The Archive of Contemporary Music has packed up its massive collection and will move it to two locations: the estate of a wealthy supporter in one of the Hudson River towns and a warehouse in LA, provided by another wealthy benefactor. Founder B. George, who has lived on Chambers Street since 1974, founded the organization in 1985 and has housed it on towering steel shelves at 54 White for nearly 20 years.

The collection is not just records, it is also “CDs, videos, magazines, flexi-discs, press kits, posters, nik-naks, song books, swag, picture discs, photographs, singles, 78s, EPs, 8-tracks, audio equipment, cassettes, acetates, metal parts, reel-to-reels, books, paper records, mini-discs, computers, DATs, sheet music and ???” notes ARC’s Facebook page. By the numbers: 3 million albums from the post-WWII “microgroove” era; a quarter million 78s; 6 million pieces of paper; 30,000 books; a collection of blues records funded by Keith Richards; signed records by any famous band you can think of but lots more unfamous ones. And then this line from George, which kind of sums up the beauty of the place: “We don’t have any interest in quality.”

You can hear a bit more about the packing process on All Things Considered from earlier this month.