NYC'ers: What's going on at Kim's Video

so what I was told a couple months ago was bullshit... they've stopped renting, and clerk at new place sex the rental collection is being shipped to Sicily.

Get me the fuck outta this city.

sex the rental

sex the rental sex the rental sex... the... rental!

great, I leave u to Netflix

lol i havent been on netflix for years - straight torrents doc

STOP THIEF

if u see something, say something

si vez algo, di algo

http://myspace-327.vo.llnwd.net/00860/72/36/860436327_l.gif

fact: i get really freaked out when i see unattended bags. and also people taking video or photos of stations/cars.
most of the time they belong to the homeless who are wandering further down the track.

there was an awesome sale at kim's a couple of months back, with thirty or forty percent off everything, new releases and all. where did it move to? i am only thinking of sex rental places.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2008/12/30/2008-12-30_east_village_icon_kims_video_heads_to__s.html

Kim went with a bid from Salemi Mayor Vittorio Sgarbi – a former TV talk show host described as "one of the oddest and most colorful figures in contemporary Italy,"by the British newspaper, The Independent – who's trying to revitalize his poverty-stricken town.

According to a message from Sgarbi posted at Kim's, the town will soon launch "the Neverending Festival, a non-stop public projection of Kim's Video collection."

Neighborhood regulars on this side of the Atlantic are reeling over the loss.

Haha okay that Italian Mayor guy is awesome.

that's bizarre.

I want to visit that town in Sicily.

that is so fucking sweet - long live kims!

no, taking away New Yorkers' last first-rate video collection is not awesome.

yah but at least its found a good home right

yeah, tons of Sicilians wanna see Jarman & Rivette films.

(not that I do)

admit it u want to visit this town now

To perform a heist on the videos!

The Sicilian Job

http://www.filmforum.org/films/crimewave/the-sicilian-clan001.jpg

well it's an...interesting way to solve the poverty issue?

I don't know how much Scarecrow Video in Seattle has doubled up on its collection, but if it has to even some degree, it now has a grand business opportunity in NYC.

The St Marks store last day is tom'w, not sure what remains...

RIP. i'm taking an exam soon and i've been storing my flash cards in a mondo kim's bag.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/nyregion/thecity/08kims.html

recommend article^

god bless the nytimes metro section

“I killed Kim’s — I signed up for Netflix”

Yes you did, motherfucker.

Originally I had membership at Avenue A then at Bleecker Street. Don't think I rented too much from St. Mark's although I did buy stuff from there reasonably often. Towards the end I was doing all my renting at Evergreen. Didn't help them either though.

I signed up at Kim's West, out of coices.

coices?

it's an archaic english word that means "respect for the institution's history."

:p their stock is so diminished by comparison....

West Village store to close (my memberships only last months before this happens every time):

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Goodbye-Kims-Hello-Bargains.html

seem to recall that joining kim's involved credit holds and dropping quite a lot of money at first; it wasn't like the most convenient place to rent films.

not a lot of money

Went in before I moved to NY and asked politely if they had any kind of "club" deal as opposed to pay-by-the-day, since I lived in Brooklyn. A lot of video stores actually trying to survive in the Netflix age have them, including the store in Philly I worked at at the time. I was prepared for a frustrated "no!" but the person acted as if they'd never been asked before and couldn't even comprehend what that might entail, finally pointing at the $-for-each-day sign without uttering a sound. Wound up supporting my 'round-the-corner store in Brooklyn (where at least 50% of the stock was DVD bootlegs) until that closed and finally joined Netflix. Sucks but can't say anything I saw (or heard about) at Kim's suggests they were trying very hard to stay afloat or even keep the customers they had.

since I was going live in Brooklyn, rather

I really should try to avoid typos when fixing typos

Good thing fact checkin' cuz is not around anymore to bust you on that.

seem to recall that joining kim's involved credit holds and dropping quite a lot of money at first

^^ this has served as a crappy reminder that I never got back my $100 deposit at the Morningside store

and yeah, the policy was weird and frustrating, and I say that as both a former renter and former employee uptown -- if you set up an account with a credit card, it would actually freeze/hold a certain amount of your credit limit, and otherwise you'd have to pay cash. autumn up there was just a long line of Columbia students saying "why can't I use a debit card?" it's because we can't put a hold on a debit card; you need a cash deposit. "so why can't you take the cash deposit off of my debit card?" ... I don't think anyone ever had an answer for that question, which always made it sound like Mr. Kim was involved in some kind of cash-only deposit-laundering scheme. there was a whole lot of cash-based business-running at that place, to be honest.

fao my morbius:

http://www.thislongcentury.com/?p=6517&c=253

ah, mostly forgotten memories

Coming back to NYC!

https://www.thrillist.com/news/new-york/kims-video-rental-returns-nyc-alamo-drafthouse
Some background here: https://www.laweekly.com/news/mondo-kims-video-was-shipped-from-new-york-to-sicily-then-things-got-really-strange-2176383

Wow!!

I know, it’s kind of cool, although the past is probably still a foreign country so…

…maybe I will rent The Go-Between.

ALEX ROSS PERRY, filmmaker: significant auteur or just a smarter ex-video clerk than Tarantino?

I'm pretty sure i remember him waiting on me at Kim's Video, and absolutely living up to the stereotype there.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 25 August 2015 18:32 (six years ago)

this reminds me of an old shelf label in Kim's Video:

"SNL Shit"

― the ignatius rock of ignorance (Dr Morbius), Friday, 29 June 2018 15:14 (three years ago)

Also, this screening series going on, fwiw: https://nyc.metrograph.com/series/series/302/staff-picks-kims-video

One Chase Manhattan Plaza would not be not my first guess for where Kim’s would resurface

Yes that is weird. They closed the big Chase branch around the rock garden, opened a smaller one and the current owners of the building called it Fosun Plaza and then 28 Liberty, which probably makes it maybe even moreso. The Dubuffet Group of Trees is still there.

Sunken Garden is still there too, but slightly sad when the fountain is turned off for the winter. Maybe it's on now.

Went by there today. First thing I saw was a poster that said “Morbius: April 1”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/movies/alamo-drafthouse-kims-video.html

I just watched the Kim's Video documentary, quite a story. The filmmaker's whole persona put me off at first, but I think he's just a really obsessive guy and eventually he won me over with his persistence. I have a feeling some events were uh juiced for effect, but still pretty fascinating.

i watched the doc too.. yea agree w the juiced for effect but its forgivable, its a p compelling story and a well done doc