There's nothing like the sound of a record or the feel of a good book in your hands. But in today's world of digital media, people can lose touch with the physical - literally. Luckily, Sweet Side Records and The Rock Hill Bookhouse have you covered.
Photo: Nicholas Chowske
“Everything’s digital - everything’s on your tablet or on your hard drive,” says Ed Martuscello, who co-owns the new Curran Street shop with Matt Funiciello, and runs the music side of things. “There’s something about the physical that’s never going to go away,” he says. “It’s not just like bringing it up on YouTube; you have to do the hunting and the digging, and it just opens you up to all kinds of stuff. That’s the beauty of it.”
Vinyl records, and their enthusiasts, have enjoyed a comeback in popularity in recent years. “About five years after I started picking them up, it became a lot more in vogue,” Martuscello says. “There’s a lot of people that never got rid of their records, and they’ve always listened to them, but then it had this resurgence, and now it’s even cool with teenagers.”
Photo: Nicholas Chowske
While used records and books may be a niche market, there is certainly a demand for them. “I’ve got no shortage of customers,” says Martuscello, who’s had people from as far as Brooklyn seek him out. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not on the main drag, the collectors are going to find your shop.”
“Ed is really the core of the store,” says Funiciello, who also owns the Rock Hill Bakehouse and Cafe in the same building. “The audiophiles are in and out of there daily, and anytime he brings in a new selection they’re definitely checking it all out.”
Martuscello, who’s originally from Amsterdam, began collecting and selling records online and in local coffee shops in the Capital Region more than a decade ago. He first met Funiciello in 2015, when he and his wife moved to Glens Falls, and he was looking for a place to sell his records locally. “I called him out of the blue, and asked if I could put my records in his bakery,” Martuscello says. “He gave me space for eight or 10 crates of records, and it went well.” Martuscello, who was content with his online and cafe business, never intended to open his own shop. “Matt had mentioned maybe one day opening up a record store, and I was like, absolutely not,” he says. “The overhead, being married to it, having to be there all the time - I just wasn’t interested,” That changed when Covid-19 hit.
Shortly before the pandemic, Funiciello had moved his bakery and cafe to a building behind the Shirt Factory. When a new space opened up in the same building, Funiciello approached Martuscello about sharing it. “He showed me this place and said he wanted to put books in there and asked if I would want to split the rent.” Martuscello says. “Matt told me way back that he always wanted to own a bookstore, and it kind of made sense at that point, because I had been buying records through the pandemic and was building up a bit of inventory.”
Ed Martuscello • Photo: Nicholas Chowske
In fact, Funiciello had been toying with the idea of opening a used bookstore for more than 20 years. “I love a great book, but I am not usually someone who goes back and rereads one, and I realized I was being a hoarder, and being greedy with them,” Funiciello says. “So, I started a lending-library at my cafe in the early 2000s, and I think we probably gave away several thousand books that way.” Despite this success, it wasn’t the bookstore that he wanted. But after seeing several local booksellers and even national chains fold, he decided he would need to take a different approach.
“I felt that I should think about opening a bookstore that isn’t dependent on the sale of books to be solvent, as strange as that sounds,” Funiciello says. “I watched what Ed was doing, and I realized that if we partnered together, it was unlikely that the bookstore would ever be something that made me money, but it could be something that didn’t lose me any.”
While this business model may seem outlandish to some, it has given Funiciello the opportunity to achieve his goal of helping to build a cultural hub on the east side of town. “I could still get to have this addition to this new East Side Downtown that would be a draw for people who love art and literature and music, and it would be a great companion for the cafe, the Shirt Factory and the bike trail,” he says.
Photo: Nicholas Chowske
Records and books aren’t the only thing the pair are breathing new life into - they’ve also managed to rehabilitate one of the Shirt Factory’s old buildings that originally housed the maintenance crew. “We probably only spent about five grand renovating - it was just a ton of labor,” Funiciello says. “I love that we came up with innovative and affordable solutions to every problem that we encountered in that space, so that we were working within a very working-class and reasonable budget to make this happen.”
“I love where we are in East Glens Falls, and I’d rather be here than on the main drag any day of the week,” Martuscello says. “Even if people come in and don’t buy anything, just to come in and walk around and browse, and see that they enjoy that - that is worth something in itself to me.”
Photo: Nicholas Chowske
What began as a hobby for Martuscello a decade ago, has blossomed into a lucrative business that has both enabled his partner to realize his own vision and help to revitalize a part of Glens Falls. “Ed dropped into our laps, and I’ve watched him go from having a couple of crates of records at the bakery in South Glens Falls, to us opening this brick and mortar together,” Funiciello says.
“It’s so funny how it was the furthest thing from my mind, and that’s what ended up happening,” Martuscello says. “It’s crazy - I walk in here every day, and I want to pinch myself - I own a freakin’ record store!”
