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| From Round Robin Photo Challenges |
Two weeks ago when I went for a drive with some friends on the western edge of Tucson, down Gates Pass and into Avra Valley, I took a few minutes to look for a restaurant I used to eat at when I was in travel agent school in 1987. Right at the end of Anklam where it merges with Speedway to become Gates Pass Boulevard, we came upon this Greek restaurant. This would have been handy had it been open, because we had a hungry vegetarian of Greek ancestry in the car. But alas, the restaurant was gone: derelict, empty. There was even a fallen tree in front of the place. I think this was the site of Daisy Mae's Steakhouse back in the 1980s. A very good restaurant it was, too!
You know about this place. This particular Borders was in Park Place Mall, a very busy and successful shopping mall since it was renovated in 1999. Strangely, however, the area immediately around Park Place, particularly on Wilmot Road just south of Broadway, is a hot spot for gone-away businesses.
This one is particularly notable. Immediately adjacent to Park Place in the days when it was called Park Mall, this was a Silo store. You can still see the remains of the lettering that advertised the electronics that were sold there. Silo has been gone for probably 20 years, but you can still tell what the place used to be. Since then it's been a warehouse for World Care (a charity, I think), the temporary home of Wilmot Library, and, most recently, one of those discount Halloween shops that pop up for a month each year. And yet it still looks like a dead Silo store.
The other weird thing about this building is that at one end you can see the remains of another business that was there in the 1980s: a surf shop. In landlocked, desert Tucson. Is it any wonder that's long gone?
Across the street and a few doors down is this place, which has only been gone since June. Do you recognize it?
I could show you several more closed businesses within a block or two of these others, ranging from a family-owned ice cream parlor to a building that was most recently a charter school. But let's finish up with this former Hometown Buffet, which closed around the same time as the restaurant across the street from it. The nice surprise today was seeing the Opening Soon sign out front for U Like Buffet. Okay, it's a terrible name, but I wish them well. I don't want them to be here today, gone tomorrow.
Karen
Now let's see what else is gone!
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1 comment:
Looks like a lot of places have been shut down, perhaps a case of not many customers? We had a bookshop called Border which recently shut down due to being in the red for a few years. But soon after the store was taken over by a clothing store.
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