And then there was one…<\/b>
\nA man parked his motorcycle on the sidewalk Saturday morning, ruining the aesthetic of the last remaining Blockbuster in the continental United States.
\u00ab\u00a0You can’t park there,\u00a0\u00bb general manager Sandi Harding told the man as he walked into the store in Bend, Oregon. \u00ab\u00a0People are trying to take pictures.\u00a0\u00bb
The man paused for a beat. There was confusion in his response.
\u00ab\u00a0Trying to take pictures?\u00a0\u00bb
Somehow he had missed the past decade, when Blockbuster the video rental behemoth became Blockbuster the fallen victim of modernity.
In 2004, at the company’s peak, 9,000 Blockbuster outlets studded city blocks and suburban strip malls nationwide, a one-time indelible fixture of the family movie night. But soon after, Netflix, Redbox and the cold march of digital progress eroded the customer base at each store.
Thousands of Blockbuster stores were closed through July 2018, leaving only three: two in Alaska, and Harding’s store in Bend.
\u00ab\u00a0Every day, even before this, people would drive by and see the ‘Open’ sign and say, ‘Oh my gosh. How are you still here? Why are you still here?'\u00a0\u00bb Harding told The Washington Post in a Saturday phone interview as her store buzzed with activity, including the arrival of the oblivious motorcyclist.
Now gawkers and tourists stop in Bend and line up to take photos in front of the store.
There is, in a literal sense, nothing else quite like it in the lower 48.
And after Sunday, when the stores in Anchorage and Fairbanks close for the last time, the location on NE Revere Avenue will be the sole Blockbuster in the entire country.
Harding has been with the company for 14 years and joined the Bend location on Revere in May 2005. She insisted that nothing big changed. Customer service keeps people coming back, and new titles, such as NBC’s current show \u00ab\u00a0The Good Place,\u00a0\u00bb are available for rent.
Even the IBM computers are running the same floppy disks from the 1990s, she said, shocking the younger employees.
\u00ab\u00a0No one can hack these computers, so that’s a good thing,\u00a0\u00bb she said.
But Harding conceded that the Internet and streaming services forever changed the way people consume entertainment, describing a \u00ab\u00a0curve\u00a0\u00bb from when Redbox and Netflix began to deliver more options.
It has been quite the fall from movie rental primacy. In 1989, a Blockbuster store opened every 17 hours, The Washington Post’s Samantha Schmidt reported in 2017. But in the late 2000s, it seemed stores closed at that same pace.
Just a handful survived in the last few years after Dish Network bought the company in 2011 and dismantled remaining locations.
And yet, some stores persevered. Harding said many of her customers have been loyal for years.
Others come in for the nostalgic stroll between aisles, picking feverishly through the inventory to find an obscure film. And snagging the last copy of a new and popular release provides a small thrill you cannot get from a download button.
It was no coincidence that two of the remaining three Blockbuster stores were in Alaska. As Schmidt reported, an older population, long and dark winters and unusually high Internet usage fees conspired for the rental store business model to thrive there as it died elsewhere.
For a time, anyway. The stores in Alaska announced their closures Thursday (July 12).
\u00ab\u00a0(I)t is sad to say goodbye to our dedicated customers. We have thought of you as family for the past 28 years,\u00a0\u00bb Kevin Daymude, the general manager of Blockbuster Alaska, said on Facebook. In a follow-up video on the page, two people dressed in black place a candle in a store parking space.
Even John Oliver could not save the Anchorage location. The host of HBO’s \u00ab\u00a0Last Week Tonight with John Oliver\u00a0\u00bb sent a jockstrap worn by Russell Crowe in the 2005 film \u00ab\u00a0Cinderella Man\u00a0\u00bb to the store. It displayed the unique piece of memorabilia since May, the Associated Press reported.
While some might view Blockbuster’s fate as comeuppance – a big chain that displaced small, family-owned stores only to be destroyed by innovation – Harding sees her store as a mainstay of the Bend community.
Ken and Debbie Tisher are local owners, she said, and they pay a licensing fee to Dish Network to use the name. It is the local video store for many in Bend, and now, the entire country.
And once in a while, the Blockbuster is a godsend.
When Gene Wilder died in 2016, mourners took to Netflix and other streaming services to watch films like \u00ab\u00a0Blazing Saddles,\u00a0\u00bb \u00ab\u00a0Young Frankenstein\u00a0\u00bb and \u00ab\u00a0Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.\u00a0\u00bb
No luck. Customers flooded the store and called to ask if Harding’s store had them in stock. Of course, Harding told them.
The directions are simple when you can’t find a film anywhere else. Just head west on Revere, past the Redbox on 3rd Street, to find exactly what you need.
Alex Horton wrote this story, (c) 2018 The Washington Post.<\/p>\n

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