FLASHBACK 1996: Small businesses that once defined downtown Salt Lake City struggle for viability.
Last of the Little Guys
By Marsha Barber
In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.
Title: Last of the Little Guys
Author: Marsha Barber
Date: June 27, 1996
Seventy-four-year-old Jim Basamakis has a shy smile and a quiet, gentle manner. He's a man of few words. For one thing, he's a little hard of hearing, and carrying on a conversation just isn't as satisfying for him as it used to be.
In the same non-conducive-to-conversation vein, he likes to have his radio playing full blast on a news or sports channel as he sits at the front counter of Jim's Hat & Tailor Shop in the old Brooks Arcade Building. But maybe, judging by the way he's somewhat more talkative to the few customers who trickle in to get a shoe shine from his partner Pete Kladis or to drop off a hat in need of repair, he's just wary of reporters who might try to turn him into some kind of novelty.
But it's not the press that is turning Basamakis and old-time small businesses like his into novelties. The high-impact corporatization of downtown that is currently taking place at a fever pitch is quickly accomplishing that task.
A few historical mainstays—like Lamb's Restaurant, Sam Weller's, Club Cabana, Broadway Shoe Repair—still manage to survive and, in some cases, even thrive. But only a few. Department stores like Auerbach's and Paris have long since disappeared, casualties of redevelopment and mall shopping.
The sterility of Gallivan Plaza, American Plaza and the First Interstate Bank building has supplanted the string of colorfully seedy taverns and mom 'n pop cafes like the Golden Gate Tavern, the Havana Club, the Joker, the Beehive Cafe and the Mint Cafe, that for decades, in various combinations, dotted 200 So. both east and west of State Street, and gave downtown its edge. The elegant beauty of the Utah Theatre on State Street has given way to boarded up waste and multiscreen commercialism, respectively.
Unlike the blueprints for cities like Portland, Ore., the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency's long-term plan for the core downtown city center does not allow for much balance between small and large, old and new. Consequently, the establishments that give the city its unique flavor just might not fit into the downtown that will welcome the world in 2002.
The cloth banner affixed above the door of Jim Basamakis' current location is decidedly temporary, with one corner flailing in the slightest breeze so that even the name seems fleeting—as fleeting as a permanent location for his business. Over the years, the shop has been variously called Jim's Tailor Shop & Cleaners, Jim's Shoeshine Shop and Jim's Hat Cleaners and Renovators, and has been in five different downtown locations, starting 46 years ago when Basamakis moved to Utah from Greece to take over his then recently-deceased uncle Tom Glezos' shoe-shine parlor at 119 So. Main Street. Basamakis stayed at that first location until the early 1960s, when the building was torn down to build what is now the Washington Mutual building. Basamakis then moved north a few blocks to 34 So. Main. The Crossroads Mall went up and he came down. Next, his shop stood at 70 E. 200 South, but became part of the earliest Block 57 demolitions to make way for the One Utah Center building. And, after moving to 17 E. 300 South, he was the last holdout in the most recent round of Block 57 demolitions.
"The building on 300 South that Jim was in was in very, very bad shape and the block was empty except for him," says Alice Steiner, Executive Director of the Salt Lake City Redevelopment Agency (RDA). "There were a tremendous number of complaints from the surrounding property owners about the fact that those empty buildings were creating a magnet for vagrants." Of course, the buildings were not vacant by accident. The buildings were vacant because they were slated for demolition in the wake of concentrated Block 57 redevelopment efforts. The RDA had already methodically moved out scores of other tenants, including Broadway Music, which had been downtown for 32 years and is now resigned to the suburbs at 3130 So. State, and, ironically, Skaggs Drug, the little drugstore that started the now gargantuan American Stores Company that will, on completion of its new headquarters, envelop the block.
Basamakis hasn't seen the last of Block 57 development, either. The Brooks Arcade building—now a mere specter of the former downtown hub that housed the bustling Broadway Coffee Shop downstairs and a variety of doctors, dentists and, legend has it, even a notorious renegade abortionist upstairs—is owned by the RDA and is under option to American Stores. According to Steiner, the two possible scenarios for the building are (1) that American Stores will hire a preservation architect to try and somehow mesh the old facade with its new corporate headquarters, or (2) the building will be demolished (it can legally be destroyed since it is not on the city's official historical register) and the new American Stores development will be extended to the end of the block.
In either case, Basamakis has no illusions that he will fit into future development schemes for the block.
Steiner admits that there probably will not be a place for Basamakis once the development is complete. She says the RDA told Basamakis when they moved him around the corner that this location would be temporary, and that he seemed to have no problem with the arrangement. She also contends that, had the RDA known Basamakis planned to stay in business indefinitely, they would have made a more concentrated search to find a permanent spot for him. But Basamakis says he agreed to the move because the city had taken a long time trying to find any kind of space for him. He says he simply needed to get on with business. Basamakis admits that, at the time of the move, he was "tired of being shuffled around" and was thus thinking of retiring in a couple of years. Now he's not so sure.
