Well, it was a while ago while I was walking into work, I noticed a hook hanging out of the corner of The Ghetto Fashion Palace.
And then it was like I blacked out or something and I remembered this store was a Woolworths 5&10 before it was filled with cheap polyester-blend clothing (though, kudos to someone for actually REUSING an empty storefront).
Shortly thereafter, I also recalled the big hook thing that employees would hook into the hook, turn and open the awning.
Could the Woolworths awning still be tucked up inside?
It certainly looked like a candy-striped awning…
Above the entrance of the store, barely peeking out, there it was.
It’s almost as if I can still smell the fabric cooking in the summer sun.
For the record, I still have my purchase from Woolworths; 8 iced tea spoons which I procured for a whole 50 cents.
As a bonus, here’s something else pretty from Downtown Buffalo.
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Now playing: Tool – Sober
via FoxyTunes
i miss the ol’ “Five and Dime”…
tell me about it… while most of the stuff in there was cheap crap (at least in ours), there were a few gems…
Very observant! Nice pix too 🙂 I don’t recall there being an awning there though in the 30 years I’ve been downtown…30 years…why, I’m so old I can remember Main Street before the metrorail 🙂
Perhaps the awning was out only a couple times… for some reason I recall it being open when I would take the bus into downtown for shopping (at the mall, when it had tenants) and a movie at the Market Arcade.
I also want to say it was open towards the end of the run… on my first downtown employment, around 99…2000?
i loved our woolworths…i did some of my finest ‘tween’ shoplifting there–hello, wet ‘n wild lipstick and eyeliners!!!
once in a blue, my mom would take my sis and me to the counter for grilled cheese sandwiches and cherry cokes. ohhh, the good old days. (you remember, when we had to walk to school uphill both ways, et al.) ahahha.
Wet’n’Wild!
My local “Fay’s” carried those… fifty cent cosmetics? Sign us up.
Sadly, our Wolly’s didn’t have a snack bar, that was next door at AM&A’s.
I really think you should investigate further! I want to know if that really is the striped awning up there!
Love the photo of the church. Lovely.
The clerks would probably shoot me.
After I explained what an awning was.
As for the church, it’s St. Pauls Cathedral. There’s something about this church that always catches my eye…
http://www.stpaulscathedral.org/article.php?id=186 (street level/aerial/other side, 4th one is my favorite. Taken from the building in the background of my photo)
http://www.buffaloah.com/a/pearl/128/hp.html (interior, exterior, history)
The building in the background is the Guaranty / Prudential Building.
http://www.buffaloah.com/a/church/28/tc.html
And it’s insane interior: http://www.buffaloah.com/a/church/28/02int/index.html
Figured for all the Buffalo Bashing I do, it was worth it to play up something nice.
Buffalo isn’t all bad…we’ll forget T.O. is there for a few minutes.
winter is around the corner and then all the focus will be back here.
Bizarre indeed
There probably was a soda counter in that Woolworths, but I can’t remember. The one on Broadway had one in the 70’s, and in the 50’s (old old old) my grandma worked in one at TransitTowne Plaza and I’ve been told I used to climb up on a stool and order a pop and tell the lady that my grandma would pay for it.
Definitely used to be a basement level in the downtown store, where they sold the goldfish, among other stuff. Rite Aid on Main used to have a basement level too.
I remember our Woolworths back in New York. And our Montgomery Ward. I used to like those stores. *SIGH*
That church reminds me of one in Utica right along the arterial. The churches here in the southwest just aren’t the same as the northeastern ones.
I like the Buffalo pictures…keep em coming 🙂 I miss Woolworth’s as well…end of an era.
I finally got around to going over there to have a look myself – definitely an awning in there!