Happy Winter Solstice!

Suburbia

As I became a serious thrift'er, I learned to cross the Boulevard Bridge to go to Southside Plaza or that east end of Midlothian Turnpike, where flea markets and thrift stores had settled into old commercial spaces. I knew that the ARC thrift was in an old Miller & Rhoades. I started to think about how I considered that end of Midlothian Turnpike, where our BEST was just a few doors down from our neighbors' car dealership (Whitten Brothers) to be the far end of Midlo -- well beyond Cloverleaf Mall! The construction of Chesterfield Mall -- though a modest mall for so many years -- had made Cloverleaf seem ridiculously distant.

Of course, my point of view was new-suburban: I viewed the metropolitan area from the porch of a house built in 1970, a few doors down from a farm (replaced by another subdivision within a few years). It seemed odd to me for those businesses to be so far out, but really, they were far in -- they were close to the city, where the majority of people lived.

This item in Style brings all this to mind. I didn't know that the Southside Plaza M&R was the first suburban location. It's no longer a neighborhood that can afford to shop at a nice department store. How can the houses that were once Nice now be Poor? Yeah, I know: white flight and the middle class's rising need for great rooms and atriums, not trim little houses.

Also interesting in Syle: Hotel John Marshall, City Hall.

Statewide
New Welcome sign, here.


Found

Fancy4

Hops4

Chin4


Impulse Buy

I moved a book from the non-fiction shelves to an endcap display the other day. I note that now, for the first time in over two years, someone checked it out. It's called Plane Insanity...; search our catalog, here, to find out about it.

Singing: this