Way back When!
When I was a child, Woodlawn did not have all the storefronts it has now. there was Frankel's and the row of stores going down to the alley, and the store that is now a Card store. Back then it was a Ben Franklin Dime Store. They still have them in the northeast.
The rest of the stores were a piggly Wiggly, an A&P (they still have them on the East coast), and a Kroger, Beechmont Hardware., a record store, and Hesse's department store. At one time there was a doctor's office. Tangerine has been there as long as I can remember.
There were no buildings past the dime store. the ground dropped away to a huge hole, all the way to Third.
Across the street there was the barbershop with the shoe repair shop downstairs, the cleaners and Deering Hardware. That's right, a second hardware! and both of them did quite well. Beechmont had the post office in it at certain times during the week.
Pop, as he was known( I think he was the owner's father) dragged out a wooden crate and a set of scales and a box of 2 and 3 cents stamps and he was in business. I remember standing in line with a box of homemade cookies on its' way to my uncle in the Navy during WW11. We kids did all the errand running, including buying the groceries, as much as we could carry or trundle home in our little red wagons.
Where BP stands now, there was another big hole with nothing in it. That was the extent of our shopping area unless you went out to where Girard's stands now,on Third, and that was a hardware with the bakery shop nest door plus maybe a few other places.
I didn't go that far except on the street car, on my way to my aunt's on Reed. It was a wonderful ride and sometimes I went for the ride, uninvited and unannounced, to my aunt' and then walked home by the Parkway. It would be nice if we could recapture some of the pleasures and stisfaction of that time.
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