...The Train Shoppe, North Penn Ave., Wilkes-Barre.
Zachary, Jeremy, Avery and I went walking about with visions of die-caste cars ruminating as the eventual fruits of our miniscule labors. Instead, we learned that yet another Nord End mainstay has gone by the wayside.
Like the Woodlawn Dairy, Jack Knelly's grocery and Marlino's Pharmacy before it, what we all once knew and loved were eventually plowed under by the big box stores.
See y'all at Sprawl-Mart.
Later, much later
2 comments:
Sigh. I will admit I have only been in there two times in the last, say, twenty years - and both of those since November 2009. Both times I felt vaguely unwelcome, like I had just stepped into a place that was a front for something else, and I had no business being there. (I felt that way when I ate at a certain Italian restaraunt by the Mall years back. Though the parking lot was full of cars, we were apparently the only two eating there that day, and the wait staff seemed surprised to see us.) Maybe it's that I was an unfamiliar face in a place that doesn't trust strangers.
Back in the 1980's The Train Shoppe was a reliable place for picking up Dungeons & Dragons books and gear. I wasn't exactly a regular then, but I did stop in from time to time.
It's too bad. Specialized stores like this draw a very specific clientele, and that clientele has thinned out a lot over the decades. I suppose this was inevitable.
Are those boxer shorts? In December?
Post a Comment