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East Villagers Miss Kim’s Video

New York- Some call the shop’s heyday a “reign of terror.” Some say the employees were “haughty” and “hostile.” But a funny thing has happened now that Kim’s Video on Avenue A has finally closed. East Villagers kind of miss the place.

“It was like an S-and-M relationship,” said Michael Robinson, a 14-year East Village resident, about the interaction between customers and some Kim’s clerks. Recalling a disparaging remark a clerk made about a mindless comedy Mr. Robinson intended to rent, he added: “You had to go all alpha male on them to get them not to bother you. But I do miss having it here now.”

The store closed its doors in midsummer after the lease expired and the landlord raised the rent. Its renowned film collection has mainly been absorbed by a newer Kim’s on St. Mark’s Place, but while East Villagers praise its fantastic selection and relatively polite service, the dingy, sometimes reviled Avenue A original will always hold a special place in some hearts.

No one, not even the store’s managers, deny that Kim’s employees often had a bit of an attitude, especially when customers sought mainstream movies. “We went against every business model that says, ‘The customer is always right,’ ” said Matt Marello, a former Kim’s manager. “But I think in the end, people sort of liked the grungy East Village thing.”

The business, long a touchstone of the neighborhood, opened in 1987 when Youngman Kim set aside a corner of his Avenue A dry cleaning shop for video rentals. Then, Mr. Marello said: “I came along and started helping him put together a collection of tapes. I was a film buff, so it got a good reputation and developed into a hot spot in the neighborhood.”

Before long, the business outgrew its little corner in Kim’s Cleaners, and Mr. Kim rented a storefront down the street. Over the years the store’s collection of videos, and later DVD’s, became legendary, with thousands of obscure independent, foreign, documentary and classic films, as well as more mainstream Hollywood movies and a not-insignificant stash of porn, all tended by young and sometimes petulant cinephiles.

Mr. Kim’s small empire eventually grew to include film and music stores on St. Mark’s Place, on Bleecker Street, and at Broadway and 113th Street, all of which remain open and are, by most accounts, fairly polite.

The store even inspired a rival in Two Boots Video, a brightly colored pizzeria and video shop that opened on Avenue A in 1996 and began luring customers in with its friendly service, children’s parties and decent, if not incredible, selection.

But fond memories of the edgier, original Kim’s persist. “Even when people were officially boycotting the place because of the mean service,” said Michael Bentley, a longtime resident, “they would go back just to browse.”

 

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