Beechmont Neighborhood Association

It is finally ubderway and hopefully, it will be successful and please the store-keepers more than the last one did. If everyone steps in with facade improvements and everyone sweeps their walk way on a regular basis, well, it should bring more traffic to the corridor and more business for the merchants. What do you think?

By your coordinator

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.

By .

Doctors' offices

Seems to me there were two doctors on Woodlawn in that block, Dr. Shaw in one of the small shops and Dr. Yancey where the postoffice stands. That was a house that sat far back on the lot. The office wss in the front. Since i remember it as one story, I don't believe it was used as a residence, the wqy Dr. Martin's was on the corner of third and Woodlawn, where Dairy Queen is now.

By .

Trendy improvements

If BNA is successful in it's endeavors, Nobody will have anything on us. A local artist has been retained to design bike racks that will not fall victim to the vandals that ride the hand rails at the library or the stone wall at the credit union. they will be sculptors that are impervious to that kind of abuse. Same way with the benches. Murals will cover the alley walls leading to the parking lot, depicting Beechmont's history. The neighborhood has been talking about it for a long time, It is finally coming to. How nice!

By coordinator