Help me plan my week in Philadelphia/New York

south street has a bunch of cool record stores.

^^philly^^

i'd also like to find a few record stores with good used selections, but i'm assuming south street has most of that. just curious if anything in particular is better than most.

oh yeah, and the same goes for new york city.

check out AKA Music, near 2nd & Market

go to a club with a good dj

if you wanna dance, 700 Club on Thursday evenings @ midnight

South Street really isn't that great.
It has a bit of a fratty shopping district feel... I used to (recently) live around the corner from 5th & South.

Spaceboy Music is decent, it's on South. For used vinyl, check out Phila. Record Exchange, right near South on...6th? 7th? can't remember

If you like vegetarian Chinese food, Golden Empress ("Sam's") is decent, right next to Phila. Record Exchange.

WEDNESDAY 5/17
- driz horse @ khyber upstairs or julia factorial @ 700 club. both are excellent.
- make a rising, old time relijun @ circle of hope: http://upcoming.org/event/77555/
- krass brothers @ standard tap [excellent food!]
- shop @ aka music

THURSDAY 5/18
- nothing i know of right now. perhaps check out the marvelous?

on your way up to nyc you should stop over in princeton and shop at the princeton record exchange.

also, check philebrity.com for other late-night picks.

Personally I'm not a big fan
Some of my more "indie-pop" leaning friends like her, though

Thursday night @ 700 is usually a real dance party though

like i care what you think.

i will check all this out. thank you for the suggestions so far, everyone.

dammit! i missed them in portland, maine the other week as well.

i'm pretty sure we're getting a tram or something from 30th st to suburban (and then the broad st. line south to pattison to get to the stadium?), so that sounds perfect. that's good enough to know that there are options, i guess we'll just walk around the vicinity of suburban station and see what looks good?

minar palace [good indian]
sansom oyster house
nodding head
fado
good dog
pietro's brick oven pizza

Yeah, good store, without the indie attitude problem. Is there any used material there though?

Your AMTRAK ticket lets you take one of the commuter trains from 30th Street to one of the Center City stops (Suburban, Market East, Temple). You have to walk up a corridor, but there are 8 different lines that pass through there and you never have to wait long for the next one, and it's a 2-5 minute trip. If you are having lunch, instead of going to Suburban go to Market East, and then to the Reading Terminal Market (which is one block north of the Market East station). If it's dinner, go to Suburban Station and then walk south on 15th, 16th, or 17th. One option not mentioned is Pasion, on 15th near Walnut (three blocks south of Suburban Station). Relatively expensive nuevo latino, but very good. The block of Walnut between 16th and 17th has a bunch of good, also relatively expensive restaurants, including Bistro Perrier, Susanna Foo, Le Bec Fin. Cheap places -- Minar Palace is dirt cheap hole-in-the-wall Indian on Sansom just west of 16th. Nodding Head is also pretty good (and a brewpub) on Sansom between 15th and 16th. But there are tons of good places in that area, and also around Rittenhouse Square 18th and Walnut.

Then walk a couple blocks east to Broad Street and pick up the Orange Line to go down to the stadium.

since when did this thread turn into chowhound?

YEAH, THESE R THE BEST!
Fu-Wah @ Baltimore and... 46th??

http://dumpstaplayers.org/show.html

here's a slice of nyc record shops i recently compiled for elsewhere:

lower east side:
--Gimme Gimme Records: 5th street between 1st and 2nd aves. only open
thursday night, friday from afternoon on and saturday and sunday,
usually until 10pm or even later. only vinyl, good for most
everything, except only a small reggae collection.

--A1 Records: 6th street between 1st ave and avenue A. only vinyl,
good for soul, house, hip hop, jazz and some international stuff.

--Temple Records: avenue B between 2nd and 3rd streets. I'm not
actually sure if this place still exists. it's an electronic shop
owned by Khan.

--The Cake Shop: ludlow between rivington and stanton (below houston).
mostly vinyl. a wide mix of everything. pretty new. also serves good
pastries supposedly. and I think there's some deal about buying a
record and getting a free beer.

--Etherea: avenue A between 4th and 5th streets. mostly electronic,
and usually not very good.

the village:
--Mondo Kim's: 8th street right at st mark's square. vinyl section has
most of the reissues, but in their used section you can find some of
the original items.

--Other Music: 4th street between broadway and lafayette. their used
vinyl section (just to the right as you walk in) has a lot of nice
collectors items from the 60s. it's a small section, though, which
tends to get picked over and refilled pretty fast; but good.

--Generation Records: thompson street just below washington square
park. used to be good, but everytime I go back in it gets worse and
worse. not sure if there is really much left there now.

--Rocks In Your Head: prince street between west broadway and
thompson. this place was legendary for a while, but
now overpriced. they are in the process of moving to brooklyn, so I'm
not sure if this location is still open.

--Subterranean Records: just across 6th ave from 4th street (not so
easy to locate:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=5+cornelia+st,+nyc&om=1 ).

north brooklyn (greenpoint/williamsburg):
--Rocks In Your Head is moving to north 5th street and Roebling (a
couple of blocks from bedford ave, which is the main drag in that
neighborhood).

--Academy Records: new place in williamsburg, supposed to be really
good according to some record collector friends of mine who target
many genres. north 6th street between berry and wyth.

--Earwax: north 5th street and bedford. not particularly great place.
but it's right in the same neighborhood as the previous two, and maybe
worth seeing.

--Eat Records: meserole & leonard (greenpoint). mixed bag of curated
vinyl stuff.

--The Thing: 1001 manhattan ave (greenpoint) just north of huron st.
this is the junk shop with the sign in front that says "dj heaven in
basement hell." it's a sight to see on its own. just the most vinyl
you'll ever see anywhere and everything is 2 dollars; you just have to
sift through things, you need at least an hour just to feel you've had
any time to browse, but to see the whole store you'd need a year.

Phila Record Exchange & Spaceboy Music. Everything else, meh. Make sure you visit AKA Music in Olde City and The Marvelous out in West Philly. Each store has its strengths and weaknesses. Then visit the Princeton Record Exchange.

princeton record exchange isn't so hot either. i thought it was incredibly overpriced. my expectations for record stores outside of urban centers is that they should be cheaper. it was more expensive than almost all the places i frequent in nyc and the stock was far inferior. plus then you're in princeton where there is apparently nothing to do, and most surprising (since it's a college town) i couldn't find any restaurants and i couldn't find a single grocery store. don't those students need to eat ever?

i couldn't find any restaurants

are you totally blind? there are no less than 3 places to eat per block on nassau street.

i couldn't find a single grocery store.

again, nassau street! open your eyes, man!

it was basically a cross between generation records and shrine (though even worse than shrine) and there's no good reason to jump on nj transit to go see that.

I was still confused by this (after receiving presumably the same auto-reply) even after seeing your message (and apparently not reading it very carefully). Only when I sent a response and got the same message back did it click.