Capital City . . . on the Grow!
Sometimes, I drag myself to the Downtown Y. I go infrequently enough that changes in the city-scape to the east take me by surprise. VCU's latest building project is the renovation of the old city auditorium. It's been gutted, making that block seem strangely open. (Ha. I glanced around VCU's homepage to see if they had a What We Are Building Now page, and found instead a profile of Richmond's hipster bookman, Ward.)
The art museum's addition gained walls in the first part of the year, but I've noted little exterior change since then.
The yellow-brick tire business on Broad at Lombardy is now apartments, over a dollar store. On Saturday morning, I spotted two cleaning crews tackling VCU properties on Broad, and numerous cars and pick ups full of college-kid belongings -- including that tire store. And the dollar store was packin 'em in.
2 comments:
What is the attraction to the dollar store? I just don't get it. Can't people get enough tacky junk at WalMart?
Go ahead, call me an elitist...
Many of the dollar stores I've gone to filled the gap until you could get to the box store. In rural Va. (summer camp, camping) they're really handy for a new towel or a token birthday item. The one on Broad St. is walking distance to Jackson and Carver Wards, VUU and VCU: lots of car-less people. And while one could take the bus downtown the Five and Dime -- the Woolworth -- has been gone for some 15 years.
A singer-song writer I like has a Woolworth's song. On a live track of the song she talks about that irresistible urge for all those "unnecessary plastic objects." I get that. Of course, the Five Below is the more up-scale store for this urge!
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