Some of you know that, along with local history, I love to write about music; specifically the songs that were the soundtrack of my younger days. When I was a teenager, in the late 1960s, I almost always had a radio glued to my ear. Casey Kasem’s American Top 40 was my favorite and I kept a running list of my favorite songs. Thankfully, working as a stock boy gave me pocket money to buy those records and the best place to do that in Fulton was Greco’s TV.

I’ve been thinking about Greco’s lately, mostly due to the fact that there aren’t many places to buy music anymore. And by music I mean vinyl records: the 45s, those single servings of the latest hits, and albums, long-playing disks the size of a large pizza and, to me, just as satisfying. Sure, I’ve heard that you can buy classic albums on vinyl again, but today most people get their music without purchasing something you can hold in your hand. We store songs on computers or phones or, heaven help us, in something called a cloud.

All this got me aching for the days when I could walk into Greco’s with a dollar in hand, humming my new favorite song. I remember thinking that at Greco’s my money was as good as my parents’ or my teachers’. It was the first place I was treated as an adult and to a kid, that’s pretty special.

One of the things I miss about Greco’s was the way their records were displayed. I wished I could see the store’s layout again and, thanks to Tom Greco, I can! Recently, I talked with Tom about his family’s store and, along with some great photos, he shared how Greco’s TV started—back before it sold TVs.

“When my father, Leo, opened the store on July 1, 1948, he called it Greco’s Radio and Record Center, Inc.,” Tom explained. “Dad first worked at Johnson’s Warehouse in Fulton, then served in the military in 1945 and ‘46. After selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, he met Morris Horowitz of Morris Distributing, which sold records and radios. Morris helped my father open the Fulton store.”

A few years later, TVs became affordable for the average family and Greco’s added them to its growing list of appliances and entertainment equipment. (They even sold toys, at one point.) “Television was new back then, “Tom said, “and most people in Fulton didn’t own one. One night, a big boxing match was going to be broadcast and my father set up a TV in our display window. By the time the fight started, a crowd was watching from outside our store.” 

I could picture that scene because I remember exactly where Greco’s store was located: 70 South First Street. After urban renewal, it moved to Cayuga Street, where Tom and his brother, Len, ran the store with Leo until it closed in1992. But Greco’s South First Street location is where I best remember it, probably because I went there so often.

I spent hours, and I mean hours, flipping through those 45s, weighing my options until I’d figured out which one deserved my dollar. I don’t ever remember the staff at Greco’s telling me to hurry along. They took customer satisfaction seriously. Let me explain.

Figuring out which record to buy was a challenge for me: Did I want the new Jackson Five record, the latest Beatles tune or Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”?  Those were tough decisions, but Greco’s was there to help. Just to the left of the cash register was a turntable; you know, the kind with an arm to move the needle where you wanted.

Greco’s offered the turntable as a service to us finicky listeners. You’d hand the record to the staff person—it was likely to be Josie Hudyma, who worked the counter at Greco’s for many years—and she’d play it, the store filling with the sound of your hummable hit. Greco’s let you test drive two or three records, comparing songs. Where are you going to get that kind of service today?

As you might imagine, I was a regular customer at Greco’s and the staff got to know my favorite singers and groups and made sure to alert me when there was news of The Beatles breaking up or Diana Ross leaving The Supremes. But their attention to my interests went even further.

Record stores used to figure out what to stock from a weekly publication called Billboard. The magazine featured lists and information about new songs, predicting which were destined to be hits, thus alerting storeowners to order a large supply of them. I thought Billboard was pretty special, but I could never have afforded a subscription.

Before I knew it, Greco’s was saving their old Billboards for me. I’d take them home, flop down on my bedroom floor, flip on the radio and read page after page. I credit my math skills to spending so much time memorizing the charts, figuring out how many million records my favorite singers sold.

I’ve never forgotten that kindness from Greco’s and it turns out I’m not alone in my admiration. In a 1996 letter published in The Valley News, Craig McKinney, a former Fultonian who’d made a career of music, wrote about his trip back to town for a concert. While waiting to go on stage, Craig heard someone call his name. It was Leo Greco.

“We all have a person in our life,” Craig wrote, “who, in one way or another, has an impact on what we do throughout that life. Mr. Greco was that person to me. He gave me opportunities and learning experiences, both professional and personal, that I have carried with me throughout my life.”

Isn’t it interesting that a Fulton store selling entertainment could have such a meaningful effect on so many?