Does anyone remember Farrell’s, the ice cream parlor with the 1901 theme? There was one on 7th & Weidler that got converted to Engine House Pizza, with its fire station theme. That place went under, to be replaced by a chain Mexican restaurant that still has the tower from the Engine House, though slightly modified.
There are a few places with the Farrell’s name in California, but I am skeptical of whether they provide the same experience (and maybe too old to truly appreciate it anyway).
An old tire store in Athens, GA is now Creature Comfortsbrewery. They retained a lot of the building’s original exterior and signage, it’s pretty cool.
The old fire station in Rapid City, SD is now Firehouse Brewing Company.
In my old hometown (Santa Fe, NM) a group of artists hooked up with George R.R. Martin, bought an old bowling alley, and turned it into Meow Wolf, an immersive art experience. I went last summer, and it is too cool for words; the space is mostly occupied by the House of Eternal Return, an actual house that is stuck between dimensions somehow. There are all kinds of strange things to see and experience; you can touch it all, and it’s extremely kid-friendly and not scary. You can explore the house and grounds, look for clues to what happened to the residents, or just look at stuff. If I still lived in Santa Fe, I would have been first in line when they were still selling lifetime passes.
In my new town, there was a newly-built car dealership, all glass and swoopy steel, that went under. Now it’s a church.
Our city did the same, a middle school campus was renovated and turned into a
campus that houses 2 microbrews/brewpubs as well as several restaurants.
The mention of converted school buildings reminded me of another one:
When my father was in Catholic high school in Green Bay in the late 1940s / early 1950s, the school was sharing space in its building with a newly-launched TV station (which was, as I understand it, owned by the Norbertine Order of priests that also ran the school).
The station grew rapidly, and just as my father was graduating from high school, the station (WBAY) took over the entire building, and the school was moved to a new building, a few miles to the west. The station is still in the same building today.
Two more I thought of:
The former South Dakota School for the Blind is now Buffalo Ridge Resort.
And the former University of South Dakota at Springfield is now a Medium Security State Prison.
The old Alabama Theater! And it’s no longer a bookstore, it’s a grocery store.
Not too far from where I live there was a store called “Harlequeens”. (I don’t know. All I can think of is jesters in drag. We kept intending to check it out, but never got around to it.) Then it closed and turned into a church.
Big automated pull through car wash (70’s style) turned into a church.:smack:
I think it’s neat, if a little weird, when buildings’ purposes are changed. When a tornado touched down in Westminster, MD, it destroyed the Catholic church. St. John’s was rebuilt outside of town, and the city built a new public library where the church was. Which means there’s a graveyard right next to the library parking lot.
But for crying out loud, don’t give new people in town directions by telling them to go where the (roller skating rink, pizza hut, movie theater, whatever) used to be.
But… but… I know where it was; why don’t you?
There was a Shakey’s Pizza in Vegas that I worked in for a short period. It partially burnt down and closed.
It got rebuilt, and turned into a motorcycle shop, which I also worked in for a short period.
Well, that’s a stupid name! Wonder how they came up with that?
Especially if they were born after it changed!
My mom’s from Missoula. She left in the late 1970s, after she graduated nursing school (at a hospital which still exists, but no longer runs a nursing school) and, even though she’s been back multiple, multiple times since then, including an average of once a year when I was a child and teen so my brothers and I could see relatives, she still tends to refer to how things were when she was a twenty-something back before they tore the Fox theater down… damn, now she’s got me doing it.
Anyway. They tore down the Mercantile in a hopeful sign that this place might not become San Francisco, and I feel myself drawn to thinking about downtown locations as being near where the Mercantile was. It’s inevitable, I suppose.
We have relatives, a mother and a daughter, that both worked in the same location years apart.
The mother as a waitress, the daughter as a porn clerk.
Hey pal! How do I get to town from here?
And he said:
*“Well just take a right where they’re going to build that new shopping mall
Go straight past where they’re going to put in the freeway
Take a left at what’s going to be the new sports center
And keep going until you hit the place where
They’re thinking of building that drive-in bank
You can’t miss it.” *
And I said:
“This must be the place.”
