Victims of the Digital Age

During my Thanksgiving trip two store closings caught my eye.

• The Tower Records just near Lincoln Center in New York has a going out of business sale. I used to kill time there before going to a concert or an opera. In fact all the Tower Records are closing down.
• The small Millburn Camera Shop in New Jersey is no longer.

Both of these stores just couldn't keep up with the world of the Internet. Tower Records made their mark by having an amazing collection, one of the best collection of classical in the country in their Lincoln Center store. But their collection cannot compete with online stores like Amazon, Walmart beats them in price on the popular CDs, not to mention the convenience of music downloads, both legal and illegal.

The Millburn Camera Shop supported the amateur photographer with products, advice and specialized film developing and printing services. In high school I set up a darkroom in my basement with equipment from the store and bought my Black and White film in bulk from them. But as today's amateurs now have mostly gone digital, software replaces most of the equipment and developing. Bulk film comes in the form of a tiny media card. And so the friendly neighborhood camera shop disappears.

It has become much easier to access music and to take and process pictures than it ever has in the past. But I will miss the days of browsing music and developing pictures.

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