Kim's Video and Music Reopens Inside Alamo Drafthouse (2022)

On April 1, 2022, iconic movie rental shop Kim’s Video and Music was relaunched as Kim’s Video Underground with the help of the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain. The new store is located in the lobby of Alamo’s Lower Manhattan location in the Financial District of Manhattan. The shop offers 5-day video rentals for free and some of its product includes many of the same rare cult titles from the original Manhattan locations.

The defunct Kim’s Video and Music was a small local chain of video and music shops in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City owned by Yongman Kim. The stores were described as the “go-to place for rare selections.”

The first Kim’s Video and Music opened at the site of Kim’s dry cleaning business and eventually moved to its own location on Avenue A in 1987. Kim’s eventually expanded to five other locations, including Mondo Kim’s at St. Mark’s Place in the East Village, Kim’s Underground at 144 Bleecker Street, Kim’s West at 350 Bleecker Street near West 10th Street, and Kim’s Mediapolis at 2906 Broadway. By 2008, Kim’s carried more than 55,000 rental titles, many of which were rare or esoteric.

In September 2008, Yongman Kim announced he would be closing Mondo Kim’s and giving away the film collection to anyone who could fulfill certain criteria, stipulating that the entire collection was to be taken intact and that Kim’s members would continue to have access to it wherever it resided.

In December 2008, it was reported that Salemi, Sicily made a successful bid for the collection, as part of a village restoration effort. However, a 2012 Village Voice article titled “The Strange Fate of Kim’s Video” reported that the collection, while still intact, had disappeared from public view after arriving in Salemi, and that the initiatives promised to Kim by the government of Salemi remained unfulfilled. Much of the collection is at the Alamo Drafthouse location as of 2023.

The last remaining location of Kim’s Video and Music, located on 1st Ave, announced its closure on April 21, 2014.