8mm Forum: How does Ken Films Inc. buliding does look today?

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Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on March 21, 2017, 06:25 PM:

Triggered by other post make me think to find out, how does Ken Films building looks now. So this is a fun game.

I try to locate the exact physical address of this company and I got from an old catalog:

The physical address is:

560 Main St, Fort Lee, NJ 07024

And using the google map street view and satellite view, we got as follows:

From the top (buliding pointed by red arrow is used to be Ken Films)

And this is today's front face:

Just wondering, any of you have visited this physical address other than mail orders?

Any actual pictures of the old shop?

cheers

Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on March 21, 2017, 06:54 PM:

Hi Winbert,
It is interesting to see the building where Ken Films was located, I think Bob Lane only did mail order, no retail from this location. That is, unless there were actual "walk in" customers that could comment? [Smile]

Posted by Carter Bradley (Member # 984) on March 22, 2017, 11:12 AM:

Thanks for posting this Winbert. As a child in Junior High and High School I often fantasized about Ken Films with thousands of films stacked as I walked down the aisles. Then as an adult I realized that this storefront was probably just a building where ladies sat at various desks answering phones, taking orders and that the films were probably in some warehouse elsewhere.

Posted by David Coppola (Member # 4209) on March 22, 2017, 11:45 AM:

I'm sure someone, somewhere, must have some info on the day to day operations there.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on March 22, 2017, 03:58 PM:

Carter, I also had visions of grandeur about Castle Films and Select Film Library both located in Manhattan. My mom and dad took me one day to visit both and all they turned out to be were small office spaces leased in big buildings with grumpy old school marms answering phones and typing at their desks. No inventory to sell to walk-ins as the fullfilment centers were in warehouses located nearby that filled orders for multiple mail order companies all at once. I was so disappointed. I've always regretted visiting them, but I was grateful to my parents for at least making the effort.

Posted by Winbert Hutahaean (Member # 58) on March 22, 2017, 04:11 PM:

Brad I believe the one you visited was a distribution center. The same type of office/warehouse are still being used now to distribute CDs/DVDs/BluRays/LPs, nothing fancy and they are not selling retail.

But on today's context there is what we call authorized retailers where this is more like a store but selling only from one studio or syndicate, nothing mixed. So in the old days, could we find somekind of this store? selling only Ken, Castle, or Columbia releases?

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on March 23, 2017, 06:34 AM:

Definitely not the distribution centers. DC's are the warehouses. The whereabouts of the Manhattan based film companies never made it public knowledge where the fullfilment centers were located. The addresses on the catalogs were the office locations where business was expedited. Just small spaces behind small windows that were, by no means, impressive. Columbia Pictures was probably the same kind of set up. I'm sure it wouldn't have been worth finding them.

Posted by Joe Balitzki (Member # 438) on March 23, 2017, 09:28 AM:

Mom and I visited Columbia Pictures on 5th Avenue. The studios' East Coast offices were located there so it was fun to visit them. They had the desks with typists and phones but they were accommodating. There was a cardboard rack display of prints like you would find in a camera store. They gave us a catalog to browse from. We were escorted into one of the offices where boxes of prints were in storage cabinets. Of course not every title was in stock so I picked out what I wanted from what was there. They may have had a distribution warehouse but that was not the impression I got. Columbia Pictures used Triangle Lab in NYC for many of their prints so I imagine many boxes flowed through that office. We felt like Big Shots visiting the NYC East Coast Offices of a Major Studio even if it was their 8mm Division [Smile]

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