I managed to pick up several things on the cheap, it was pretty much picked through. That said, why was the discount still only 50 % off? By the last day, I thought the discount might have increased to 75 % or more. No fancy speeches, no fanfare(at least this morning), just people digging through CD's trying to find a few gems and store employees acting relatively non-chalant about the whole thing. That one dude who's apparently been working there at least for the last 20 odd years - I wonder what he's feeling now. There were a few roaming television cameras asking people what they thought of the closing of the store and the general consensus was that it was the end of an era. But business is business. I'm happy that the the 15-metre spinning neon discs and the Sam's sign will remain due to Toronto city council approving the store and its signs with heritage designation. I'm wondering if new owners do move into the building, will they actually turn on the sign. Or will the city foot the electricity bill?

Unfortunately, my camera batteries died on me a few days ago and many of the things that I'd have wanted to take a photo of had been taken down over the last few days, but there's a wealth of evidence from other people on Flickr.

The Toronto Star encapsulates Sam The Record Man as what it was - a destination for music lovers.

The Toronto Star gets one Sam's employee's take on what it was like to work at the store.