Bethesda World News

Nostalgia For Shuttered Blockbuster Store Still Runs Deep

Some Bethesda residents still pine for the good old days, before the new alley known as Bethesda Lane, back when Aveda was the most expensive store on the street, back when a quarter bought a whole 20 minutes of parking, and, especially, back when Blockbuster Video still sat near the end of Bethesda Avenue, weathering the neighborhood’s changes in its own generically incompetent way.

Taylor, 14: “I remember standing in line for a half-hour with all that candy in my face. I begged and begged and my mom kept saying no and yanking me by the arm. That was like, my whole childhood—poof, gone.”

Mavis, 32: “Remember how they never put the movies away, so you just found what you wanted in the teetering stack that was ready to be shelved? I do my laundry the same way, now. I never put it away. It’s comforting to know that I can hold onto some part of that experience.”

Aaron T. said Blockbuster’s replacement, the Apple EyeSore, is “so clearly out to make a buck.” And added, “The building isn’t in character with the block. It looks like a giant iPod, instead of charming, fakey small town brick and concrete. It’s disgusting.”

Aaron’s daughter Shea, 17, summed it all up: “What we loved about Blockbuster was that it was so lame.”