[Updated] Hospital Productions closes on East Third Street

Hospital Productions, the specialty record store that peddled black metal and noise music, has evidently closed up its shop at 60 E. Third St. between First Avenue and Second Avenue. Someone has cleaned out the store and there's that "for rent" sign in the middle of the front window...

I first noticed the sign when it was above the store last month.

Via email, I asked the Hospital folks on Nov. 15 if they were closing/moving. They told me they were "just working on a huge inventory project."

When I saw that the store was empty, I sent another email asking if they were moving or only selling items from their label online ... I received the following: "I am currently out of the office until 2012. Thank you for your patience."

UPDATED: East Village Radio provides more background and color on just how unique this store was...

Hospital was a store like no other in this city, selling a wide-range of fringe music and sound-art from a variety of genres. Established by Dominick Fernow as an extension of his tape label bearing the same name in 2006, Hospital’s early life as a retail outlet was spent in the basement of Jammyland—a record store specializing in dub and reggae. In those days, you’d walk down the aisle of Jammyland while the clerk eyed you suspiciously until you hit an almost totally vertical ladder to descend into Fernow’s foxhole filled with noise, black metal and experimental cassettes, LPs and CDs. Jammyland eventually left, and Hospital ascended from the basement and took over the ground level storefront at 60 East 3rd Street.