"If American Stores does take over this building and if I'm feeling OK, sure, I'd like to go into business somewhere else. I would move again," he says. "I know it's only a matter of time. But I hope I have at least a couple of years left here." The American Stores tower is slated for completion in 1998.
American Stores, through its spokesperson Judy Barker, declined comment for this article on what options the company is considering for the Brooks Arcade.
Meanwhile, Basamakis tries to run his shop as he always has.
Shoe-shine man extraordinaire Pete Kladis came with the business Basamakis inherited from his uncle and is still a fixture. Basamakis and Kladis are like affectionately bickering spouses after all these years: when the diminutive, perpetually baseball-capped Kladis begins to talk about how "a lot of cops still come in to get their boots shined," Basamakis chuckles and says, "They do not! Don't listen to him." Kladis' four-seat shoe shine set-up is the busiest part of the shop, but a dozen or so shines a day does not a successful business make.
Basamakis' own specialty is hat blocking and repair, a trade that probably reached its pinnacle in the dapper 1940s. The art of blocking a hat is pretty much a lost one now: Basamakis is one of two people listed in Salt Lake City's phone book who perform the task. And he's the only one with 50 years experience. But hats are not as prevalent as they once were. He still services a few old and new hat aficionados, though, and a small collection of 10-gallon cowboy numbers and breezy straw Panamas hangs in the window, waiting to be picked up.
To keep up with the times, Basamakis has tried to focus more on doing alterations ("All kinds of alterations," his banner proclaims) and dry cleaning. But competition with speedy drive-through cleaners, who also do speedy alterations, has simply become too tough, especially in light of the distinct lack of foot traffic in a downtown block that is eerily devoid of life.
"The new office buildings, none of that helps my business. They actually hurt me," he says, referring to the daily routine of the workers who inhabit those buildings: driving into town, parking in garages, taking elevators to their offices, working all day, driving back home to the suburbs. Basamakis depend on people walking by. He misses the days when downtown streets were a flurry of activity, as people window shopped, lunched in storefront diners and appreciated quality service.
For Basamakis' loyal regulars, though, modern conveniences just can't compete with the care they receive at Jim's. Harvey Edwards, who will describe himself only as "retired," won't go anywhere else. "They do an excellent job here, whether it's shoes or hats you need spiffed up," he says. "This is the last shop of this sort from my era. There used to be a dozen similar places downtown. Now there's only Jim."
Physically, Jim's is a charmingly convoluted mishmash of past and present. The interior has been perfunctorily modernized, with fluorescent lights, wood paneling painted white and a visually shocking combination of chartreuse and cherry red carpeting. The other items that vaguely belong to this era include a small black and white TV, a clock radio and, behind the front counter, a mountain of empty Hardee's bags.
Then there's the large, ancient-looking contraption that turns out to be the press Basamakis uses to block hats, originally purchased by his uncle in the early 1920s. There's an antique Singer sewing machine that Basamakis has always used to do alterations, complete with foot pedal and no motor in sight. And a rack of men's suits that are less than modern hang toward the back of the shop, neatly pressed and, for the most part, unclaimed—as if business literally stopped so suddenly that customers were unable or unwilling to even retrieve their clothing.
"The two malls have everything," Basamakis says. "Why should people come to me? They can buy new hats there, get their suits altered at Nordstrom. Whatever people need done, they can get in the malls." But people can't get to know a craftsman who's a Salt Lake City institution at the malls.
Whatever people want to eat, they can get in the malls. Just ask Morris "Morrey" Darras, the proprietor of Snappy Service Lunch. Snappy is attached like an afterthought to the Zion's Securities Building at 57 So. State. The restaurant has been in the same place for almost 40 years, but the changing city has all but swallowed it. The tiny cinder-block building is practically invisible among the monoliths that surround it: the Beneficial Life Tower, the Key Bank Tower, the ZCMI Mall.
In its heyday, the 14-stool lunch counter with the snazzy red decor was anything but invisible. It was a place where the movers and shakers from all the television stations (which were once located on Social Hall Avenue), and high-profile journalists from The Tribune and The Deseret News gathered for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and where folks who partied the night away at the Rainbow and Terrace Ballroom stopped in for late night snacks. It was also a favorite with Salt Lake City police officers on the night beat. People lined up down the street waiting for a seat, and nine cooks and servers worked the counter.
Now, Snappy has only one counter person, cook and dishwasher: Darras himself. Snappy was open 24 hours a day until 1973. Darras stopped serving breakfast in 1993. Today, the place is only open for lunch and the counter is rarely full. It's most often nearly empty.
