Ep. 47 Howard Cespedes (Mountain View & NYC 4th & Broadway)
2500 DelMonte Street: The Oral History of Tower Records
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Howard Cespedes worked at seven Tower Records locations during his 19-year career. He's best known for his three stints at the Mountain View CA store and his five year tenure at the 4th & Broadway location in Manhattan.
Born on Guam and growing up in Northern California, Howard was a life-long jazz fan, starting with his father’s Duke Ellington recordings he discovered. His first time shopping at Tower Watt Avenue, he was taken by the jazz section size and got lost in it.
Starting as temporary inventory help, Howard was called back for an interview to work in the Classical Department atMountain View. This was when Mike Lowther was General Manager. His first weeks at Tower involved an exclusive in-store promotion for consumers to win a car and he shares his memories of those first days with us.
Working with A Teams was a big part of Howard’s Tower career. Helping to open Washington DC, London Piccadilly, Torrance, Boston, Carle Place, Nashville, Atlanta and a whole host of other stores was critical to his development. Howard walks us through his time working at Picadilly Circus as an A Team member and then as Receiving Department Manager. This was so much more labor intensive than the US position. London is also the only store where Howard was late to a Tower Meeting because of Princess Diana.
Following London, in NYC Howard was the Assistant Manager of #125 at 4th & Broadway. One special in-storeperformance in 1991 was with a new Seattle band called Nirvana. Another legendary night was with Keith Richards in-store just steps from Keith’s condo. Howard discusses the perks and headaches of running the busiest US store in the chain at the time.
In 1993 Howard moved back to the Bay Area and didn’t enjoy his last years with the company due to Tower’s diversification into non-music products. In addition, he wanted to return to live musical performances.Join us for an informative look on Howard Cespedes' journey at Tower Records.