Dumpsters hate feudalism
This is the old Child World store in the Pine Tree Shopping Center on Brighton Avenue, one of the few buildings in architecturally-rich Portland that has survived twenty years' worth of my memory. As I recall, the old mascot for Child World was a panda, a friendly ambassador from the motherland of cheap toys.
For almost twenty years Child World has been out of business and the castle's keep has been occupied by Mardens, a "surplus and salvage" store. Mardens is sort of a retailing vulture, moving among disaster areas, trailer truck crashes, and bankrupt big box stores to bring cheap, almost-good-as-new merchandise to Maine. Apparently they've finally realized that maintaining a castle is superfluous to their business plan.
So now, the Child World castle is under heavy siege. It will probably fall any day now to construction workers intent on replacing a bizarre anachronism (of the 1980s) with something innocuous and coated in bland stucco: the architectural equivalent of Muzak.
In the meantime, if anyone needs a free battlement, inquire at the dumpster on outer Brighton Ave. If the first one is taken, a second should be available soon.
For almost twenty years Child World has been out of business and the castle's keep has been occupied by Mardens, a "surplus and salvage" store. Mardens is sort of a retailing vulture, moving among disaster areas, trailer truck crashes, and bankrupt big box stores to bring cheap, almost-good-as-new merchandise to Maine. Apparently they've finally realized that maintaining a castle is superfluous to their business plan.
So now, the Child World castle is under heavy siege. It will probably fall any day now to construction workers intent on replacing a bizarre anachronism (of the 1980s) with something innocuous and coated in bland stucco: the architectural equivalent of Muzak.
In the meantime, if anyone needs a free battlement, inquire at the dumpster on outer Brighton Ave. If the first one is taken, a second should be available soon.
2 comments:
Wow, that is indeed bizarre. Abandoned buildings are strange, ugly, and weirdly beautiful things. There's a gas station in New Castle PA, and you can tell how long it's been closed because it still advertises gas at $1.35 a gallon. Plus, there's a department store, out of business for 20+ years, whose name still appears on the awning of the abandoned building: "Troutmans".
BTW, I've posted some entries on Portland you might find interesting. I've got a few more in the pipeline: http://grossreport.blogspot.com
--Steve
i watched this go down last week...can't fit the tower into my studio apt.
i am reminiscent of what happened in my home town outside of baltimore, where the enchanted forest was given up for 'progress.' another beautiful paper mache forest...gone.
http://www.ellicottcity.net/tourism/attractions/the_enchanted_forest/
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