The original Snappy was opened sometime in the early 1900s on 100 So., just around the corner from its present location. Darras started working at Snappy as a cook in that location in 1957. A native of Washington, D.C., who joined the Army and ended up at Dugway, Darras, who looks like Al Pacino's distant, curly-haired cousin, managed to buy the place and opened Snappy in its new spot in 1959.
Some things haven't changed since then. The menu is still the same: burgers and fries are the staple, meat pies come plain or smothered and Spam dishes abound—Spam sandwiches, Spam and cheese, Spam and eggs. More or less, every food item is less than $3. The curved, red counter is still spotless, the two mini-jukeboxes on each end of the counter still work, and the original dinosaur of a cash register still clinks. And Darras, always spiffy in his white apron and hat, still anticipates his customers' needs before they do.
When Bill Skokos, a businessman with offices in the Eagle Gate Tower, walks in with his mother, Mary, Darras immediately proffers a Coke and a Diet Coke, and throws two cheeseburgers for Bill, and one hamburger for Mary on the grill.
"I grew up in New York City, and this is much more what I'm used to, the old neighborhood diners," he says. "You always find the best food in a place like this. When you come in here you know what Morrey specializes in, you know what you're going to get. I mean, there's only so much you can do with hamburgers to make them great, but you can easily ruin them, which I find a lot of chain places do." Skokos also brings his three children to Snappy on occasion. His 12-year-old daughter calls it "The Big Hamburger Place."
And it isn't just the food that Skokos likes. "It's a very personable place," he says, "Morrey always has a good story. You can sit here and have a conversation. In a commercial restaurant, you're pressed. They're in a hurry for you to leave. They're not friendly. And I never cease to be amazed by the way Morrey remembers what everybody wants." He points to Darras, who is at that moment ladling out two bowls of chili for an elderly couple who have just walked in. The chili is placed on the counter just as the two sit down.
But, Skokos' enthusiasm aside, it's 12:20 p.m. and there are a total of five people in the place.
Besides changing diets and unfriendly smoking laws, what has ruined Snappy is the same thing that has wreaked havoc with other small, traditional businesses: the corporate depersonalization that has turned many downtown blocks into veritable ghost towns.
The establishments that once brought Snappy most of its late night business—dance halls like the aforementioned Terrace and the Rainbow, nightclubs like the Continental, taverns like the Rocket, various bowling alleys—are all gone. Darras fondly remembers the time a counter regular started to sweat, stutter, turn bright red and gesticulate wildly: he turned to see a nuble and very nude young woman strolling down the street, stopping just outside Snappy's windows. "All she was wearing was toenail polish," he says. It took six or seven police officers, several of whom ran into Snappy to procure aprons to cover her, to get the woman into a squad car. "They interviewed me about it on TV," he says nostalgically. Late-night strollers today (naked or clothed) are practically nonexistent on that particularly business-oriented block of State Street.
As far as Darras' competition goes, as he likes to point out, the choices may be less colorful than Snappy, but they're exhaustive and oh-so-convenient. "There are about 50 eating places right here in practically a one-block radius if you count the Crossroads Mall and the ZCMI Center together," Darras says. "Why did they need two malls side by side? They should have put Crossroads down by Sears or something."
The installation of the underground crosswalk that runs from the ZCMI Center across State Street to the fancy Social Hall Avenue solarium has also been a problem. Darras has heard from more than one former customer who works across the street that it's just too much trouble to go underground.
"You hate to give the business up," Darras says, "even if you aren't making any money. And I still have a few of my regulars. But not enough to keep me alive forever."
Broadway Shoe Repair is that rare phenomenon: a downtown business still very much alive after being in the same location for 60 years. It's in the opposite corner of the Brooks Arcade building from Jim's Hat & Tailor Shop. Metaphorically, however, it could be on the opposite corner of the world. If Jim's represents what's left of the past and Snappy represents the hanging-by-a-thread present, then Broadway represents the survival-of-the-most-adaptable in the downtown small business community.
Established in 1911 just across the street from its current location at 69 E. Broadway, Broadway Shoe Repair has from its inception been the domain of the Bollinger family, beginning with Fred Bollinger, one of Salt Lake City's original cobblers. When Fred died, his son Joseph took over. When Joseph died, his son Scott took over and ran the place until just last year. And the latter-day Bollingers are not just managers: Fred Bollinger would have been proud to claim one of his heirs' resoled boots or rebuilt heels as his own handiwork. Scott got out of the management end of the business so he could return to the craftsmanship end, and now does shoe repair at the store's Ogden branch.
Broadway Shoe Repair has all the makings of a business based solely on tradition: a traditional trade and a traditional place to practice that trade, within the bosom of a family legacy.
