| You'll have to go somewhere
else for those $459 Nike Airs...
(04/10/2004) -- A Foot Locker, gone to that great Converse in the sky.....
Here's a close-up of the label scar:
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It's DATE NIGHT. Any gal
would be proud to be on her date's arm at an abandoned movie theater.
After all, when was the MOVIE ever important....?? (04/10/2004)
-- Site of the second most famous movie theater in Birmingham, the Eastwood
Mall Theater (R.I.P. 1964-1989)
The doorway at the very end of the hallway, I believe, was the inside entrance to Pioneer Cafeteria. |
| Oh mighty tonearm, what for
thou beateth thyself against record's end groove?
(04/10/2004) -- Seeing this one really hurt. Most recently, it was the location of the now-defunct record store chain Disc Jockey. But for much of the '70s and early '80s the music store in Eastwood Mall was Oz Records. It was a Birmingham chain, and it employed a Wizard of Oz motif, complete with yellow-brick roads through the aisles. Back in 1980, with my cousin Chris Wood in tow, I bought an 8-track (gawd, WHY???) of Pete Townshend's album Empty Glass. Empty, indeed. |
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Wait .... is that a store STILL
OPEN?
(04/10/2004) -- Okay, at the time this was taken, Party City was the only tenant still in operation on this end of the mall. But they had an outside entrance. As with Parisian and Books-A-Million, their mall access was closed off. Party favors, cake boxes, and plenty of those godawful "Drew's Party Music" CDs. "Louie, Louie" and "Shake a Tail Feather" ... all done by horrid karaoke-reject cover artists. Hey, whaddaya expect for $3.99?!?! Wifely one is to the left (if that entrance weren't closed, she'd have been in there drooling over the cake supplies), and my kid is standing at right. |
| Top what? (04/10/2004)
-- Topkapi appeared to be one of those cheap costume jewelry stores like
Claire's which appealed to preteen girls.
The only thing missing is a sign reading "OVER (342) MILLION 12-YEAR-OLD GIRLS' EARLOBES PIERCED" (wonder how many boys got their ears pier-----um, never mind, won't go there) And that might be yours truly reflected in that far window. |
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Game Over!
(04/10/2004) -- According to Josh Brasseale, this was the site of a Diamond
Jim's arcade. Makes sense ... Those monitors in the window would've
displayed certain video games.
Oh for high school days when "Galaga" was the center of my video-playing world. Actually made 700,000 points one sweet afternoon in March '83. Don't ask me how many quarters I wasted playing those @#$% things. (no ... take that back ... if I saw a Galaga machine today, I'd drop a quarter in it faster than you can say "Challenging Stage") And that IS yours truly reflected in the middle. |
| (04/10/2004) -- Looking from the
west wing toward the food court atrium. An empty "Petite Sophisticates"
store is seen on the left. Of course, that is of no relevance to
my wife and myself -- we're neither. :-)
Speaking of "wife", da luffly Amy is on the bench trying her best to look like a resting mallwalker. It was trying to rain this April day, and the missus was prepared (it's why I married her). The trees in the middle looked nice here.
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