Paul Bass Photos
Matthew Hannon prepares a “Space Shuttle Enterprise” T-shirt for screen printing inside the old York Square.
Phil Cutler may be packing up the beloved record store his family has run for 64 years. That doesn’t mean he’s leaving Broadway.
Cutler (pictured at left) is just moving down the block — to help an old family friend and fellow merchant build a business of the future inside the shell of the old York Square Cinemas.
An outpouring of sadness-tinged nostalgia has swept longtime customers, near and far, since the news got out late Wednesday about the plan to close Cutler’s Records by the end of June. But Cutler’s not sad. He said the shop is closing at the “top of its game” amid changing times. And while recorded-music outlets may eventually go the way of vaudeville theaters and manual typewriters, the entrepreneurial spirit — evolving with the times — will continue to hum downtown. Handed down from one generation to the next.
“I’m overwhelmed” by the warm responses he has already received from near and far from loyal customers, Phil Cutler said Thursday morning as customers started streaming into his store to snatch up T‑shirts and CD and vinyl records as part of a 25 percent-off closeout sale. “I honestly didn’t know it would be like this.”
Then Cutler walked a few doors down the block, turned into an alley, and entered the former York Square Cinemas. The individual theaters are gone. In a now wide-open 15,000 square-foot space, 40 workers are designing and printing T‑shirts and other merchandise to ship around the world.
The unmarked space is the production back end of Campus Customs, a store fronting Broadway. Barry Cobden runs Campus Customs. He founded it three decades ago after working with the Cutler family over at the record store. (Barry was a teenaged DJ at the time he began working at Cutler’s.)
Four years ago Cobden expanded his business into the closed-down movie theater space, took advantage of web-based and global trade possibilities, and launched the custom design and printing business for universities, businesses, special-events promoters, and rock bands. (Read about that here.)
Cutler wasn’t just visiting the facility. He already works there. He will work there full-time once he closes the record store — “running production, and having fun.”
He will work for Cobden’s 38-year-old son Joel. Joel now runs the design and printing operation for his father, much the way Nat Cutler, who opened the family’s record store on Broadway in 1948, handed down the business to his son Jayson, who turned it over to son Phil.
At 53, Phil Cutler isn’t ready to retire. But he said he doesn’t mind the idea of going home at night without having to worry about the headaches of running a business.
“I love being on the block. I wanted another [location] where it wouldn’t be mine and I wouldn’t worry when I go to sleep,” Cutler said.
He said he’s lined up jobs for his Cutler’s employees at the Campus Customs facility.
“I’m 53. I’ve been doing this since I was 13,” he said of the record store. “It’s put a couple of shekels in my pocket. I’ve met thousands of people I consider my friends. Something in the stars told me it was time [to move on].
“I don’t want to be that aging NBA player who comes back for another five years. I want to go out with our reputation is still stellar. I wanted to go out at the top of my game.”
Cutler was asked why he didn’t sell the business (which rents from Yale’s University Properties).
“When your name’s on the building, if I sell it to Jimmy Smith and he kills the name — my grandfather would be turning over [in his grave].”
Cutler said the store still makes money. It has had to adapt first to the death of vinyl LPs, then the decline of CDs in the face of online music that doesn’t sell in stores. Customers stayed loyal.
A sample email Cutler received from a man in Florida Thursday offers a hint of why. It came from Carl Lender, who grew up here. “I am just devastated to hear this news,” Lender wrote. “I am a Cutlers Child! I have 14,500 records in my collection. I am proud to say I even paid for some of them! WPLR, Cutler’s and Toads Place together cultivated the most music aware town in the Country. You put your life into this and you were true to the music, always. If you asked a question about a record or an artist in Cutlers you were ALWAYS speaking to someone who knew more than you, no matter who you were. … Cutler’s will forever be a part of New Haven History and for anyone who ever cut a record part of American Music History.”
Looking into the future, Cutler said he believes music outlets like his may not make it as a genre. He does see a future for smaller niche stores for used vinyl records.
“When it comes to used,” he said, “you want to see it. One little scratch, you want to know what you’re getting.” You can’t inspect a used record on the internet.
One of his sentimental shoppers Wednesday morning echoed that idea — and added CDs into the mix. She said she prefers the tactile experience of leafing through racks of CDs or albums, inspecting the covers. (Click here to read Mark Alan Branch’s elegy to tactile music shopping.) Plus, she argued, the music sounds better than it does digital.
The shopper, Rebecca Barko, headed to Cutler’s as soon as she got the news of the impending closing. She snapped up Cutler’s T‑shirts for friends who no longer live in town. Then she headed for the racks for the music.
“This sucks,” she said. “This is an institution. It’s part of my history here.”
“I’m going to grab some music while I can. I think this is the beginning of the end for all record shops,” Barko said.
Maybe for record shops. Turntables may come and go. Movie theaters may come and go. Broadway will live on. With Phil Cutler helping to turn the engine.
