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Sun, 14 Feb 1999 17:09:16 -0600 |
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Tower operates two big stores in Chicago. The North Clark Street store
seems to have the greatest depth with a classical section that is pretty
large. It is walled off and acoustically isolated from the blaring pop
music played in the rest of the store. The sales staff is generally
knowledgeable and can actually be rather helpful. The downtown Wabash
Street store (Previously Rose Records) has a full floor devoted to
classical. They have one or two reasonably knowledgeable sales staff
members, and a good selection of CDs. Both Tower stores maintain special
shelves that feature the most popular recordings currently being played on
the Chicago's fine arts station WFMT, as well as shelves featuring almost
every available recording by the C.S.O.
Border's operates a half-dozen stores in Chicago and the nearby suburbs.
All that I've visited have very limited selections of classical stuff
(maybe 10% of what Tower carries), and sales staff there usually don't even
know where the classical section is! Border's pricing is typically $1-$2
more than at Tower.
Virgin opened a SuperStore on North Michigan Ave. a few months ago.
Haven't gotten there yet, but hope to very soon. I also hope that the
pricing doesn't reflect the commercial real estate rates on Michigan Ave.
(probably the highest in the Chicago area).
Chicago also has a Crow's Nest store that has a classical selection that
may be a little larger than Borders. Possibly because Crow's Nest is in
the Chicago Music Mart at Chicago's downtown DePaul University campus, and
DePaul has a decent music school.
Nicholas J. Yasillo
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