King Karol was a New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

-based record store chain founded by Ben Karol and Phil King.

Extant prior to 1971, lasting through at least 1984, and defunct for some time by 1993, King Karol was one of New York's "largest [and most] comprehensive" music stories.

Aside from its main branch at 126 West 42nd Street

42nd Street (Manhattan)

42nd Street is a major crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, known for its theaters, especially near the intersection with Broadway at Times Square. It is also the name of the region of the theater district near that intersection...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, King Karol by mid-1971 had outlets at 460 West 42nd Street, at the corner of 10th Avenue

Tenth Avenue (Manhattan)

Tenth Avenue, known as Amsterdam Avenue north of 59th Street, is a north-south thoroughfare on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It carries uptown traffic as far as West 110th Street, also known as Cathedral Parkway for the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine...

; 940 Third Avenue, at East 57th Street

57th Street (Manhattan)

57th Street is one of New York City's major east-west thoroughfares, which runs east-west in the Midtown section of the borough of Manhattan, from the New York City Department of Sanitation's dock on the Hudson River at the West Side Highway to a small park overlooking the East River built on a...

; 609 Fifth Avenue, at 49th Street, in the KLM Building; and, in Flushing, Queens

Flushing, Queens

Flushing, founded in 1645, is a neighborhood in the north central part of the City of New York borough of Queens, east of Manhattan.Flushing was one of the first Dutch settlements on Long Island. Today, it is one of the largest and most diverse neighborhoods in New York City...

, at 40-46 Main Street. Later, the chain opened at least one other location, at 1521 Third Avenue, at East 86th Street

86th Street (Manhattan)

86th Street is a major two-way street in the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan.On the West Side its continuous cliff-wall of apartment blocks includng The Belnord is broken by two contrasting landmarked churches at prominent corner sites, the Tuscan...

, and, by mid-1975, at 1500 Broadway

Broadway (New York City)

Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...

, at West 43rd Street.

Ben Karol experimented with record album rentals, similar to the then-emerging market for videocassette rental, in 1981, after having studied successful record rental systems in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, telling an interviewer then that, "The record industry isn't that great these days. You sit around and think of ways to stimulate it, try to come up with ideas based on what similar product is doing. ... [T]he whole video tape business is now going rental".

King Karol also operated a mail order

Mail order

Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...

 record business through P.O. Box 629, Times Square

Times Square

Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...

 Station, New York, New York 10036.

In the media

The King Karol branch at 460 West 42nd Street, with its lit sign in a nighttime scene, is visible during the bus-chase sequence in the 1973 New York City police film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Badge 373, immediately before the bus crashes into an Army/Navy store.