Another one bites the dust
Hollywood Video closes, leaving another classic theater empty
The Hollywood Video store has closed.
In its heyday, it was known as the Tower theater, a place for first-run moviesand later live productions.
Welp, that makes two charming, vintage art-deco theaters now standing empty in Houston.
First Bookstop vacated the Alabama Theater and now the Hollywood Video on the corner of Westheimer and Waugh has closed as well.
Swamplot reports that renters found the doors locked and the interior shockingly empty this week after the business was apparently evicted by the landlord. Some people had rented movies just days earlier, and are now wondering where to make their returns.
It makes one wonder if Montrose residents have something against renting movies (maybe they all have video on demand). The Blockbuster a block away at Westheimer and Montrose closed several years ago and the space has yet to be rented out.
Before it was a Hollywood Video, the theater known as the Tower was a venue for live productions. In the 1980s, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas played there for several years.
Word on the street is that other Hollywood Video locations (of which there are few, none inside the loop) will take the orphan rentals, even though they're "not supposed to," one employee at the Woodforest Blvd. location in west Houston told CultureMap.
We say you keep 'em. The store is empty; here's hoping our late fee record is, too.
