Brighton Library Memoirs
Jun. 8th, 2010 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogGreetings from the Brighton Memorial Library, not to be confused with Buffalo's defunct Brighton Public Library; this one's my home away from home when I'm laid over in Rochester, as happened today when my 10:00 got cancelled and my 2:00 couldn't be moved. Before coming over here, I grabbed an early lunch, puttered in Barnes & Noble, and mentally counted the businesses that have faded from the Monroe Avenue suburban strip since I last paid much attention. Among them: our favorite neighborhood Chinese place, the House of Poon (I am not making that up); the legendary burger and ice cream joint Don and Bob's (razed for another bank); and, perhaps most surprising, Tastings, the signature sit-down restaurant run by, and located right next to, the flagship Wegmans store in Pittsford Plaza.
There's a replacement for the restaurant- a differently conceived eatery across the street which apparently retained all of the Tastings staff- but it's just weird seeing an empty Weggies building anywhere, especially considering how many cities would kill to have one. (Cities except their native Rochester, that is; this city went out of its way when we lived here to stop them from building a bigger store than the tiny one they then had in the Mt. Hope/Elmwood area, which now has no supermarkets at all; and there are fights over their plans to take over the whole corner where their one remaining city store is located, on East Avenue, supposedly because their plans don't have enough windows in them. And they wonder why Xerox left town and Kodak is barely hanging on.)
Eleanor mentioned during dinner last night that she'd heard about an appearance by one of the Baldwin brothers on Letterman. They've been trying to convince their 80-year-old mom to move out to where they all live so she can spend more time with them and her grandkids, but she won't leave Upstate New York because she'd have to give up Wegmans. (Link, which Dave won't let me embed and which subjects you to a pre-ad:P)
One new business seen here, in the little strip mall where I got my manbag, um, computer case fixed for all of $8.50: a vacant storefront, offered for sale or lease by S.E. Baker Realty. Yes, that would be a longago coworker of hers from the home security business, who had the listing on our dentist's office building for what seemed like years and who now has gone out on his own. His website is a babble of motivational speaker-speak and has a fancy logo, or as it's known in Texas, lots of hat. I'd be rather surprised to find much cattle.
OK, back to work.
There's a replacement for the restaurant- a differently conceived eatery across the street which apparently retained all of the Tastings staff- but it's just weird seeing an empty Weggies building anywhere, especially considering how many cities would kill to have one. (Cities except their native Rochester, that is; this city went out of its way when we lived here to stop them from building a bigger store than the tiny one they then had in the Mt. Hope/Elmwood area, which now has no supermarkets at all; and there are fights over their plans to take over the whole corner where their one remaining city store is located, on East Avenue, supposedly because their plans don't have enough windows in them. And they wonder why Xerox left town and Kodak is barely hanging on.)
Eleanor mentioned during dinner last night that she'd heard about an appearance by one of the Baldwin brothers on Letterman. They've been trying to convince their 80-year-old mom to move out to where they all live so she can spend more time with them and her grandkids, but she won't leave Upstate New York because she'd have to give up Wegmans. (Link, which Dave won't let me embed and which subjects you to a pre-ad:P)
One new business seen here, in the little strip mall where I got my manbag, um, computer case fixed for all of $8.50: a vacant storefront, offered for sale or lease by S.E. Baker Realty. Yes, that would be a longago coworker of hers from the home security business, who had the listing on our dentist's office building for what seemed like years and who now has gone out on his own. His website is a babble of motivational speaker-speak and has a fancy logo, or as it's known in Texas, lots of hat. I'd be rather surprised to find much cattle.
OK, back to work.
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Date: 2010-06-09 01:56 am (UTC)