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My Favorite Walgreens
Posted on February 8th, 2009 11 comments
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?
demolished, mid-century modern, st. louis county demolished, mid-century modern, st. louis county, walgreens, watson road11 Responses to “My Favorite Walgreens”
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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.
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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!
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steve carosello February 17th, 2009 at 3:01 PM
It was originally a Katz drugstore, then a Skaggs drugstore. Now it’s some stripmall bullshit.
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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!
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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.
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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?
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Sigh, you know you’re getting old when they start tearing down your memories.
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I think that was one of the last Walgreens to sell booze. I remember them having alcohol in 2002.
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A.Thebeau February 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 AM
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.
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steve carosello February 24th, 2009 at 10:57 AM
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.
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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.
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