Chinatown Fair: a documentary

Chinatown Fair: a documentary from Mark Hayes on Vimeo.

Tucked away on a narrow sidestreet in Lower Manhattan lay Chinatown Fair, one of the city’s (and the country’s) last independently owned video arcades. Home to a loyal group of gamers, the arcade was the pinnacle of the East Coast fighting game scene. When it suddenly closed in February 2011, the players were left to find a new home.

Combining interviews with crowdsourced footage, Chinatown Fair tells the personal story of the connections that were formed at the arcade and how they can survive after a shared space no longer exists.