The two turntables by the front counter tell you what kind of shop this is. Nobody's rushing you off with a jacket held up at arm's length. You pull a record, hand it to whoever's behind the counter, and it goes on the platter right there. Academy Records has been doing this on East 12th Street since 2001, and the habit of listening before buying explains everything else about the place: it trusts the ear over the sleeve.
Karpo can tell you today's likely hours for Academy Records and flag whether the East Village shop or its Brooklyn sister makes more sense for what you're after tonight.
Two turntables, and the reason they matter
Used vinyl is a trust exercise. A sleeve graded 'VG+' can still crackle or skip, and a shop that only sells by eye is asking you to gamble. Academy Records removes the gamble with a pair of listening stations set into the front of the store, where customers can drop a needle on anything before it leaves in a bag. In a shop this dense with bins, that ten minutes of listening is worth more than any condition sticker.
Staff have reportedly allowed trade-ins if something sounds wrong once it's actually played at home on proper equipment, though that's a courtesy worth confirming with whoever rings you up rather than assuming as a blanket house policy. Either way, the culture of the place points the same direction: play it here, or ask before you leave, because the shop isn't precious about a sale once it's made.
Bins organized like a serious library, not a browsing lounge
This is not a shop for a quick flip through the new arrivals. The crates are divided tightly by genre — jazz, classical, soul, electronic, rock — and each section runs deep enough that a proper dig can easily eat an hour or more. New pressings and reissues sit alongside the used stock, but the used bins are the reason regulars keep coming back, and prices for that used vinyl skew mid-range, climbing for the rarer pressings.
The jazz section in particular carries a depth in South African and West African pressings that's harder to track down elsewhere in the city. Some of it surfaces in the visible bins; some of it doesn't, and it's worth asking staff directly if a specific pressing isn't where you'd expect. Given how stock composition shifts week to week depending on what's been bought in, that's also true for anyone chasing a specific rarity — call ahead rather than assume it'll be there.
Two decades on East 12th Street
Academy Records opened here on April 1, 2001, and more than two decades later it's still run by Mike Davis, which makes it one of the East Village's longer-running fixtures rather than a recent arrival chasing the neighborhood's vinyl revival. The compact, crate-dense storefront between First Avenue and Avenue A hasn't chased a retail makeover — photos from past anniversaries show light refreshes, like a freshly painted floor, rather than any wholesale redesign.
It has a sister store, Academy Record Annex, now at 242 Banker Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The two aren't identical — the Annex has its own character and its own stock — but they share ownership and a similar approach to genre-organized digging. Anyone splitting a day between boroughs might treat them as two stops on the same trip rather than duplicates of each other.
If you're the one selling, not buying
Academy buys used records for cash, whether it's a personal collection, a garage-sale lot, or something inherited that nobody in the family knows what to do with. For larger collections, the shop will travel within the tri-state area rather than asking someone to haul boxes into Manhattan themselves. Appointments usually aren't required for a walk-in sale, but calling or emailing ahead is recommended, and for a genuinely large collection it appears to get a more serious appraisal — staff can prepare in advance or arrange an offsite visit rather than working through it on the spot.
The buying isn't limited to records, either. Old T-shirts, posters, flyers, and music magazines all fall within what the shop will take off someone's hands. And for buyers building a collection rather than selling one, there's a bulk or wholesale discount structure on used vinyl, worth asking about directly if you're filling crates rather than shopping one record at a time.
The Verlaine archive, and what's worth confirming before you go
In 2026, Academy was involved in selling a portion of the late musician Tom Verlaine's personal record archive, with in-person sales handled at the Brooklyn location. It's the kind of detail that makes a shop's reputation, but it was tied to a specific event window, and there's no guarantee any of that archive is still available in-store. If that's the specific draw, confirm it's still on before making the trip.
The more everyday thing to confirm is simpler: hours. The store's own listings put it at 11am to 7pm daily, while some third-party sources list noon to 8pm. It's a small enough gap to matter if you're timing a visit around something else in the neighborhood, so a quick call to 212-780-9166 before heading over is the safer move.
A quiet block for a loud habit
East 12th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A is a residential stretch, lined with walk-up tenement buildings rather than storefronts stacked for foot traffic. The shop sits among a handful of other small independent businesses typical of this part of the East Village, and at night the block reads noticeably quieter and more residential than the busier bar strips a block or two over on Avenue A.
Tompkins Square Park and the wider Avenue A corridor anchor the neighborhood's nightlife and casual dining, so it's easy enough to pair a stop here with dinner or a drink nearby. The nearest subway is the L train to First Avenue, a short walk from the door, which makes the shop an easy add-on to an evening in the East Village rather than a destination requiring a special trip.
Practical notes
Academy Records is at 415 E 12th St, New York, NY 10009, between First Avenue and Avenue A in the East Village. Listed hours are 11am to 7pm daily, though some sources cite noon to 8pm, so calling 212-780-9166 ahead is worth it if timing matters. No reservation is needed to browse or buy. Selling a collection doesn't usually require an appointment either, but emailing or calling first is recommended, especially for larger lots. The nearest subway is the L train to First Avenue, a short walk away. Expect a small, crate-packed storefront rather than a spacious browsing space, and budget more time than you'd think for a proper dig through the genre-divided bins.
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Ask Karpo first
Not sure if today's the day the hours run to 7pm or 8pm, or whether the Verlaine archive stock is still around? Ask Karpo for today's confirmed hours at Academy Records and what's currently in the jazz bins before you make the trip.
