Kim's Video and Music is a video and music retail store in the East Village

East Village, Manhattan

The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...

 of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, described as the "go-to place for rare selections" and "widely known among the cognoscenti of new, experimental and esoteric music and film". Its owner is Yongman Kim.

History

It opened at the site of Kim's dry cleaner business and eventually moved to its own location on Avenue A

Avenue A (Manhattan)

Avenue A runs from north to south and is the westernmost of the avenues to be defined by letters instead of using the numbering system in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Avenue A runs from Houston Street to 14th Street, where it continues into a loop road in Stuyvesant Town, connecting to...

 in 1987. It expanded to five other locations, including St. Mark's Place

St. Mark's Place (Manhattan)

Saint Mark's Place is a street in the East Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is named after St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue. St. Mark's Place, which is a section of 8th Street, runs from Third Avenue to Avenue A...

 (Mondo Kim's) in the East Village. By 2008, it had over 55,000 rental titles, many of which were rare or esoteric.

The original Avenue A location closed in 2004 and was much missed by customers despite its reputation for rude and opinionated employees. http://gothamist.com/2004/10/18/kims_video_closes_its_mean_location.php Mondo Kim's, to a lesser extent, also had a reputation for "ornery" service.

In June 2005, police raided Mondo Kim's, alleging they were selling bootlegs.

In September 2008, Kim announced he would be closing Mondo Kim's and giving away the film collection to anyone who could fulfill certain criteria. In December 2008, it was reported that Salemi

Salemi

Salemi is a town and comune in South-Western Sicily, Italy, administratively part of the province of Trapani. It is located in the Belice Valley.-History:...

, Sicily had made a successful bid for the collection, as part of a village restoration effort.

Currently, the only remaining Kim's Video and Music is on 1st Ave.