The Iconic Stores of Walton County

Above is the Good Hope General Store. Opened around 1913, this is just about the only commercial enterprise left in the small community which is still operating. Fifty years ago, the crossroads had fifteen or more commercial buildings and this is the only one that remains. The store has a unique history and it has evolved over time from its original operation to include gasoline sales and a lunch counter, but it still reveals its rural roots with its fishing bait and tackle section. Outside the store features a small concrete picnic table. However, its greatest gathering spot is located just inside the door where a half dozen rocking chairs are situated in a circle by the window. On any given day there is bound to be a few old men rocking away the afternoon and talking about the price of cotton way back when and how the world went and got itself into a big hurry.

This, quite literally, is The Store. This local legend has been around since the 1970s. Inside, the store is a conglomeration of retail enterprises...it is a convenience store, a small grocery, a very greasy spoon (they make excellent chicken biscuits for breakfast), and a general hang out for this part of Walton County. The Store comes complete with two good old boys sitting on a bench out front, one of whom will actually pump your gas for you, which is a rare service these days. If you ever stop by, be sure to go inside and cold coke in a glass bottle (that's the way God meant for you to drink it) and don't forget your camo "I shop at The Store" trucker's cap--its always a hot selling item.
This last picture is of a place called Mobley's Store. Located on the opposite side of the highway from The Store, Mobley's opened in the mid-1930s. Inside, Mrs. Mobley sold cold drinks and candy as well as a few grocery items, but the store's main purpose was to sell gasoline. The building's simple, unassuming design and the layout of the site are silent testament to this fact and of a bygone era in retail facilities--before neon signs and flood lights. Mobley's was open until Mrs. Mobley became unable to operate it due to failing health in the 1980s. Highway expansion has largely made the site unusable for much these days, although real estate developers have made some use of the building as a billboard of sorts for advertising their new subdivisions.

Downtown Macon

This post actually dates back to our first assignment about downtowns, CBDs, and zones of discard. I have had these pictures for a while, but had forgotten where I had stored them until the other day...so I apologize for the discontinuity. This is a view of downtown Macon taken from the top of an old sewing factory. Macon is the states fifth or sixth largest city and I am struck by the general lack of tall buildings which define the CBD. In Macon, there is no true CBD as we think of it. Indeed, the downtown's tallest buildings are scattered over several blocks and none of them are located on the busiest downtown streets. For a city of 100,000 people, Macon has a rather compact city core, but few of the buildings reach much higher than four stories, and indeed, most that do are old "hotel" apartment buildings.

This is another view of downtown Macon taken from atop Coleman Hill. Here, the proximity between the downtown area and the industrial district is quite evident. The tan building is the Hotel Dempsey, and just to its right is a grouping of silos which are part of cement mixing plant which is less than three blocks away from the downtown area. The plant largely marks the beginning of the zone of discard, which includes the building from where the previous picture of downtown was taken. This last picture is also taken from Coleman Hill. The juxtaposition of buildings here is quite unique. In the foreground, barely visible is the episcopal church (the gray building partially obscured by the trees in the lower left). To its right, is the Grand Opera House. Oddly, the Grand has a false front which was added when the building was renovated...a fact which is clearly evident due to the change in brick color. The rehabbing altered the facade to a state which likely never existed. Behind that is the dome of the Bibb County Courthouse, and then the Fickling Building. This grouping shows the importance of tall buildings to the city. Here one of the oldest standing churches is dwarfed by an eight or nine story building which rivals the height of the city's legal hub, which is, itself, dwarfed by a modern tower devoted to commerce. It shows that tall buildings in Macon have a rather recent history with the oldest tall buildings being churches, then societal and governmental sites. It is only recently that the tall building returned to the city, but this time money-making ventures, and not landmark cultural sites.

Sketchbook Assignment 5, The Store: "Atlanta's Drive-In Market"

The Sweet Auburn Curb Market, "a precursor of the modern-day supermarket," according to a sign outside, is at Edgewood Avenue and Butler Street. It was built in 1923. This is probably as close as Atlanta came to the concept of the drive-in markets of Southern California Longstreath describes. It exhibits the three elements which distinguish the drive-in market's retail innovation: 1) car-friendly design 2) one-stop shopping, and 3) business integration.







In this early photo cars line the perimeter of the building. Since its Olympics-era renovation, the market offers parking in a lot behind the building and the space where these cars were is now sidewalk.




Today:




Informational sign at the entrance:

"this little piggy went to market"

Three stores in Calhoun show the history of shopping in this space. The Piggly Wiggly represents the contemporary, suburban supermarket. The Resaca Grocery reveals an earlier store history for a "convenience" market located along a now-abandoned strip. And Mother's Eden represents the return to a turn-of-the-century architectural space for a specialty store.

In the first picture of the Piggy Wiggly grocery store in Calhoun, Georgia, the bold red signage is clearly visible as is the low-slung, modernist architecture with the supermarket's distinctive plate glass front. The logo of the store--a smiling, red pig wearing a butcher's hat--accompanies the name of the store on the facade. The picture reveals the large parking lot, which historically is one of the reasons such structures as supermarkets thrived (Longstreth). A few lone trees (one visible in the photo) are an attempt at the landscaping element of this suburban design aesthetic. The self-service elements which Liebs discusses begin immediately as one can see the long lane one uses to enter the store and which holds shopping carts the customer will need. Advertising adorns the windows, an older style of marketing reminiscent of early roadside stands.

