[7/25 STORE – 7/27 FEJ]

Celeste Neuhaus's experimental student documentary, focusing on Al Kohn's life and the neighborhood where he lived.

00:00Copy video clip URL Footage of a Al and Ben Kohn’s old storefront coffee shop, heavily decorated with indecipherable talking in the background. Close-ups of a cat and ashtray.

09:00Copy video clip URL Celeste Neuhaus talks to the new owner’s son. He talks about his dad wanting to sell the place because there’s no more business. There are a lot of religious items, including Virgin Mary figurines and nativities. 

11:50Copy video clip URL They discuss the neighborhood. Celeste remarks that it’s a “tight-knit group of people.”

13:25Copy video clip URL Celeste talks to Manuel about his life and living in the neighborhood. He talks about Al and Ben, saying they were very “funny people, could tell jokes…people liked them because they were human.”

16:15Copy video clip URL She also speaks to a woman in the storefront about Al’s family. 

18:46Copy video clip URL The woman talks about who lived in the storefront before the electrical fire in 1981. She talks about Sam, Harry, and Ida, Al and Ben’s siblings, dying. After Ida died, Al and Ben moved to the storefront across the street, but they would always come help out the new owners.

26:06Copy video clip URL Footage inside a restaurant. Close-up of a gumball machine.

27:15Copy video clip URL Celeste speaks to a man about Al being a “mythic figure.” He talks about how Al would never sell him a pack of cigarettes because “in reality he was a grumpy, old man.” He says that Al stopped caring after Ben died, now having lost the last of his family.

31:27Copy video clip URL He talks about people helping Al out and how Ben and Al gave the neighborhood “legitimization.” Celeste asks questions, but you cannot hear her. He tells her that he always crossed the street when he saw Al and he “doesn’t know why people took care of him, but the cops sure did.”

34:50Copy video clip URL He discusses Al losing himself after Ben died–“he wasn’t even trying to be grumpy.”

39:03Copy video clip URL Footage of the outside of Ben and Al’s old storefront.

40:45Copy video clip URL Celeste speaks to another man about Al in Spanish. He promises to talk to her about Al tomorrow and that his son will translate. He’s known Al for 34 years. He’s moved around a bit, but lived in his current house in the neighborhood for 12 years.