construction on floaral avenue part two: the empire strikes back!

this is fairly self explanatory, no?

floral avenue construction pt. 1

i’m not really sure what’s going on here, but for the last few weeks this street has been tore the fuck up.  first there was a giant, gaping hole right smack, dab in the middle of the road, and then that hole vanished [seemingly overnight] but was replaced by a similarly sized gaint, gaping hole about 20 feet down the road. it’s madness, i swear.

the highway dept.

right across the street from the town of thompson highway department is… the town of thompson highway department! the old building was, well, old. it needed to be redone and updated, so rather than spend the money to fix it the decision was made to build a new one right across the street. unfortunately, and fairly predictably given the town, nothing at all was done with the old one. it just sits there, looking empty and ugly and messy. just like everything else around here.

deitch’s shopwell

in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse, there was once a giant supermarket called deitch’s shopwell. it closed years ago, in the early 60s i believe, and there is no trace that it was ever anything but a big, white building except for on the starburt side where there is a large, painted on sign that says ‘OPEN ALL YEAR’

the parking lot behind the old boob tube

there was a time, in the mid-90s, when the boob tube was the coolest video store around. in a time when every town had at least 3, maybe more, going to the video store was an event, a reason to get excited. there were always the obvious new releases, but in the boob tube they had something even better, something special- wall to wall shelves of the most obscure, absurd, random, and ridiculous movies you could ever imagine. from your favorite childhood movie to your new favorite horror movie that you didn’t know existed, you could find it at the boob tube.
now of course there is netflix, bluckbuster, a million and a half other chain rental places and downloading sites, you never leave your house, you never stumble across the most brilliant cover you’ve ever seen and spend the next two hours of your life in complete cinematic rapture. alas. there’s always the leftover parking lot.

jeff’s place

the other day, while wondering around, i came across a large empty building across the street from the government center and the shortline bus station. so being naturally inclined to trouble as well as hobos i went right on in, it turns out it used to be a restaurant called jeff’s place. a southwestern looking place that now appears to house my friends, the hobos.

de fillipi’s bakery

somewhere in the black mountain hills of north dakota there lived a young boy named rocky raccoon… that’s not true at all. but! there is a bakery on broadway called de fillipi’s where everything tastes vaguely of lemon. it’s been there since, actually i have no idea, for as long as i can remember and in that whole time i managed to always have a friend or relative working there so i could stop by and get a free cookie or two.
things are a bit worse for the wear on broadway these days, with all the shootings and gang activity, but the bakery remains open and apparently doing well.