Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Downtown Sights

The downtown business district is still a very mixed bag, especially for people who remember Macy's and the earlier retailers who made Plainfield a shopping mecca in the old days.
How's this for advertising? Old-school sidewalk chalk. (Click any image to enlarge.)
"Talent for Survival" coming soon! These buildings have survived since the late 19th Century.
If these bricks could talk!
"Cricket Coming Soon !!!" Almost as cryptic as "Talent for Survival."
So ... the former Strand Theater will be a family entertainment center, for birthday parties and such, I guess.
Melancholy Magic Marker mannequin head ponders it all.
Heading for the senior center to renew my membership, I came across this little garden next to the Neighborhood House.
Walking home on Watchung Avenue, I paused at City Hall to read this message again: "Erected by the people to inspire zeal for the common welfare and dedicated by them to the cause of just and capable government." Let's think about that for 2105.

--Bernice
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13 comments:

  1. GBNovember 26, 2014 at 5:27 AM

    I am not sure if I recall Macy's. Was it near Bamberger's ?

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    Replies
    1. BerniceNovember 26, 2014 at 8:37 AM

      It was Bamberger's until it became Macy's, in the building that now holds Supremo. Macy's closed here in the early 1990s.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 2:36 PM

      I thinks they were pulling your leg Bernice.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 5:56 AM

    Hey Bernice hope you trip over a mattress on sidewalk!

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    1. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 9:52 AM

      Typo it was meant to be hope you don't trip over mattress.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 11:03 AM

    Oh the disgusting habit of spitting your gum out on the sidewalk. Why do we spend out tax dollars on improvements just to have people desecrate them.

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    1. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 12:24 PM

      The day laborers do more than spit gum on sidewalk downtown use your imagination

      Delete
    2. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 5:09 PM

      who said anything about day laborers other than you ?

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    3. AnonymousNovember 27, 2014 at 7:37 AM

      Reality said something that's who and you probably don't even go downtown mr 5:09 pm or is it ms ?

      Delete
    4. AnonymousNovember 27, 2014 at 1:34 PM

      Funny how people always find a group to blame. And always using the same inhumane justifications: color, gender, ethnicity, xenophobia etc. And we think that slavery and the holocaust are behind us. At least these comments serve a purpose. They warn us that we are not out of the woods yet and at any time we can regress, with popular support, to those dark days.

      Delete
    5. AnonymousNovember 28, 2014 at 8:15 AM

      Blackmen who stand on front st seeking day labor are not allowed they are profiled as Lotierers so the dark days of prejudice still are here in plfd.

      Delete
  4. AnonymousNovember 26, 2014 at 4:54 PM

    Would love to see pictures of what the center of town looked like immediately before urban "renewal" leveled the Park-Madison site with its 40 stores, a church or two, and the Paramount Theater, and before fire took down the Babcock Building. Nothing we can do about it now, but one can appreciate what once was.

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  5. AnonymousDecember 2, 2014 at 8:37 AM

    There's a Facebook group where people share old pictures of Plainfield. There are also pictures available at the library if I'm not mistaken.

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