Move to the Left

EXTENDED PLAY: "We have to be completists," says Mike Hoffman. "We have to have better selection and prices … to get people here."
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Another year, another address. But this time, says owner Mike Hoffman, A.K.A. Music is staying put.

by A.D. Amorosi

It's not necessarily true that every time you blink Mike Hoffman's A.K.A. Music sign moves farther north along Second Street, always behind another long, high window, inching closer to the Arden Theater.

"Just every once in a while," says Hoffman with a laugh.

He can chuckle now.

Hoffman's troubles — or those of his independently owned emporium of CD, vinyl and musical ephemera — have been long documented. "It's almost six years to today that we opened at the first location," says Hoffman. He had to move from A.K.A.'s initial address at 7 N. Second St. in May 2004 when the landlord's Book Trader had to vacate its home base on Fifth and South streets.

This left A.K.A. to relocate a few doors down to the Kaiser Newman building (21 N. Second St.) from his original home nearest the subway stop, where the shop remained until the end of March. "We've been through stress, financial and otherwise, throughout the last six years, the sort that would steel anyone's nerves," says Hoffman, a peaceful fellow despite his punk-rock pedigree of buying for the legendary Third Street Jazz record store. "But it must have been necessary, since now, we finally have a home — forever."

Forever because Hoffman bought the property formerly known as Center City Personnel, a building that went unused for eight years, leaving Hoffman to dispose of more than 190,000 pounds of office cubicles and other flotsam.

"I really did have my eye on this spot," says Hoffman. He saw the building's good bones, which he would then turn into a warehouse space with bare bricks and exposed piping, conduits and joists.

Though the property might not be stories tall, it has 18-foot ceilings and an additional 10 feet of mezzanine space. It is also long — 200 feet deep, 5,000 square feet total. The very idea of depth is also what made him want this location since, in Hoffman's opinion, previous spaces were too cramped to show off the catalog he finds crucial to A.K.A.'s rare success in a business facing downloads and iPods that kill music sales. Yes, they have great service and people who know everything concerning the wide genres of music they serve in this bilevel space.

"We have to be completists," Hoffman says. "We have to have better selection and prices than Tower [Records], easily $3 cheaper, to get people here."

Getting people here starts with the lighting: upside-down kettle drum lights known as high bays line the ceiling. When all are lit, A.K.A. has a bleached cleanliness in line with a meth lab's tweaker ambience. Longtime employee Zita Carroll, who finds the brightness disturbing, says, "a little darker and you'd get something moodier."

"Maybe if we build a waterfall," says Bryan Mickle, the store's used-record buyer, standing in front of an unused staircase's battered banister behind the sales counter.

"I wanted to give the place uniform brightness," says Hoffman, "so you notice us immediately from the street."

The better to see the center-aisle wooden racks of new CDs, fish-wire hung section markers, and the high expanse of pink and lemon-yellow walls upon entering. A wall housing publications, box sets, music DVDs, used and new CDS runs back until you hit a space with bricks and paneled walls that looks like a stoner's rec room fresh from Boogie Nights.

"We'll give you a free bong if you buy X amount of records," jokes Hoffman of the spot filled with A.K.A.'s vinyl stock and CD listening booths. Vinyl will soon move to the mezzanine, A.K.A.'s highlight. Whether you view it from below or along its second floor staring down, its white wooden slats forming shelves on both sides of a room with a cut-out center where the ceiling lifts another 10 feet is a spectacular sight.

The lacquered hardwood floor in the mezz's main space, with exposed brick walls and a black grate ceiling, opens up to the front expanse with a balcony of distressed walls along each side. Here, local and national bands will play in-store until Hoffman can move his vinyl onto this floor and turn the stoner space into a stage area.

"All that wood and brick, those exposed joists – that feeling speaks to record collecting, the warmth of vinyl," says Hoffman. "Whether we do our shows up there or sell records, that mezzanine has a separate feel. Either way, we'll grow our retail operation up there."

Vinyl may only be a minor part of A.K.A.'s operation — 5 to 8 percent of sales. Yet, for a music junkie like Hoffman, it's a necessity. "We want the music-head to be able to find everything they want," says Hoffman. "We just wanted a large enough space so to grow and show off what they need."

A.K.A. Music, 27 N. Second St., 215-922-3855.

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