What’s Made Record Runner a Village Gem

By Anthony J. Paradiso

GREENWICH VILLAGE NATIVE JOHN PITA among his vinyl records for sale (including many rare and collectables) at Record Runner — one of the handful of remaining vinyl shops in the Village (and NYC). Pita opened the shop in 1984, and it has become a destination for both vinyl enthusiasts, and collectors of rare albums. The store is gearing up for Record Store Day on April 20th. Photo by Bob Cooley.

There’s a gem of a record store called Record Runner located at 5 Jones Street between Bleecker and West 4th streets. The original store was opened on Cornelia Street in 1979 by John Pita. In 1984, Pita opened the second Record Runner location on Jones Street, which is the only one that exists today. Inside Record Runner’s front window, one can see The Free-Wheelin’ Bob Dylan record, the cover of which shows Dylan and his girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, walking down Jones Street.

When I called the store, Pita answered the phone and we had a long conversation about the store’s history. When asked about his inventory, Pita said: “I don’t think anybody in the city has a bigger collection of Madonna records, or Michael Jackson, or Duran Duran—all these kinds of more pop-oriented [artists]. We also carry unusual stuff and more common stuff like Taylor Swift.”

First, a bit of history. Young John Pita first became interested in music when he was a teenager and would climb a fence with his friend to play on the basketball courts that used to be at St. Luke’s School on Hudson Street. The gym teacher would chase them out but when Pita and his friend persisted, the teacher asked them to come inside and help coach basketball. In return, the teacher introduced Pita to music he hadn’t heard before and guided him to his first job in the record business.

“He’s the one who introduced me to a friend who was opening up a record store on Tenth Street called ‘Golden Disc.’ He suggested I go work there after school and that’s where it all began,” said Pita.

After Pita learned the tricks to the trade, he went to college for a bit and ended up working with the gym teacher, again. Eventually, he and the gym teacher opened Record Runner on Cornelia Street with a fresh vision for how to appeal to a new audience.

“Record Runner became known for new music at that time. We would get a lot of imports from the UK and we became pretty famous. A lot of the record companies would come to us to find out what was happening. They wanted to know about new bands… like The Cure, The Smiths and many bands where people didn’t know who they were,” Pita explained.

Speaking of bands, Pita recalled when three members of English pop rock band, Duran Duran, visited Record Runner in the 1980s. “It became a pretty well-known thing and very shortly after, the store was inundated with a lot of young girls who were coming in and buying everything we had on Duran Duran. This was completely different from our regular clientele. I knew this was something I needed to really key on if we were going to become the Duran Duran store. We became that store where you could comfortably ask for all those kinds of artists and we created a lot of fans for Duran Duran and other ’80s bands.”

From that point forward, Record Runner started doing “a lot of mail-order” across the country to help with a magazine called Star Hits that highlighted a lot of these bands. In addition to creating an inventory of records belonging to bands and artists who recorded in America, Pita also collected records and memorabilia belonging to artists who recorded specific albums in foreign countries.

“I would travel all over the world just to get stuff,” he said. “I would be in Europe; I would be in Japan bringing unusual things that you couldn’t find anywhere else. That’s what really made the store and we continued doing that. We don’t do it as much as we used to because the Internet has changed [the business] a lot.”

All in all, Record Runner has been in the business for 45 years because of Pita’s determination to find rare records and memorabilia that the public can’t find anywhere else.

Pita described how he’s persevered. “First of all, our landlord has a lot to do with it. He has been very fair. Then it’s been our ability to adapt to the changing times of music and also just the fact that we built such a reputation over all these years. We’ve made friends all over the globe. I have people who come in from South America, Argentina, Brazil, and a lot of stores that came here to buy stuff. Those friendships still exist and they still come.”

It’s difficult for record stores to compete with Amazon or eBay, but one thing that makes it easier is Record Store Day. According to recordstoreday.com, Record Store Day will be held on April 20 and is “a day for the people who make up the world of the record store—the staff, the customers and the artists—to come together and celebrate the unique culture of a record store…” Independent record stores benefit greatly from record companies making exclusive vinyl and CD releases.

If you have old records or memorabilia, Record Runner is interested in buying them from you. Be sure to remember a Village gem like Record Runner throughout the year.