Business has dropped by half since the store’s peak in 2000, when it did about $3.1 million in sales, said Chris Vanderloo, who founded the shop with Mr. Madell and Jeff Gibson after the three met as employees at the music spinoff of Kim’s Video in the early ’90s. (Mr. Gibson left Other Music’s day-to-day operations in 2001.)

Rent, on the other hand, has more than doubled from the $6,000 a month the store paid in 1995, while its annual share of the building’s property tax bill has also increased.

Then there are the dreary industry trends: In 2015, streaming nearly doubled from the previous year while CDs sales were down 82 percent from their peak in 2001. And despite the resurgence of vinyl, which now makes up about 60 percent of Other Music’s revenue, up from about 20 percent in its first 10 years, there’s no real salvation in sight.

“Pre-Internet we were a mecca for people,” Mr. Madell said. “They would come to New York with $300 in their pocket because they’d heard or read about some records that they’d never seen anywhere.”