Scarecrow Video is one of the largest video stores in the world, with more than 132,000 titles. It began in the confines of a small Seattle storefront back in December 1988 and only survived to see its pearl anniversary because the community around it understood the cultural value of its collection. In 2014, Scarecrow’s second-generation owners considered selling off the store’s videos following years of financial struggles—simply put, fewer people were renting from them year after year. Instead, that October, the owners donated every last VHS, DVD, and laser disc to the employees, who raised $100,000 to help turn the rental spot into a nonprofit.
Besides a 2013 South Side Weekly story by onetime Reader contributor Isabel Ochoa Gold, 79th Street Video didn’t leave much of a digital fingerprint. Gold profiled the shop as its owner, Russell G. Pine Jr., prepared to close it down in March 2014 due to his failing health. I’ve often wondered about what happened when the shop finally closed down. What happened to the tens of thousands of videos? Who felt the loss of an independent rental institution that lasted three decades? What is its legacy?
The Midlothian location amassed about 4,000 VHS tapes by the time the Pine brothers decided to open another video store, this one at 79th and Western in Chicago. Chuck and Russ borrowed about $10,000 from their father and half the stock from Midlothian Video to open 79th Street Video. The Pine brothers oversaw both rental spots until Russ got divorced in 1989 and his ex took ownership of Midlothian Video. “I lost a half a video store in my brother’s divorce,” Chuck says. “I lost more than my brother, to be honest with you. But we just wanted to be done with that drama, and the money was coming in so quick at 79th Street.”
Russ’s care for his customers helped give 79th Street Video its character. His son Rory, now 40, who worked intermittently at the shop beginning in 1999, recalls his father could draw in customers with stories that were only occasionally exaggerated. “He was, you know, ‘I’m trying to entertain everyone, and this was a crazy thing that happened, I’m going to tell it this way, and by the end of it everyone’s going to be laughing along with it,’” Rory says. “Those were the types of stories that pulled everyone in.” He cared for his customers, too, often asking them about their personal lives and families.
The Pine brothers sold as well as rented movies—selling would help get old, lesser- loved stock off the shelves. And Chuck’s dealings expanded to selling videos outside the store. Within a couple years of opening 79th Street Video, he launched Discount Video, a VHS distribution service he ran out of a conversion van. “A lot of my customers were the small video stores on the east side,” he says. “But, truthfully, almost every store in the city of Chicago bought something from me. I really cornered the market.” Chuck even sold videos to one of his sisters, who opened her own video rental spot on 51st Street called Warehouse Video.
Their other prized videos didn’t require deposits but were still difficult to find elsewhere: John Woo’s The Young Dragons and Jimmy Wang Yu’s Master of the Flying Guillotine. They had blaxploitation pictures from Fred Williamson and Rudy Ray Moore. They had every episode of the short-lived 1950s TV adaptation of The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show, which Chuck says was among their more popular rentals. If you wanted to see the infamous 1978 cult flick Faces of Death, 79th Street Video had it. Any odd karate or horror film Russ could get his hands on ended up in the shop. “He liked horror a lot,” Chuck says. “Any horror movie that came out, we had it. Even if it was a piece of crap—you know those really bad ones that are famous for being the worst movie ever? We had all that stuff.”
