Kay Nam remembers when she would arrive at her Manhattan Beach newsstand at 7 a.m. and find people already lined up — waiting to pick up the morning paper.
Whole stacks of newspapers would disappear within hours, she said. Readers would linger, browsing more than 150 different magazines stacked on shelves and racks. The place buzzed.
But that was decades ago.
Things haven’t been like that for a while.
“Times have changed,” Kay said.
It’s no newsflash that print media isn’t what it used to be. People simply aren’t reading physical newspapers and magazines the way they once did.
Which is why, after 28 years in Downtown Manhattan Beach, the South Bay’s last traditional newsstand has finally shut its doors.
Tom and Kay Nam, co-owners of Current Events in Manhattan Beach. The couple’s newsstand shop has closed after 28 years on Highland Avenue. (Courtesy of Melissa Heckscher)
Current Events, a newsstand shop owned by Tom and Kay Nam, has closed after 28 years on Highland Avenue in Manhattan Beach. (Courtesy of Melissa Heckscher)
A rack of magazines is shown inside Current Events, a newsstand shop owned by Tom and Kay Nam. The couple has closed their business after 28 years on Highland Avenue in Manhattan Beach. (Courtesy of Melissa Heckscher)
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Tom and Kay Nam, co-owners of Current Events in Manhattan Beach. The couple’s newsstand shop has closed after 28 years on Highland Avenue. (Courtesy of Melissa Heckscher)
Current Events, a small shop on Highland Avenue that for decades sold papers, magazines, snacks, and lotto tickets to a loyal roster of regulars, closed on Saturday, Jan. 31 — yet another nail in the coffin of the world that journalism school grads like me once dreamed of when we set out to work in the news business.
“This is very emotional for us,” said Kay, who worked at the store seven days a week for nearly all of its three decades. “It is hard to say goodbye — to the store and to the people.”
Kay co-owned the store with her husband, Tom. Over the years, they grew close to a family of regulars, some of whom stopped in daily or weekly, often just to chat.
“We have a very strong connection to the Manhattan Beach community,” Kay said. “We saw children come in with their parents, go to school, come back after school, grow up and, later, return with children of their own.”
But it hasn’t been easy.
In recent years, Kay took on a second job to help pay the rent on the space, which sits in a bustling stretch of downtown shops and restaurants. Sales had slumped, but the couple kept the store open as long as they could.
“We felt responsible to the people who supported us for so many years, and we wanted to stay open for them as long as we could,” Kay said, adding that she raised her son, Bryan, inManhattan Beach. “This store was a big part of our lives.”
But Tom has health problems, Kay said. He needs surgery.
So they’re closing the newsstand.
“It’s just time,” she said.
Kay and Tom, originally from Korea, came to Manhattan Beach from the East Coast in 1996. Two years later, they took over the business from its previous owner.
It was originally a mail center and ticket broker. The couple kept the P.O. boxes and added the newsstand. The ticket seller rented space from them and continued operating there for many years.
And over time, the shop became a daily ritual for many locals.
“Current Events was a regular destination for my family,” Manhattan Beach Mayor David Lesser told me in an email. “As the internet altered how news is consumed, they were a reliable resource of information and reflected our small-town atmosphere. They will be greatly missed.”
The business took a significant hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kay said, as foot traffic dried up and many publications stopped printing altogether. It took another blow in 2021, when Manhattan Beach banned the sale of cigarettes — once a reliable source of revenue.
But the deeper damage had already been done. The internet had been quietly hollowing out the business for years.
Once a staple of daily life, newsstand sales have dwindled from more than 35% of magazine circulation in the late 1970s to less than 3% today, industry reports show, as distributors disappeared, and supermarkets and convenience stores eliminated or reduced their magazine racks.
Bookstores, meanwhile, have experienced the opposite. After once being thought to be equally doomed by the digital shift, bookstores are now experiencing a surprising resurgence. In 2025, in fact, more than 400 new independent bookstores joined the American Booksellers Association, according to data cited by The New York Times, while Barnes & Noble announced plans to open 55 new stores nationwide.
Books are a novelty now — a conscious choice to look away from screens. Books are retro.
But I still love magazines. Always have.
Looking back, I can trace whole personality arcs of my life through the magazines I was reading. Highlights gave way to Ranger Rick. Teen gave way to Self. Entertainment Weekly and People gave way to Good Housekeeping and Newsweek. My magazines grew up with me.
Of course, I tried to pass that page-flipping pleasure on to my kids, but with YouTube, Roblox and graphic novels competing for their attention, print media is a quick no.
“Mom, why do you even buy magazines?” my 16-year-old son said to me recently after I had just stocked up on a bagful of glossies for a long flight.
He was genuinely dumbfounded, and had paused the endless cogwheel of TikTok on his phone (content that I find equally unfathomable) just to ask me the question.
I tried to explain. He didn’t get it.
The news, he argued, happens too quickly to be printed on paper. And magazines? There are apps for that.
Ironically, however, people have taken to social media to mourn the loss of the beloved South Bay newsstand.
“I used to arrive every Thursday to buy the latest stash of fashion magazines,” one Instagram user wrote. “Thank you for all these years.”
“End of an era,” said another.
As for what’s next for the space, the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce said the store will become the new location for Gum Tree, an artsy, locally owned home décor and gift shop currently located on Manhattan Beach Boulevard.
“We want to pause and recognize what a remarkable run this has been,” the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business + Professional Association said in an Instagram post. “Smallbusinesses like this are the heartbeat of Downtown Manhattan Beach.”
Magazine lovers, take heart. You can still find a solid lineup of glossies at Barnes & Noble — now the last remaining place in the beach cities with a deep magazine rack.
But, for me at least, it’s not the same.
“We will miss seeing our customers every day,” Kay said. “Serving this community for so many years has been an honor. Thank you to everyone who supported us.”