July 14th marked the 21st anniversary of the opening of Fat Beats‘ first NYC brick & mortar location in a downstairs basement on 9th Street (323 E. 9th St.).
In celebration of the anniversary, DJ Eclipse – former manager of Fat Beats – uploaded some rare footage of the basement store, circa 1996.
Here’s some old footage I came across of the basement store with some of the earliest staff. Ryan Sikorski, Neal Santos, Ricardo (who didn’t work there, but ended up co-founding the Amsterdam store with Ryan), Mark Kotlinski (88HipHop.com), DJ Hiro (R.I.P.) and some bonus footage of Mista Sinista (X-Men) practicing while Hiro observes. And even though the owner Joseph Abajian isn’t in this clip he represents with a phone call to the store at the end of the clip. It’s a cool look at what was out and what we were carrying back then as you see the titles of vinyl that lined the walls. Especially for those that never got a chance to make it to the OG location. The stores may all be gone, but the company still lives on.
The 9th street location would eventually become Bobbito Garcia‘s Footwork sneaker store – which sold Hip-Hop vinyl/12″, clothing (read: streetwear before it became streetwear) and of course, kicks – whether used or deadstock.
