Posted at 01:57h
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Sunset Video, Video City, Candy Hookah Love, Golden DVD-the names are different, but they're all the same inside
Underneath the Gowanus Expressway, in an area generously included in Sunset Park but really not much more than a detritus-strewn, completely forgotten, and rarely traversed stretch of 3rd Avenue, sit a curious collection of shops, glass windows and brick walls routinely rattled as 18-wheelers hurtle by just 10 feet above. Along on a stretch between 39th and 24th Streets, there are eight of these shops, a rate of nearly one per block.
More importantly, how do these places, with a clearly dying business model, sustain themselves? And why did they all wind up so close together?
Nilwala Video in 2011 became Candy Hookah Love, with the exact same signage and colors, just a different name
It's a matter of zoning: In 1998, when the city's new regulations for adult shops went into effect, the businesses were banned from residential areas. This sent many of the shops in Manhattan to areas zoned for commercial and manufacturing, including this part of Sunset Park. There were a number of strip clubs not far off-most of which are now gone-so they had a bit of a seedy community thing going on.
Many of the shops are owned by immigrants from Sri Lanka. Indeed, two stores include Sinhalese in their names. The clerks, too, when I went, were almost exclusively of Sri Lankan descent. The largest Sri Lankan population in the city is in Staten Island, which makes for a quick commute back and forth over the Verrazano.