Meserole Street runs through a stretch of East Williamsburg that spent decades as loading docks and small manufacturing floors, the kind of block where trucks idled outside metal shutters and few pedestrians lingered after dark. That industrial grain hasn't disappeared — it's just been repurposed. Behind one of those shutters, a former warehouse floor now holds close to five thousand vinyl records, organized from two-dollar bins to wall-mounted collector pressings. This is Human Head Records, and it has spent over a decade turning found space in Bushwick into one of the city's larger independent record shops.
Karpo can check today's likely foot traffic for Human Head and point to what else on Meserole Street is open at the same hours, so a record run doesn't turn into a wasted trip.
A block that never fully stopped being industrial
The Bushwick and East Williamsburg border has always run on a mix of light manufacturing and whatever moved in around it. Warehouses and loading bays share blocks with bars, galleries and small studios, and Meserole Street sits squarely in that pattern — a corridor where metal shutters and roll-up doors are as common as storefront glass.
Nothing about the building's exterior announces a record shop in the way a boutique storefront might. It reads as one more industrial-residential address in a neighborhood that has spent the last fifteen years quietly filling its empty floors with small creative and retail businesses rather than knocking them down.
From a closet on Johnson Avenue to a warehouse floor
Human Head Records didn't start this big. It opened in 2013 a few blocks away on Johnson Avenue, in a space small enough that browsing meant standing shoulder to shoulder with whoever else was digging through the same crate. Co-owner Travis Klein and his partners built a following there on strength of selection rather than square footage.
In 2020, the shop moved into its current home on Meserole Street, a space of roughly five thousand square feet — large enough that it now ranks among the bigger independent record stores in New York. The move changed the physical experience of shopping there: instead of a cramped, closet-style room, the floor plan is open and warehouse-like, with room to actually spread out and work through a section without someone at your elbow.
Two-dollar bins near the door, four-figure pieces on the wall
The layout does most of the sorting for you. Just inside the entrance sit the low-cost bins, marked in the $2 to $6 range, packed with the bulk of the browsable stock across rock, soul, funk, punk, metal, hip-hop and techno. This is where casual visitors and budget-hunters should start — it's high-volume, low-stakes browsing, the kind where an afternoon can disappear without spending much.
The walls tell a different story. Pricier, rarer pressings are mounted there like framed pieces rather than filed in crates, reserved for collectors willing to pay more for condition or scarcity. It's worth treating the two zones as separate errands: dig the bins for volume, then check the walls if there's a specific splurge in mind. Dedicated crates of Brazilian 45s sit apart from the general stock too, reflecting a genre section that's deeper here than at most American shops.
Hearing a record before it's yours
One habit separates regulars from first-timers: using the counter turntable. Staff let customers test a record's condition before committing, which matters more the higher up the price scale you go — a $4 bin record is a low-risk gamble, but a wall-mounted pressing is not something to buy on faith.
The catch is timing. A counter turntable is a shared resource, and Bushwick shops draw crowds in the evenings and on weekends. Arriving early afternoon on a weekday gives the best odds of uninterrupted listening time, without queuing behind someone else's stack of maybes.
What the staff know that the bins don't show
Because Human Head also lists heavily on Discogs and eBay, some of the best or rarest finds get pulled for online sale before they ever reach the floor. That means what's browsable in person on a given day can differ meaningfully from what's listed online — the in-store stock and the internet listing aren't always the same inventory.
The workaround is simply to ask. Staff, including Klein himself, are regularly described as knowledgeable and willing to talk through recommendations rather than just ring up a sale. Asking for a genre-specific pull — Brazilian, psych, punk — can surface records that were never put out on the floor at all, which matters more here than in shops with thinner back stock.
A recognized shop, and one detail still worth confirming
In 2018, Human Head was named the best record store in New York in a national feature ranking fifty record stores across America — a reputation that predates the move to the current space and has followed the shop since. It's the kind of recognition that explains why crate-diggers from outside Bushwick make the trip rather than settling for something closer to home.
One thing to check before planning around it: a second, smaller Human Head location has recently appeared at 455 E 83rd St in Manhattan, based on the store's own social media listing. Whether that's a permanent second shop, a pop-up, or a satellite space isn't confirmed elsewhere, so it's worth verifying directly if a Manhattan visit is the plan rather than the Bushwick original.
Practical notes
Human Head Records is at 289 Meserole St, Brooklyn, in the Bushwick/East Williamsburg border area, reachable via nearby Brooklyn subway lines serving the neighborhood (confirm the closest station before setting out). Listed hours run roughly noon to 8pm, seven days a week, though it's worth double-checking for holiday or seasonal changes before a special trip. The shop takes credit cards, allows dogs, and has bike parking outside with street parking nearby. Expect a large, open floor with budget bins near the entrance and pricier wall-mounted pieces further in — bring cash or a card for either end of that range, and allow extra time if you want a turn at the counter turntable.
Tags: #VinylRecordStore #BushwickNYC #EastWilliamsburg #RecordShopping #UsedVinyl #BrooklynMusic #CrateDigging #IndieRecordStore #BrazilianVinyl #PsychRock #PunkRecords #NYCHiddenGems #MeseroleStreet #VinylCollectors
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Ask Karpo first
Wondering if a weekday afternoon will actually get you quiet time at the counter turntable, or whether Meserole Street has other stops worth folding into the same trip? Ask Karpo for today's likely quiet window at Human Head and a short list of what else nearby is open at the same hours.
