Williamsburg Video Store Rewinds Time

Night Owl Video is tucked in a tree-lined section of Grant Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The inside is painted a two-tone blend of purple and yellow as an ode to Kim’s Video Store, a New York City hub for cult film fans until it closed in 2014. Night Owl Video pledges two things on their Instagram bio: "Death to streamers" and "Physical media forever!" The shop buys and sells new and old movies, from DVDs to VHS tapes.

The video store is co-owned by Aaron Hamel and Jess Mills. Hamel said they designed the store's interior as a loop. As customers walk in, they’re greeted with new releases on high definition Blu-Ray and 4K discs. Looping around the store, they travel back in time to browse shelves of used DVDs and VHS tapes.

“We patterned it after the video stores that we went to when we were younger that were sort of our preliminary film schools in a lot of ways where you would discover things that you'd never seen,” Hamel said. “That sort of thing has been missing in New York for a very long time.”

Over the last decade, ownership of physical media has declined across all entertainment including music, movies and books as streaming platforms have become more common. But Night Owl is a celebration of all things film, both old and new.

For film collectors like McKregg Collins, Night Owl has become a go-to spot for sourcing movies. Collins stopped into the store on his way to work during Night Owl’s six month anniversary sale. He works at the NiteHawk Cinema in Williamsburg, just down the street from Night Owl.

Collins said he’s been collecting for years. He said physical media often comes with extra benefits for fans.

“It's nice to have something that you're not worrying about having to buffer,” he said. “I'm a big commentary person, so I love having those kinds of things,” Collins said.

Hamel said since the store's grand opening, sourcing new videos has not been a problem.

“When we started it was mostly my stuff that I had accumulated over the years. But since then people come in selling or trading stuff, or I get emails or phone calls from people wanting to sell their collections.” Hamel said.

Hamel, 35, said he initially thought the store would bring in other millennial customers, but interest has expanded past die-hard fans. “There's definitely people who come in with nostalgia, some people have been collectors forever and some people are new to it and just want to get into it,” he said.

Julia Iannuzzi, another customer at the anniversary sale, is new to collecting. She said she hadn’t been to Night Owl before but dropped in to browse.

“I actually just stumbled across it,” she said. “I was at the bookstore next door and I got this book about [the film] 'Scream.' So I'm like, let me get the DVD and look around.”

She said she’s trying to buy more types of physical media since the content on streaming platforms is constantly changing.

Hamel said this speaks to the wider appeal of the store.

“It's the idea of making your own personal library of movies," he explained, "which I think, especially in an age of streaming, has become even more important as the major streaming platforms have started to remove a lot of classic movies."

For film fans like Collins, collecting physical media builds a deeper connection between audience and art.

“I think it just also just comes from the love of cinema and wanting to be as close to the thing that you love as possible,” he said. “You can't get that with digital or just ones and zeros.”