Free the Plants!

Plaza Galleria 04-16-2011About this time in 2011, I wrote about a spooky place in Cape where I swore I could hear plants screaming. The Plaza Galleria, behind the Town Plaza Shopping Center, had been closed since 2005, but the plants in the lobby had been left behind. (You can click on the photos to make them larger or follow the link to see more examples.)

Plaza Galleria is out of sci-fi movie

Plaza Galleria 04-16-2011There must have been enough roof leaks to water the plants and keep some of them alive, with their leaves pressed against the glass lobby’s window panes like they were trying to get out. Some didn’t make it.

Missourian reporter Shay Alderman had a story in Wednesday’s paper that the Plaza Galleria is scheduled to be razed in the next few weeks. The building held the area’s first supermarket in 1969, and served as an ice skating rink in the 1980s.

Dying plant in the Royal N’Orleans

Royal N'Orleans 04-14-2011I started looking for orphaned plants in closed buildings. Here’s one in the Royal N’Orleans from April 2011. Looking through the window at tables still covered with tablecloths was sad enough, but the neglected plant gave the 1806 landmark a real feeling of being abandoned.

Cairo storefront

Closed storefront - Cairo - 07-04-2011I spotted these plants on the 4th of July 2011 in what I took to be some kind of government office in Cairo. I didn’t know if the office had closed or if the occupants were just careless in their watering.

Some managed to escape

Cairo 11-13-2012When I went back in November 2012, the office was empty. Someone must have taken the plants that were still alive.

Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church

Mt Moriah Missionary Baptist Church - Cairo - 01-28-2013This plant was behind a window in the Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Cairo.

Blomeyer Drive-In screen being eaten

Montgomery Drive-in in Blomeyer 03-20-2010The concrete Montgomery Drive-In screen in Blomeyer looks like it’s being devoured by something out of one of the sci-fi movies that once played on it.

 

11 Replies to “Free the Plants!”

  1. I think I will start a FREE the plants group after seeing this! “Oh, the humanity!” Nice work Dude, only you would look at old building and find the trapped plants inside. I will never look at an old building without looking for trapped and abandoned plants!

  2. This is so sad! Little Shop of Horrors!
    I wish the Galleria could have been saved. It was such an unusual building, and how many cities have indoor ice rinks? I used to take my daughter and her friends there for birthday parties.
    Love the analogy about the plants screaming to get out! I read once that plants do have feelings. Some scientists conducted a test on a group of tomato plants. Now I’m always careful what I say in front of my begonias.

  3. Why is Kroger at the Galleria mentioned as the first supermarket? What about A&P on Spanish, Child’s on Broadway, Mr. C’s in the Town Plaza?

    1. I questioned that, too, but I went with the information that was in The Missourian’s story.

      There may be two reasons:

      1. The dictionary definition of “supermarket” is “A large self-service retail market that sells food and household goods.” I don’t know if A&P and Childs sold good other than food (and comic books).

      2. I have shoelaces older than the Missourian reporter. It’s possible she doesn’t know about those earlier stores.

      Why don’t you go over to the Missourian’s story and pose that question. I’ll be interested in seeing the answer.

  4. You might be underestimating the age of the reporter…but I’ll take “younger than Ken’s shoelace” any day.
    That statement was based on news stories at the time it was opened. So, I, too, am wondering about the definition used and thought about that yesterday, too. If I can discover the rationale, I’ll be back!

  5. Does anyone else remember when Kroger was on Broadway. I thought Kroger was there before Plaza Galleria was built and that building is now a Dollar Store? I would think A & P would have qualified as a “supermarket” but I don’t remember all the merchandise it sold….so maybe it wasn’t.

    1. When Kroger moved from Broadway, they first moved into the Town Plaza in the building that is at the west end of the main row of buildings facing William Street. The move into the Plaza Galleria building happened in 1969.

  6. When I was a kid in the sixties, our family shopped at National Food Store on Sprigg. It was definitely a supermarket. I remember Childs IGA and Kroger too. No one had ever heard of a “Super Center” at that time, but supermarkets were quite commonplace in the early 60s. Mom-and-Pop neighborhood markets still were plentiful, mostly because you could buy groceries on credit if you needed to, even if you did have to pay more for them. I can vividly remember the day that my folks had some kind of windfall and were able to both pay off the old bill and have enough left to buy the week’s groceries at the supermarket where the prices were cheaper. Oh, happy day! We never looked back. . .

  7. Sad to see that this building is getting razed. Hoping to get some good pictures of it before its gone.

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