The second picture is of the Resaca grocery store from a much earlier era which is still a viable business and important community hub. This store is part of the earlier strip of the 30's and 40's; the Highway 41 street sign is clearly visible in the photo. As the strip migrated to the interstates in the 60s and 70s, stores like the Resaca Grocery became less accessible and/or convenient. However, this store is located next to a post office, a ride-share lot, and a small police station, which keeps some traffic flowing down this older highway. In design, the store is essentially a house, replete with screen door and creaking wood floors. One can tell from the front that a gas pump was originally part of the services offered. However, the main function of the store has shifted to a community space. Young and older men sit on the porch on a bench; children come to buy candy in the nickel bins; and commuters stop for coffee and juice in the mornings.

The final picture is another genre of store in Calhoun which attempts to revive the downtown market. Mother's Eden, the local health food store, is located in a portion of the original hospital. The hospital also houses such enterprises as a yoga studio and a 50s cafe/diner. The store uses attention-drawing advertising/architectural techniques of colored flags, window advertisements, a whiteboard with daily specials, an awning, and exterior design (the white table and potted plants). This re-purposed space harkens back to an earlier era by being a specialty shop in the downtown center, a focus which was lost in the "combination store" supermarket but is returning as historic preservation efforts refocus attention on downtown spaces.

The Strip Rehabilitated

To the typical American the strip is just that, a collection of conjoined buildings that house everything from a drug store to an ethnic grocery store and in many instances a grocery store. After further reading, one learns that the strip also includes gas stations, auto showrooms, drive-in theaters, and the many forms abandoned strip malls take when they are rehabilitated. The strip is essentially anything associated with the car culture that developed in the first half of the 20th century. Below are photos of several features of “the strip” as described by Liebs, Venturi, and Davis.

This picture shows a 1930s era strip on North Highland Avenue in the Virginia Highlands neighborhood. This is somewhat typical of the strips that developed along Main Street or major thoroughfares. There are large display windows and the entrances are recessed, this would have made for easy viewing in times when cars drove slower and many people still walked places; this works well in the Virginia Highlands area because you do see many people walking around, that is however after they drive into town and park their car along one of the many residential streets. At the end of the strip is a 1980s post office, which obviously took the place of a business long gone.
The next two pictures are of gas stations, one of which still serves its original function and the other that lost its original use and has been transformed for a use that is more fitting of the neighborhood. The first gas station (on left) is on Peidmont Road across from the Lindbergh MARTA station. It not only has the gas pumps, but it also has a service station. This is one of the transformations that Liebs mentioned took place when people began to travel more and gas companies were attempting to cater to the masses. It looks as though there is only one of the original four services bays is open now, which seems to suggest that people are no longer going for the “one-stop-shop” when it comes to car maintenance and four bays are no longer necessary. The gas pumping area also seems to have been updated, with newer machines that accept credit cards and a larger, lighted overhang to shield customers from the weather.
The second photo (on right) is an example of what happened to gas stations that fell out of use. This was once a Pure gas station and is now the chic “Diesel” restaurant. In the Leibs article, he mentioned how gas stations were often reused for automobile-friendly services, such as car detailing shops or car washes. This does not seem to fit that description, but the activities that take place here do somewhat relate to the original use of the building. Cars come and go out of the parking lot, but patrons can no longer buy gas or the various sundries that littered the convenience store portion of the gas station. The patio area to the right, which may have previously been the location of gas pumps and where cars were fueled up, is now where people eat and get “fueled up”. This was a very creative recycling of a building within the strip that no longer provided what the car culture needed.

Modern Arcades

It is really fascinating to read about the evolution of shopping and the buildings we shop in. When reading about arcades, I immediately thought of this picture I took inside of an "arcade" in Brussels, Belgium. It is simply a picture of the glass roof, a trait described by Ford in Ch. 3. The stores are on both sides with glass windows. It intersected a street of restaurants, and the arched openings could not be closed, leaving the atrium open to the outside at all times.

I bet this building was really old, but I can't recall seeing a date marker when I was there. Contrast this to a modern American arcade: Wal-Mart! This seems to be a perfect example of a supermarket and store all-in-one. Jesus, you can buy anything there! This picture displays the kind of shopping environment Wal-Mart provides, with easily accessed goods in self-service aisles with clearly marked fixed prices. Try to get someone's help there, I dare you.

It is also interesting to read about the glass roofs and their importance of letting in natural light. Now that we have electricity, the use of lighting is cheaper than making an entire ceiling out of glass, especially considering how large our stores have grown to be. Another evolving aspect is the surveillance of modern stores. I couldn't help but take a picture of one of Wal-Mart's cameras hidden inside some ominous, black orb. This really shows how much things have changed in the construction of our shopping venues. Wal-Mart can offer you cheap prices by making your environment inconsequential. This is remarkable considering how hard other places, like malls, try to entice you with ambiance.

Decatur's Decks

Below are examples of three parking decks in Decatur, Georgia that provide convenient parking for neighboring office buildings. In all three cases, the parking decks take up more land than their associated office buildings, serving as great examples of how cities like Decatur had to "eat themselves" in order to remain relevant in the automobile age.

This first pic of the DeKalb County Courthouse parking deck (built with urban renewal funds in the mid-1960s) sits behind the courthouse but along two major streets, Trinity and Commerce Drive. Construction of both the deck and the parking lot in the foreground required the demolition of many small commercial buildings to accommodate them.




The second and third pics are of decks that front city's main road, Ponce de Leon.

To deal with the problem of ugly decks creating gaps in the urban landscape, the city has done what it can to mitigate the effect. With the second example, which was probably built a bit later (1980s?) than the other examples since it has a lovely brick facade, the city has planted large trees in front of it to hide it.




The third deck does a better job of blending into the Ponce streetscape because it sports ground-level retail. Quite an accomplishment considering what an eyesore the deck is from the rear.