Pleasant St. Video is now closed.

Over the past 25 years Pleasant Street Video built an incredible film library serving film lovers from all over New England.

Sadly, the video store has fallen victim to online competition and closed July 15th, 2011.

But the video collection is living on … thanks to you, and with your continued help (click here to read more about that.)

First, some history.

Pleasant Street Video opened in the fall of 1986. The owners, Richard Pini and John Morrison, thought a video store would be a great companion to the Pleasant Street Theater, which they had been running for about ten years. They were right. A retail space became available right next door to the theater, so Richard Pini bought the real estate and the store opened that September. Dana Gentes was hired as the manager and the following year was given a small percentage of the ownership as an incentive and a “thank you” for the store being such a hit. Over the years, Pleasant Street Video became a haven for movie lovers of all kinds and the staff quickly earned a reputation as movie experts. Even though Morrison left in the 90′s, most of the employees have been at the store for years and have made the store what it is—an environment akin to an old country store where people can talk about movies and life in general. Employees Patty Huff, Gene Kane, Jenifer Gray-Lewis, Philip Price, Chris St. George, Zeke Fiddler, William Dwight, and many others quickly became the “governors” of the Pleasant Street “dry bar,” where opinions flew fast and furiously on a daily basis.

When it became apparent in 2009 that it would be increasingly difficult to keep the store going, Pini put the retail condominium up for sale and subsequently stopped collecting rent. Now the era of Pleasant Street Video has come to an end. We all can’t thank you enough for an incredible run.

But it’s not completely over. As you can read about here, pretty much the entire DVD collection will now live at the Forbes Library, just down the street — and DVD’s for folks who don’t have access to online content or cable (and there are plenty!) can borrow them now for free.