As a child growing up in Texas, I found the video store to be, if I may, the chimney that shot you up onto the rooftops of London, the wardrobe that lead to Narnia, the DeLorean that whizzed off to centuries past and future. (There weren’t yet hidden passageways behind mirrors that lead to Hogwarts.) Even then, back in the 1980’s, it already had the sense that it wouldn’t last, however. The possiblity of some future technology replacing VHS seemed inevitable. And now, DVDs face similar obsolescence.
37 Carmine St.
As a cinephile in his early 20’s in New York City, I found the video store to be more than merely a supplier of escape through celluloid dreams. It became a home. A community. A place where everyone knew your name. No, I am not referring to the large corporate chains. As I have not darkened the door of one of those this century, nor joined any internet-based video rental service, I cannot speak to the sense of community that they provide. I am referring to the Mom & Pops. The small, independently owned and operated rental houses. Starting in 1986 and ending July 3, 2007, Evergreen Video provided New York City, mostly the West Village, with a place not only to rent foreign, classic and independent video, but to find camaraderie, cinema-inspired discourse, and in some cases, even love. In the years that I worked there, first part-time as a film student, then as a manager while pursuing his film career, I played witness to the neighborhood’s childrens’ growth, the couples that fell in and out of relationships, and the deaths of figures of legendary renown. We in the Evergreen universe knew the end was coming for some time. It was easy think of the job of the video-store clerk being remembered someday as the milk-man is now, a post once common and now extinct. A fellow employee expressed sadness that his soon to be born daughter would never know a world with video stores.
Evergreen Video circa 2004 The final days – July 2007
As I look to continue my love and search for good film elsewhere, I must first raise a glass to the passing of the video store. Cinema will no doubt continue as a potent medium for some time, though it will no longer be aided by the rental house. To those of you in communities which still have quaint, little video shops, I encourage you to give them your support as long as they are there. I will now be committing my thoughts on film, in the form of this post, for as long as there is film about which to think.
bravo buddy. heartfelt. i’ve always loved mary poppins too.