The King is Dead!
Long Live The New King!
The photographs for this post were taken around eight p.m. Tuesday evening on August 16th, 2005. Man was it strange, but fun to snap these photos. To see an entire building converted into rubble - a very interesting sight.
I had driven past the old store that very morning. I knew that the building, which resided at the South East corner of Macarthur, and Ash for well over fifty years, was soon to be demolished. The demolition crew had removed the plate glass windows the night before, and had spray painted the words, "Keep Out" in neon orange along the front of the building. A poster board sign was left in the locked glass doorway of the old buiding informing customers to use the new building - as if that were needed?
Still it came as quite a shock when I drove past the store that evening to discover it was almost completely demolished - with just a few remnants of the north wall standing.
A part of me feels sad that another tangible part of my childhood, and adolescence has been dispatched into the history books. I guess in some way it was justifiable. Out with the old, in with the new. I guess the new store doesn't have any mice, or cockroaches yet. And the new building probably meets all the new fire, and safety codes, and is probably cheaper to heat, and cool.
Ultimately I suspect that Walgreen's just wants every store to look exactly the same inside, and out. They probably know exactly how many twinkies are in row seven, shelf three, column four in every store in the country. When your growing as fast as Walgreen's I guess knowledge about inventory, and uniformity is worth the cost of tearing down a building that was exactly the same size, and served its function perfectly well up to the day they tore it down.
I had driven past the old store that very morning. I knew that the building, which resided at the South East corner of Macarthur, and Ash for well over fifty years, was soon to be demolished. The demolition crew had removed the plate glass windows the night before, and had spray painted the words, "Keep Out" in neon orange along the front of the building. A poster board sign was left in the locked glass doorway of the old buiding informing customers to use the new building - as if that were needed?
Still it came as quite a shock when I drove past the store that evening to discover it was almost completely demolished - with just a few remnants of the north wall standing.
A part of me feels sad that another tangible part of my childhood, and adolescence has been dispatched into the history books. I guess in some way it was justifiable. Out with the old, in with the new. I guess the new store doesn't have any mice, or cockroaches yet. And the new building probably meets all the new fire, and safety codes, and is probably cheaper to heat, and cool.
Ultimately I suspect that Walgreen's just wants every store to look exactly the same inside, and out. They probably know exactly how many twinkies are in row seven, shelf three, column four in every store in the country. When your growing as fast as Walgreen's I guess knowledge about inventory, and uniformity is worth the cost of tearing down a building that was exactly the same size, and served its function perfectly well up to the day they tore it down.
2 comments:
Don't know why but these photos appear much darker since I posted them - possibly due to the PhotoBucket JPEG compression algorythm.
I'll compensate, and get them reposted.
JP
I thought that was some JP photoshop action you were using. But, they're still great pictures.
Just for the record, I found myself in front of the rubble about noon on Tuesday and felt for sure you would have photos.
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