Back in 1980 - 1982 I was living in Jackson Heights, Queens. I was enthralled by the films the likes of Escape From New York, The Warriors ... 1990 The Bronx Warriors, You Got Lucky video on MTV. At 82nd Street and Northern Boulevard was a movie theater where I partook in these mind-blowing visions of the future that never happened. Afterwards I would wander around the streets, my imagination going off on tangents from the story line of the movie that I just seen.
When I wasn't in the movies, there was a video store on the adjacent block running to 83rd Street. I know, just a video store. Who remembers video stores these days? Not the video supermarket, like the Blockbuster Video, and not a chain of stores, like the West Coast Video or Coconuts. This was a mom and pops video store. A tall guy in his fifties wearing those 1970's large lense steel rimmed glasses owned the store and was always there. I didn't know what a VCR was in those days. I asked him what a VHS sign was in his window and he told me about Beta and VHS, and that Beta was a better quality video.
It wouldn't be for another two or three years until we moved out to suburbia and bought our first VCR that played store rented VHS tapes. I used to come to his video store none the less. I would pick up a video cassette box and ask him what the movie was about. He would go on for 15-25 minutes telling me about the movie. I became a regular, stopping by his store on my walks and speaking with him.
How does it tie to the Post-Apocalypse, you might ask. Well, if you hadn't been there, you have to picture Northern Boulevard going west where this video store was. It was slightly downhill and it was running straight into the middle of tghe Manhattan skyline on the horizon. It was close, but not that close as to be in its shadow, and when the sunset hit it, you were in for the fireworks! Both sides of Northern Boulevard in those days were not like malls and stand alone convenience stores, It was 3-5 story residential apartment buildings with ground floors taken up by small stores. Even with traffic flying by, the scene was eerie, like the stage-set in a Michael Jackson Billy Jean video, concrete everyshere, except on the alcove leading into that magic video store.
That video storefront was recessed into the building, so there was about three feet of the second floor serving as your roof to keep out the rain as you eered into the window to see the movie posters. The store entrance was on the same side as the Manhattan Slykine and there was about three to five feet of a brick wall before the store's fromt door. Well, he, or someone else painted a mural on that wall. As you looked on towards Manhattan, you saw the skyline, but when you turned your eyes left towards the mural, you saw a vision of the Manhattan skyline after it was nuked. The skies were gray and Manhattan skyline was a dark silhouette. The Northern Boulevard was empty and pockmarked with craters, some of which were glowing slightly around the edges. Large chunks of pavement were broken and upturned near the craters, adn you could see patches of the dead yellow grass. It matched up to the horizon and your eyes went smoothly from one world to the next.
So, my big question - Has anyone been to that store back in the day, who was the owner, and what became of that shop?
