PHOTOS: Tower Records Site Through the Years

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After Muntz’s car stereo center closed and demolished in 1970, Tower Records was built, and, according to the 1974 Guinness Book of World Records, was the largest record store in the world. Celebrity sightings were common, and, as you’ll see below, the building more than kept up with a surge of prolific advertising along the Strip in the 1970s. (Photo by Robert Landau/From the book “Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip”)
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(Photo by Robert Landau/From the book “Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip”)
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(Photo by Robert Landau/From the book “Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip”)
Tower-Records-Landau
(Photo by Robert Landau/From the book “Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip”)

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In 2006, the Tower chain declared bankruptcy and the Tower Sunset location closed.

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Click below to see the site as a “Wonder Emporium.”

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Brad Bunnin
Brad Bunnin
2 years ago

My dad worked at the Muntz store on Sunset. We were a Chicago car family (Chrysler Plymouth on Ogden Avenue) until we moved to L.A. in 1950. Earl Muntz was a good guy to work for, because he was seldom in the store.The cars were . . . unusual. Maybe that’s why they didn’t sell well. My family ultimately became Chevrolet dealers in Culver City.

Gary Helsinger
Gary Helsinger
3 years ago

Your photo of the Madman Muntz store is not the one that was at the location at 8801 Sunset. I worked at Tower in 1987. Here’s my post on our FB group with Ed Ruscha’s photos of the Muntz building https://www.facebook.com/groups/10164619257/permalink/10159174145049258/ You can find pics of every single building on the entire strip from 1966-2007 online detailing Ed Rusha’s 12 Sunsets project. https://12sunsets.getty.edu/map/1985?d=0.42256 The Muntz building was originally built as a free standing model of one apt unit in the Shorehman Apt being built a half block up on Horn Ave. Muntz took over that building and used the original… Read more »

georgevreelandhill2010
10 years ago

It was THE place for the music scene in Los Angeles.

George Vreeland Hill

joe cholik
joe cholik
3 years ago

When I was there, 60s…it was Wallack’s Music City(Sunset and Vine) that was the center of the music world in LA

shoreham-6
shoreham-6
10 years ago

The presence of a 2000s-era Lexus in the Muntz shot makes it obvious that’s not the site in the 1960s. Your photo is of the Muntz facility in Ventura, CA (at 2834 E Main St).

Staff Report
10 years ago
Reply to  shoreham-6

The photo caption does not say that it was taken in the 1960s.

Don C
Don C
11 years ago

As permanent as anything else in L.A.

Matto
11 years ago

Wow…I remember standing in line for hours to meet Oingo Boingo at their final meet-n-greet there. Drove all the way from Bakersfield.