Heidi Rogers, the affable owner of Frank Music Company, runs an old-fashioned shop. Classical musicians know that this is the best source for printed music and unparalleled knowledge about it, dispensed freely. Transactions here are recorded with pencil, there's no computer in sight--the only database is Heidi's brain, and she's pretty hard to stump--and there are signs posted to remind patrons of the cellphone ban. There are a few bins to browse through, but purchasing music here is like going to the pharmacy. You give your request at the counter, and Heidi retrieves what you seek from the towering rows of shelves behind.
Frank Music is also a source of something completely and unexpectedly down-home here in midtown Manhattan, just a few doors down from the address of legendary disco palace Studio 54: farm-fresh eggs. Heidi brings in eggs to sell at the shop, laid by the chickens she keeps at her weekend home. As she declares in this profile in the New York Times: "Why be in one dying profession when you can be in two: music dealer and farmer?" Just try to find such synergy with an online merchant!
I couldn't resist buying a dozen along with my scores, but these eggs are cash-only. Since I only had plastic in my wallet and couldn't produce the $5.50, Heidi let me take the eggs with an IOU. This touching gesture of trustworthiness, along with the friendly chat, made this seem like a journey back in time, when customer service wasn't an empty buzzword. Now that I have a new source for eggs, I'll be stopping by this NYC institution more often than my need for buying music dictates, and it will be a pleasure.
244-250 West 54th Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10019
Telephone: 212.582.1999
Store hours: Monday-Friday 11-5
