Next Up For the Vacated Tower Records Store on East 4th Street? A Tower Records-Themed Art Show!

​The vacated Tower Records store on East 4th Street has been a symbol of the decline and fall of music retailing in NYC since the day it closed, back in 2006. Since then the space has hosted flea markets, Halloween stores, and any number of other temporary enterprises. The store's newest tenant? No Longer Empty, a group of "arts advocates, curators and artists who orchestrate public art exhibitions in vacated storefronts and properties in New York City."

They're hosting the suitably named and exceedingly postmodern Never Can Say Goodbye, an art show cum performance series featuring Jason Farrell, Exene Cervenka, Arturo Vega and Dee Dee Ramone, Olaf Bruening, Marylin Minter and a host of others making art to "celebrate the store's historic role as the locus of the community-- the old way to meet people face to face and share music and information." Azita and Animal Hospital, among others, are set to perform. Confusing, but promising. The show opens tomorrow, and runs through February--no word yet as to whether they'll be stocking any of the old overpriced/then-steeply-discounted merchandise for which Tower was once famous. Or whether, for that matter, NLE will be able to re-engineer the store's signature odor of "molding plastic and record-collector folly." [No Longer Empty, via @maura]