J&R
Downtown NYC Since 1971
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| Private | |
| Fate | Reopened as "J&R Express" and later closed |
| Founded | 1971 |
| Founders |
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| Defunct | April 9, 2014 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York |
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Number of locations
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2 (April 2014; at time of main store closing) |
| Products | Retail - Electronics |
| Website | Archive of jr.com at the Wayback Machine (archive index) |
J&R was an online electronics and music retailer, based in New York City. It had a well-known retail location on Park Row, across from New York City Hall for 43 years. J&R stands for the founders Joe and Rachelle Friedman who established the company in 1971 after emigrating separately from Israel as young children. The heavily trafficked store had expanded from selling LPs to eventually encompassing J&R Music World and J&R Computer World, selling everything from Blu-ray Disc players to the latest electronic gadgets.
J&R also had a location at Columbia University, which closed in the fall of 2002. J&R later opened a J&R Express at the bottom level of Macy's Herald Square in 2006, and which was later closed in 2012.
The company briefly operated a store under the name "J&R Express", which opened in the New York City flagship location of Century 21 in November 2014. Sometime between May and June 2016, J&R ceased their business relationship with Century with J&R Express being last recorded on the Century 21 website in an Internet Archive snapshot of March 14 and in the snapshot of the J&R website of May 5. By June 2, all mentions of J&R Express had been removed from both websites.
According to the Internet Archive, the jr.com website was taken down sometime between January 5 and January 17, 2017, when Network Solutions regained control of the website for resale.
In 1971, 20-year-old newlyweds Joseph and Rachelle Friedman started J&R as a small consumer electronics store selling stereos and television sets in a 500 square foot store front at 33 Park Row The couple saw it as a side project, selling TVs and stereos out of a 500 square foot store, as Rachelle studied at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn.
After customers started to ask about obtaining music to play on their new stereos, J&R started to carry records and tapes. Computers, digital accessories and other electronics products followed. As it grew, J&R expanded into a series of adjacent storefronts on Park Row, so that the store stretched for a nearly a full block by the mid-1990's, with each storefront providing entry to a different department. The large overall store was increasingly successful and crowded with customers.
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Wikipedia