The hardware store across and slightly down the street from the church suddenly closed on Tuesday after being at its site for 51 years. Damn. I was just beginning to establish a relationship with the staff there (I love hardware stores). The years and years that our sexton would run across the street to get something small served us well. But the corporate HQ down in MA said the store wasn't making enough profit so they closed it. The plan was probably in the works for some time, but the store opened as usual on Tuesday and by noon, the staff had put paper in the windows.
Guess what is around the block and down some? A shopping plaza with parking and WALDO's (aka WalMart). Any correlation?
So what's left on our block that extends down to the main drag?
On our side of the street: the church, its parking lot, a bank, a parking lot, the UU church, a restaurant and a large vacant building.
Across the street: a parking lot, a decrepit building housing a bank but our sexton who works there says the absent landlord is so far behind in taxes that that all may fall apart, the municipal parking garage (that recently flooded), a sushi restaurant, two empty storefronts, one which had a Subway and another that had a massage/prisms/you name it new agey stuff that moved, the hardware store, an empty store front.
The block is getting more and more dead.
What to do?
Meanwhile, now it means having to get into the car and schlep somewhere if I need something simple, paying more in gasoline that the actual item I need.
1 comment:
Oh I so hate seeing this kind of story.
There is an Aubuchon Hardware in the town where I work, so seeing that sign freaked me out. And makes me wonder if it will be there when I drive by tomorrow.
How I especially bemoan the loss of the small hardware store... always a necessary and favorite place in any town.
I am saddened to hear of the state of affairs there. It is a true pity, such loss.
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