Bad news for fans of iconic Los Angeles retail locations/cultural hubs: The Sunset Boulevard location of record store chain Amoeba Music will not survive the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with The Wrap reporting that the owners have decided to focus their efforts on making sure the new Amoeba location on Hollywood Boulevard will be ready to open sooner rather than later. For those who haven’t followed the Amoeba drama, which most likely includes a lot people who don’t live in Los Angeles, the Sunset location’s building was sold to a developer in 2015 so it could be turned into a similarly iconic and culturally relevant “26-story complex” full of—just to take a wild guess—rich people. As a replacement, a new location on Hollywood Boulevard is being built, but the original plan was for the Sunset location to continue operating for a while until the new one was ready.
Now, because of the virus, the owners have essentially decided that it’s not worth it to try and figure out how and when the Sunset location could open again, so they’re just going to keep it shuttered and maybe open the new location early if possible. A statement on the Amoeba website explains some of this, saying that they had envisioned “so many events” to celebrate the Sunset location and to say goodbye, but now there are “too many mitigating circumstances that simply won’t allow for it.” The statement also grimly notes that if they don’t make sure the Hollywood boulevard store can open in the fall, Amoeba may “never open again anywhere.”
Amoeba is still accepting donations to help employees at its remaining locations across California, as we wrote about last week, but the call to “Save Amoeba Music” has failed—at least in terms of this one location.