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Marvin Mobley
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Posted: Sun Feb 8th, 2004 06:16 am |
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Finding your article on Papayas brings to mind, we had a single papaya plant in our back yard for several years at 1311 NW 40th street in Allapattah. The fruit was very large, sometimes 9 or 10 inches in length and a good breadth. The ones I find in today's markets are tiny compared to the ones we grew. The plant must have been bisexual as it was the only plant in the neighborhood. As kids we would take them up to the Winn-Lovett store on the north side of 36th street and sell them to the store. The store was several doors down from the old A&P store, it was next door to the McCrory's five and dime which was next to the Dade Theater, and a Rexall drug store was on the NE corner of 17th Ave and 36th street. When I attended Allapattah Elementary, a service station was on the SE corner of 36th and 17 Ave. It caught fire during the school day, and we all had a fire drill and evacuated the school for a while that day. The first public library branch was opened in a store front between the A&P and the Winn Lovett store, and then moved around the corner across from Farris's drug on 17th Ave between 35th and 36th.
Thanks for stirring the memories of long time past - of Allapattah and Papaya's and A&P and all the rest......
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bessnfloyd
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Posted: Sun Feb 8th, 2004 06:21 am |
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Winn-Lovett became Winn-Dixie (after being known first as Margaret Ann and then Kwik Chek for some years), and split into two stores; one at 18th Ave and 35th Street, and the other at NW 27th Ave. and 28th St., many decades ago. Both stores were allowed to run down, and didn't adequately address the changing demographics of the neighborhood, until the 27th Ave store closed altogether, and A & B Hardware, a fixture for many years at 27th Ave and 33 St, moved into the larger Winn-Dixie building. I still call it Kwik Chek; my daughter Cathy patiently corrects her "elderly" mom, but I tell her I'm just being retro, and can call it anything I like.
The big five and dime, an old wooden building with creaky bare-plank floors, stayed on along side a modern Jackson-Byron's, later called JByrons. One evening we visited the dime store to buy my late, oldest daughter, Elizabeth, a pair of shoes. The previous Christmas I had made her a coat, vest and purse made of Dalmatian-spotted fake fur and lined with royal purple satin. She had put this purse down on a chair to try on shoes when the "about to close" announcement was made, and we all hurried out as I have a terror of being locked in anyplace. As soon as we arrived home, she discovered her loss. I called the store, where the head cashier was in the upstairs office still counting the day's receipts. "Don't worry," she assured us, "It was turned in and I have it here, safe and sound in the office. You can come and get it tomorrow."
Shortly after she left, someone (it was blamed on the Black Panthers or maybe the Weathermen, although neither was proven) firebombed the five and dime, and the fire spread through the common wall into JBryons, destroying that, too. The loss of Elizabeth's purse seemed small in comparison. With subsequent riots, most of the 36th Street business center of Allapattah was destroyed, as chain after chain pulled out.
The Dade Theater hung on for a while, badly in need of renovations, and Saturday cartoons and evening TV sit-coms had taken over much of their business, so it was razed. The lot stayed vacant for some years. Live and Let Live Drugs (apparently called Farris Drugs when you lived here) was also old, wooden and creaky. That whole corner became a new Live and Let Live Drugs and Humana Health Clinic.
When we moved to Allapattah in 1960, the library was housed in the Dade Savings and Loan Building at 36th Street and 12 Ave, across from the Food Fair Supermarket, now long gone. That was where I had one of my most embarrassing moments. I tend to be absent minded, often off and thinking about several things at once, and this was a painful demonstration. Both hubby and I had old library cards from other libraries in the system, and had been using the Allapattah library constantly for both of us avid readers and my 3-year old daughter, an avid "read-to-her". My library card came up for renewal. Oh, did I mention that I was about eight months pregnant at the time and as big as a house? And that my old card was in my previous last name? The librarian told me I should get a new card. New address? New phone number? Fine, I knew them. Your new married name? I drew a complete blank! I kid you not! About the time I was about to lose it and run out of the library in embarrassment, I remembered Floyd's (and my) last name.
Eventually the library purchased a corner of the huge parking lot at 18th Ave and 35th St. that had previously served as parking for JBryon, the five and dime, Live & Let Live and the theatre, and built a new facility, right across from the Winn-Dixie on 18th Ave. A couple of years ago, Winn-Dixie bought the corner on 17th Ave right behind their store, the Post Office having moved once again, to 18 Ave. and 28th Street, and built a huge new store, tearing down the old one for more parking space.
Remember Wagner Creek? Originally I understand that it extended almost to 33rd or 34th Street, running through a tunnel under 28th Street. Eventually it was filled in as apartments, the Seventh-Day Adventist Academy and other buildings were constructed. When we moved here, it ended almost at 28th Street at the edge of a putting golf course behind Exotic Gardens. Eventually when Exotic Gardens pulled out, and a new Comstock Elementary School (where you attended 1st grade) was built, that area was turned into a city park, where an annual Dominican festival is held, and an athletic field for Comstock. The YMCA, originally crowded between Comstock and 17th Avenue, moved to the north side of 28th Street and took over the previous Adventist School grounds.
Wagner creek comes and goes, often through tunnels under streets and buildings, the Civic Center and Medical Complexes. At the south end of Wagner Creek, before it flows into the Miami River, I am told that it is choked with garbage, appliances, car parts, tires and so on. I haven't seen this, but I don't doubt it. People here forget that Wagner Creek is the main drainage area for Allapattah. During our last flood, water was thigh deep on 28th Street in that area, coming up steps and into the new post office. It obviously was unable to drain off through Wagner Creek as it normally would. Most of Allapattah flooded the worst I have seen it in the four decades we have lived here. The water didn't completely drain away for at least four days. If there was ever a waterway in abject need of a good cleanout, it's Wagner Creek.
I'm sure more changes will come. Keep posted.
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Bess W.
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