New Openings and Revival of San Marco Square.

[stjr]

They have now put up an artist rendering of the standard Gate prototype at the site.

I remember when this was a "Starvin' Marvin" with a huge price sign looming over the canopy.  Nothing Gate builds could be worse than that arrangement.

Before it was a gas station, the area was known as "Flamingo", named after the stucco color of the two story triangular building originally built on that site.  The first floor was a Coley-Walker drug store (another one was in San Marco, sharing the Bank of America site with an A & P grocery store).  Had many a vanilla or cherry Coke there in grade school.

Across the street is Piners.  Back then, they were not just a locksmith, but also a large Schwinn Bicycle dealer.  All my bikes came from there.

Down from them was Mr. McGhee's children's shoes.  Every shoe I wore from birth to 18 came from his store.  He kept a record of your lifetime shoe purchases on index cards.  Got a lollipop when you left.  Yummm!  At one point, he built a stage in the back, I guess to display shoes.  That didn't last long.  It became a kids in-store "playground" where. while waiting to be serviced (Mr. McGhee meticulously measured your foot before hand selecting from his stock shoes he would suggest) we would climb up the "back" stairs, run across the stage, and jump to the ground.  Boy, were we wild!

The gas station a little bit to the south, now a car detailing company, was a Union 76.  The car repair place near Emerson was Chasteen's Texaco.  Yep, in the old days, owners put their names next to the oil company.

By the way, back in the early 70's I believe, a NAS helicopter crashed in a vacant lot just off Emerson behind those stores.  Several servicemen where killed.  It had a few minutes earlier landed at Hendricks Avenue Baptist's ball fields due to mechanical difficulties.  Thinking they fixed the problem, they took off again, traveled a few feet, and crashed.