American Main Streets Were Perfect... Until We Let This Happen

Main Street is still there, four blocks of brick running from the depot down to the courthouse square. The awnings are gone, and so is the line of cars that used to park nose in at the curb all day Saturday. Here is how the perfect American street came apart. In this video: ✓ The street that ran from the depot to the courthouse square ✓ The bell over the door and the stores where everybody knew you ✓ Saturday on main street, from the sidewalk to the picture show ✓ The lunch counters that served white customers only ✓ The 1935 parking meter and the road that took the travelers ✓ Southdale, the first enclosed mall, and the discount stores ✓ The slow end: boarded windows and the last regulars ✓ The comeback: farmers' markets and lights upstairs again Nothing was demolished on the day the street closed, because the street did not close on a day. The brick is still standing, and that is the strange part. A street that could not be bought and could not be bombed simply lost its turn, one errand at a time, to buildings with better parking. So what was the name of the store you walked into first, the place that slipped you something free, or saved your father a quarter, or wrote your family's name in a little ledger under the counter? MainStreet #SmallTownAmerica #1960s #Nostalgia #ForgottenAmerica