My favorite Walgreens no longer exists, and this is a highly ironic story.
In South St. Louis City, we’re used to them tearing down bowling alleys so they can build a Walgreens. But in this case, in 2003, they tore down a Walgreens to build another Walgreens! It’s all true.
This mid-century fabulous Walgreens was on Watson, just a scootch east of the intersection of Rock Hill/Elm. This one stayed open while they built a brand new one right at the intersection proper. Once it opened, they tore this one down, and now a short strip mall with a Blockbuster Video stands in its place.
To this day, I still see a phantom image of it as I pass by. It’s roof reminded me of the Flying Nun’s head gear as she was airborn. And it’s still a weird feeling to miss a Walgreens… know what I mean?
My brother and I would walk to Skaggs with our money about 5 or 6 yrs old by ourselves, boy times were different. Buy some candy or snap n’ pops or pop rocks first came out! I remember one time they had a plastic “pyramid power” item special and the box said you could put water under it and it would get sweeter, put a dull razor blade or scissors and it would be sharp! I saved my money and bought that thing. It seemed to work. I truly loved that store. We would also go to Steak and Shake and Burger King and remember that pizza place! What was the name of it, right accross from Skaggs. Hmmmm….They had round tins they served the pizza on, the sausage pizza had little round pellets of sausage. I can still smell that place. It was good. Lubeleys bakery down the street. Miss those things….moved away a long time ago. Thank you for posting this pic! Fond, fond memories.
One look and I said, “That’s Katz!” I used to go there and read Mad Magazines after school let out from Washington Park. It was right next to the A&P.
I am not old enough to remember the Katz, but I remember loving that place when it was a Skaggs. The massive cornice provided needed shade on brutal summer days, as well as protection from the rain. I’ve not lived near this place for many years, but I don’t even recognize it now. The St -n- Sh has been ruined across the street as well. Too bad.
My mom used to go there (and drag me along) when it was a Katz, then a Skaggs and then a Walgreens. If it was around lunchtime, she’d take me to the Steak N Shake across Elm or to the Burger Chef across Watson. I loved to get the Happy Meal (Burger Chef had the Happy meal before McD) because the burger, fries, drink and prize had their own little compartment to sit in.
The excuse given at the time was that the old building would not easily accomodate a drive-thru for prescription drug pick-ups.
Still, though, as someone who was asked once to give an estimate of how many paper clips he used in a budget year, that .000001% sales increase potential is compelling.
Studies have shown that sales increase by .000001% if the Walgreens is located right at the intersection and is a newly constructed building, so I feel that the destruction of the already existing structure and further homogenization of this particular landscape is completely justified.
I think that was one of the last Walgreens to sell booze. I remember them having alcohol in 2002.
Sigh, you know you’re getting old when they start tearing down your memories.
Oh, how sad. Do you know if anyone tried to persuade them to rehab the original and did the community have time to do something about that?
Are you familiar with the CVS in Springfield, MO located at 1735 S. Glenstone Ave. 65804? It has a similar look. It used to be a Skaggs Drugstore. I tried to post the link to a picture of it on google maps below.
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=CVS+Springfield+MO&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=0,0,15513162370053881266&ei=UX6cSZQwguo0jpLMlgU&sa=X&oi=local_result&resnum=1&ct=image
I’m so glad you posted this. Just the other day I was trying to remember where and what this building was. I remember driving by it before I lived near to its former location and just couldn’t remember exactly how it appeared. Mystery solved!
It was originally a Katz drugstore, then a Skaggs drugstore. Now it’s some stripmall bullshit.
I remember going any number of times.
By the way, I have this new site set up in my RSS reader, but the on-site URLs it sends me to are wrong (e.g., for this page, it sent me to http://www.beltstl.com/my-favorite-walgreens-235/ instead of http://www.beltstl.com/2009/02/my-favorite-walgreens/). Just a heads up!
Sniff, I miss this one too. Wasn’t this originally a Katz Drugstore? I don’t recall any original Walgreens with interesting architecture. New blog looks great, BTW.