Legendary Sam Ash Music Store Closing After a Century of Harmonizing Manhattan’s Music

One of the last reminders of Midtown’s famed Music Row is about to play its final riff. Musicians across the city are in mourning at the news that the legendary Sam Ash Music retail store on W34th Street plans to close its doors after a century in business.

The professional instrument and equipment company, founded in 1924 and still operated by the Ash family four generations later, has posted signs announcing the location’s closure as well as advertised discounts on a multitude of items including guitars, drums, keyboards and sound equipment.

“Even though Sam Ash has become a national chain, its roots go back to the Manhattan Musical Instrument Mecca on the original 48th Street music store row. I’ll never forget visiting the original Sam Ash there on trips to NYC as a kid and I truly felt like I had died and gone to heaven,” said bass player Lorin Cohen. 

“If you have a Sam Ash [near you] and you love it, now’s the time to support it,” added fellow guitar retailer Baxter Clement of North Carolina’s Casino Guitars in a YouTube video.

The W34th Street location, which had once provided equipment to fabled New York hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan and even recently hosted rock n’ roll legend Ace Frehley for an album signing, has long held New York roots. Founder Sam Ash, born in Austria as Sam Ashkynase, emigrated to the United States in 1907 at the age of 10, hoping to make his way as a violinist. The musician settled in Brooklyn and founded the Sam Ash Orchestra, playing weddings and functions across the city.

It was during this time that Sam married a fellow immigrant, Rose Dinin, who “decided that a musician’s life was too precarious” and encouraged Sam to open his own retail shop. To do so, the couple made a significant financial bet — pawning off Rose’s engagement ring for $400 to raise the funds required to start the business. 

But by 1924, the couple had their very first Sam Ash music store in Brooklyn, living behind the business in a “crowded, three-room apartment” and working around the clock to keep things afloat amid the significant financial struggles of the Great Depression. To make ends meet, Sam continued performing violin with his orchestra on weekends as Rose minded the store — hosting a cadre of fellow musicians who would stop in to trade stories and tell jokes.

The Ash family created such a strong camaraderie among the artistic community that Sam’s son Jerry “thought they were relatives” and the group recommended the store to others seeking quality equipment at fair prices. Business grew, and even though both of Sam’s sons Jerry and Paul had to leave temporarily to serve in the military through World War II and the Korean War, they returned to help the business flourish into the 1950s.

The Ash family keenly followed industry trends, and, picking up on the new “rock n’ roll” sound of the 1950s, became the second retailer in the state to carry the Gibson Guitar line. Though Sam Ash passed away in 1956, his family pushed the business on, expanding to a larger location in Brooklyn and opening an outlet on Long Island in Hempstead.

Noticing that “their only real competition [was] coming from Manhattan’s music districts on Park Row and 48th Street,” the family expanded to open a location in the Theater District’s fabled Music Row. The popularity of the electric guitar only further amplified their success, said Jerry. “Our customer base was totally turned around — it was a totally different scene. We went from parents dragging their kids into the stores to pick out band instruments to kids dragging their parents into the stores to pick out guitars.”

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To survive the fiercely competitive Music Row landscape, the family employed a strategy of buying out their neighboring competitors — including the legendary Manny’s, where they acquired the store’s famous demo guitar played by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. The Ash family purchased the store in 1999 and retained much of Manny’s staff — many of whom traveled with them to W34th Street when the brand moved in 2012, said Sam’s grandson, the late Sammy Ash, as he was interviewed by Gibson Guitars on the legacy of the 34th store in July 2023. “A lot of the people who work in this store worked on 48th Street for years,” said Sammy, “so they know how to talk to people.” 

Hell’s Kitchen locals and Broadway professionals came to know and love the brand, too. “When I was studying Bass at Manhattan School of Music in the mid-to-late 90s,” said musician Mike Epperhart, “every week I would make the trip down to 48th Street. Rudy’s and Manny’s were the spots to check out all the cool instruments. Since this was before you could get any and every piece of sheet music online, hours were spent at Sam Ash and Colony flipping through all the music. Even though it moved, Sam Ash was the last reminder of a great scene for us up-and-coming musicians.”

Hell’s Kitchen fixtures like Sal Salomon remembered the store as a musical turning point, noting that it was a friend who worked at Sam Ash who bought him his first amplifier.

Known for their continual innovation — in addition to being on the cutting-edge of the music equipment industry, the brand was one of the first stores to sell Apple computers — the Ash family ushered the company into the 21st century with the help of their fourth generation of family members. Sam Ash, who grandson Sammy described as “a decent violinist and a great personality,” was inducted into Long Island Music Hall of fame in 2006.

The Manhattan store is one of at least 18 other locations set for closure, though the company has not as of publication made a formal announcement on the timeline and total number of store shutterings. W42ST has reached out for comment and will update if we hear back. When we popped by the store yesterday, a worker told us they would be closing the W34th Street location in 11 weeks, at the end of May.

“It has been quite a journey for the Ash Music family since that fateful day that Rose and Sam pawned that ring (she did get it back),” reads the family history on the brand’s website. “Though it has been a lifetime commitment, one that has left little time for anything else, the Ash family consider themselves lucky. As Jerry puts it: ‘I’ve never worked a day in my life. I’m in the music business.’” 

And those that know and love Manhattan’s only Sam Ash store consider themselves lucky too. Said Cohen: “I’ll miss knowing that there was at least some vestige on 34th Street of that golden bygone era of magical Manhattan music stores.”