On the northeast corner, the old gas station site is fenced off and environmental clean-up crews are on site. I wonder if they’ll take down the building, and what might go there next.
Miller & Maple
» Want more items like this one? Visit the Stopped. Watched. page.
I wondered, too. It seems like someone would want to take advantage of all that traffic heading to/from the highway. Skyline is a closed campus so no high schoolers looking for lunch, though. (I’ve given up on the old Shell station site.)
I grew up in the Garden Homes subdivision behind the Marathon Gas Station at Miller & Maple. This neighborhood business district once supported two full service gas stations, a produce market, a meat market, and a convenience store as well as a Dominoes Pizza franchise. These businesses provided jobs to my friends and places to go as bored teenagers. Even my dog, a great dane, would walk to the meat market (sometimes on her own!) to get her treat – a large leg bone. It really is sad to see what was once a very vibrant neighborhood business district become a shell of it’s former self.
I’d love to see it come back. I’d think it provides a walkable market destination for a lot of homes. The two last markets had trouble though, even though one was a specialty market (Sabor Latino). It is hard to get enough consistent traffic.
There is a sign for a new beer and cigarette place coming in the former Stop and Shop (or whatever it was called) in the strip mall you are talking about. That store was pretty awful. The sign for the new place doesn’t do anything to create the impression that it will be any nicer. Sad little corner.
I wanna retroactively grow up where my man Steve grew up! Growing up in the suburbs sucked–houses, houses, snotty neighbors, stuck up rich people, houses, houses. Yeah I know–it could have been worse, but it was pretty sucky for an angsty gothy teen in the 80s!
Seriously though, the proliferation of crappy stores in strip malls makes me sad. How many nail salons/”smoke shops”/tanning salons does one need?