For Charlie Barter, the closing of the last full-size Kmart in the country on Sunday was personal.
“When I left my house when I was 18, I didn’t have anywhere to go for clothing — I had to clothe myself, right? — and I went to the nearest Kmart, which was in Bridgehampton, and I remember getting stuff that was very affordable,” said Mr. Barter, who graduated from East Hampton High School in 2019. “It helped me in the first three years of my adulthood, and for me that’s really special.”
The Bridgehampton Kmart “put clothing on my back, and that brings a lot of memories for me,” Mr. Barter added.
By Sunday, however, there wasn’t much clothing left. At the front of the store, there was one wall filled with various items, including some back-to-school supplies, an assortment of Easter-theme bags, some power cables, and a full-size white bunny costume.
In front of that, there were display racks featuring hand sanitizer stored in what looked like Gatorade bottles — only 25 cents — along with lots of spicy brown mustard, Valentine’s Day cards going for 1 cent each, and face masks. Near the cash registers, there were four or five clothing racks.
Joseph and Joy Rossetti — who use the aliases Joe Lunchbox and Joy Nightingal — sifted through the store’s remnants with a vintage home video camera in hand. The couple, who traveled from Valley Stream, run a YouTube channel dedicated to 1980s Americana nostalgia called Joe and Joy Have Landed.
“Obviously, Kmart’s going out because people didn’t shop there anymore, and they switched to other stores, but it is the end of a thing,” Mr. Rossetti said. “We didn’t go that often, but we did go, so there are memories.”
Prior to hearing about the closing on Channel 7, the couple didn’t know there was a Kmart still operational in Bridgehampton. As for what they planned to buy, their attention turned to the bunny suit, “but there’s no more dressing room to try it on,” Mr. Rosetti said, joking.
A film crew working on a Kmart documentary traveled from Detroit to witness the store’s final day.
“We’re from Detroit, and the founder of Kmart was from Detroit,” said Anthony Bommarito. “It’s an iconic figure in retail history, and this was the last one closing, and we had to capture the moment.”
So far, the group has been to Michigan, Illinois, and now New York as part of the project. At this point in the process, the crew is piecing together a story to tell about the store.
“I don’t know if it’s American greed, I don’t know if it’s ‘adapt and move on,’ but we’ll be able to find that story and pull it through in our documentary,” Mr. Bommarito continued.
Andre Pennisi, a solo traveler, drove four and a half hours from Downingtown, Pa., on the morning of the store’s closing, just to see what it was like.
“I missed the last Sears in the United States, and I really wanted to go to that one, so I made it a point to not miss the last full-size Kmart in the United States,” Mr. Pennisi said.
Jerry Cook, another solo traveler, was headed home to Rhode Island after visiting a friend in New Jersey when curiosity brought him to the store.
“There was one in New Jersey when I still lived there. They closed, pretty similar to this, actually,” he said, adding, “I just wanted to see the store.”
Like Mr. Barter, the East Hampton High School graduate, many local people didn’t have to travel far to be there for the store’s final day. Rumors that a Target might take over Kmart’s spot in the Bridgehampton Commons were a big topic of conversation.
“There’s so many high-end shops out here that it’s good the working man can come find a place where he can buy things at a reasonable price,” Vincent Harris of Sag Harbor said of the store’s closing and the possibility of a nearby Target.
In the past, the store was a great place to “get some early Christmas shopping done,” he said. Mr. Harris is “sorry to see them going out of business, but everybody’s benefiting from it.”
Bari Musacchio and Saralyn Feinberg, on the other hand, were skeptical of the looming Target.
“To be honest, I understand the convenience of it,” Ms. Musacchio said. “However, I think it’s nice to be able to shop in small stores throughout the Hamptons, and that’s why you live out here, not to have everything consolidated into one large shop.”
Ms. Feinberg mentioned that a Target would compete with the existing stores in the Bridgehampton Commons: “it’s going to be tough with T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and the Target all in one shopping center.”
“It’s the last day,” Ms. Musacchio said. “We’ve seen it for so many years. . . Also, too, just in terms of American retail, Kmart had such a big role over all the years.”
Frank Santoro of Southampton wanted to see the building transformed into pickleball courts. Nonetheless, he understands why many are hoping for a Target. Having gone to the Bridgehampton Kmart since it opened in 1999, Mr. Santoro watched the store change over time.
“I remember when people would come here right when the season started for the summer folks,” he said. “You’d see people with towels and sheets and all that stuff because they were coming here for the season. So, it’s kind of weird to not see people come here anymore.”
At around 1 p.m., the store still had plenty of mustard on the racks and at least one bunny suit was available. Throughout the day, there was a consistent level of steady foot traffic.
As many celebrated or mourned Kmart as a symbol of American retail, Matheo Guaman, an 18-year-old employee, was feeling down. After the final closing on Sunday, the staff had one week of work left, he said, which would be used to clean the store.
“It’s sad the store is closing, but what else can we do but move on?” Mr. Guaman said outside the store after his shift. For his part, he will be moving on to a job at Stop and Shop while he mulls going to community college.
Mr. Guaman found out about the closing when he saw a sign advertising the liquidation sale. When he checked the work schedule, he noticed that he had been assigned extra days. A co-worker then told him that the store was closing for good.
At around 3 p.m. on closing day, all items in the store went on sale for 1 cent as employees began to shut down. The bunny suit, by that point, had been sold.
In 1986, at 16, Andra Jenkins got her first job at a Kmart in Broken Arrow, Okla. Back then, she got paid with an envelope full of cash every Friday.
On Sunday, she was one of the last shoppers at the Bridgehampton store, her 6-year-old son, Caspar, in tow. “It’s kind of interesting we’re here today at the last one where I now live — from Oklahoma to Bridgehampton, N.Y.”
Ms. Jenkins moved from Oklahoma to Springs in 2015. In the past, she shopped at Kmart for “toys, lots of toys,” for Caspar. During the winter, Ms. Jenkins would go to the store to let Caspar “run around” when there weren’t many other places to go.
“Shopping just changed a lot with all of the online stuff,” she said about the closing. “Like any brick-and-mortar store, some of them suffered, and some of them found other ways.”
A Target taking its place “would be the most amazing thing in the entire world,” she added. “It is what we have all been praying would happen. To be honest with you, we need it so badly.”
Kmart opened a store for the final time in 2002, The New York Times reported in a 2021 story on the downfall of the retail giant. That year, the corporation that owns it also filed for bankruptcy.
As the last full-size store closed for the final time, Avril Lavigne’s 2002 pop-punk anthem “Sk8er Boi” began to play over the speakers, as if it still were that peak year for the former giant of retail.