South Street TLA Video closes

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South Street TLA Video closes

POSTED: Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 5:14 PM

Filed Under: Movies News

TLA Video AT 517 South 4th Street, a mecca of indie, arthouse and queer movies since it opened in 1985, closed it's doors yesterday. It's ironic that I found out when a co-worker sent me the link to a friend's Twitter account, with its 140-character eulogy; it's the evolution of the Internet that led to the location's downfall.

"They would have directors sections ' Robert Altman, Martin Scoresese, Antonioni. It was like an education where you would learn about genres or directors. They had this crazy cult section with movies from guys like Roger Corman," says Margit Detweiler, former City Paper managing editor who often wrote about pop culture in Philadelphia during her decade-long tenure at the paper. "It was really a film education there and a cultural hub."

TLA head honchos Ray Murray, Claire Brown Kohler and Eric Moore began TLA Video as a companion to their South Street rep house. "We showed old movies on a big screen and it was a business we were proud of. We saw early on that the writing was on the wall, with the advent of VHS that wasn't a viable business model anymore," says Moore, whose group sold the venue so it could become it's current incarnation of a concert venue. "Video stores had a good run for a quarter century now but the technology is the new writing on the wall. We either have to adapt to and change with the technology or go into a different business."

The store closure not only signals a change for TLA but for South Street as a whole. This marks the first time TLA has no had a presence on South Street since 1981. Moore chalks it up to evolution of both South Street itself and the movie-watching climate, but adds with a note of melancholy, "As I said to a friend yesterday, 'Capitalism is brutal.'"

TLA still operates video stores in Center City, Bryn Mawr and Chestnut Hill. The South Street store itself will reopen on Friday, October 23 and sell off its remaining inventory through Thanksgiving.

Looking ahead, Moore hopes that the TLA will remain an arthouse authority in the form of an online distribution company that will either stream content on their servers or point movie lovers in the direction of another site that can. Moore, who holds the position of chief technology officer, understands that his job is more integral to the company than ever. "This is all riding on my shoulders now. Help!" he says, laughing.

But the closing of TLA Video isn't simply a capitalistic casualty. Like the legions of other video stores that have shuttered their doors, from mom and pop to Blockbuster, it's the loss of a communal space where people with one thing in common ' their loves of movies ' can converse with each other. "That's to me, the single biggest lost as a society ' this place to go where we can talk about movies. I watched the Phillies game last night sitting on my sofa rather than with friends. The way I get my social community while watching the game is posting on Facebook. Does that help or hurt the local bar around the corner?" says Moore. "I wish I was Malcolm Gladwell who could give you something pithy about what's next in our society but I think we just don't know. The human urge to be social will ultimately win out, but we're in a period of transition.

Allitia

Posted 2009-10-24 17:35:25

I loved that store/institution.  TLA leaves in its wake many broken hearts and a few new hardened enemies of Netflix.

chet bumsted

Posted 2010-06-22 04:02:47

you've misspelled "its" several times here ("closed it's doors yesterday"). the possessive has no apostrophe (like hers or ours). it's is a contraction of it is.

Posted by Molly Eichel @ 5:14 PM Permalink | Post a comment

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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