"Double the wear in every pair," advises the whimsical old-time cobbler whose form appears repeatedly as part of the Broadway logo throughout the little shop. But the old-time cobbler might not be the most appropriate symbol of the store these days. Broadway Shoe Repair, unlike Jim's and Snappy, isn't exactly the same as it ever was. Perhaps most crucially, Broadway has been able to expand. The store has five branches now, three of them in malls. Broadway opened its first branch in the old J.C. Penney's building (where One Utah Center now sits) in 1948. In 1970, Broadway opened its first mall store, at the Cottonwood Mall. And while Ron Bollinger, Fred's great-grandson, is now the president of the company, a non-family member is running the place for the first time.
Kelsie Akiyama has repaired shoes for Broadway for the past 13 years and he's worked in every branch. Now he's the general manager. And as the shop sits perched precariously (and literally) on the very edge of the American Stores construction site, Akiyama is the person responsible for taking it into the future, a future entangled with redevelopment.
"Broadway Shoe Repair is truly a great downtown fixture," Alice Steiner says. "In the old pictures we have of the Brooks Arcade, it's right there." But it might not necessarily be exactly right there much longer. Steiner says the RDA is trying to bring together American Stores and Broadway Shoe Repair so that when American Stores completes their ground level retail section, they can "make room" for Broadway.
Ron Bollinger wouldn't necessarily view the potential move into the postmodern skyscraper as a bad thing. He says he can't afford to be sentimental. "I would see it simply as a move into a giant office building full of potential customers," he says.
Akiyama ironically takes a more "historical" (even if guarded) stance toward a possible move than Bollinger. "I don't think we'd necessarily fight the move," he says, "but we'd definitely try to stick it out in this space as long as possible, since there's so much history here. I think people will always expect to find us right at this spot, and if we aren't exactly here, business will inevitably go down for awhile." He realizes, however, that since the RDA owns the Brooks Arcade building and Broadway is on a month-to-month lease, Broadway's hold on the space is tenuous at best. "If they say we have to go, we have to go," he says.
Akiyama knows that Broadway Shoe Repair is lucky, in that the company, by its very nature, has managed to survive, despite ups and downs over the years as people have moved toward and then away from "disposable" athletic shoes and the like. "There's always going to be a market for us," he says, "until they make shoes that don't wear out. That's the bottom line, and as expensive as shoes are getting now, it's just more economical to have them fixed than to go and drop $150 to $200 for a new pair."
Broadway, unlike Jim's, has also been able to afford to modernize, technology-wise. While their facade is from a past era, their equipment is high tech and top of the line. "What you have to do," Akiyama says, "is simply keep up with the times so far as your equipment, what you're selling, everything goes, and that's just impossible for many small businesses, especially downtown."
Alice Steiner's office on the fourth floor of the City-County Building offers a panoramic view, through its large, floor-to-ceiling windows, of a downtown that is more than keeping up with the times—a view that is dominated by the now-familiar (and much discussed) plethora of multi-colored cranes that hover about like bizarre, post-industrial sculptures. As she surveys the RDA's domain, Steiner talks about her sense of the small business owner in the future downtown that these cranes are helping to create.
"Part of my view of small businesses," she says, "is that one of the advantages is to be able to adjust as your market adjusts. It's being entrepreneurial. It's being able to say, 'OK, I see an opportunity over here and maybe what I do now is instead of having a little tailor shop in an older building downtown, maybe I open up a kiosk in the mall or maybe I move to a different location that has the sort of clientele I'm trying to attract.' The key is that the status quo just may not be acceptable for survival anymore."
Imagining Jim Basamakis with his ancient Singer and hat press in a kiosk at the mall (embracing for a moment the far-fetched notion that he could afford to move to the mall) is like imagining the Mormon Tabernacle Choir moving headquarters to Club DV8.
If Salt Lake were more like Portland, downtown small businesses would have more than a fighting chance. Michael Harrison, a member of Portland City's Bureau of Planning team, says the key to Portland's neatly balanced mix of small and large businesses downtown is an attitude that is a departure from the demolish first, ask questions later mentality. "Business has a tendency to want to get big, and it's difficult to control," he says. "And corporate office towers are, of course, excellent economic development venues. But as you lay out a plan for your city, it's a big mistake to assume that most of the old buildings will eventually be replaced by something else." He says that older buildings are prime locations for what he calls "incubator" space—affordable, leasable space that is available for small businesses to start up in, or, in the case of old-time fixtures, to stay in. As an example of the Salt Lake City RDA's sensitivity to this type of "incubator" space, Steiner points to a number of facade renovation loans that the RDA is now in the process of implementing, one example occurring in the Exchange Place district extending onto State Street—the purpose of these loans is to preserve historic facades and upgrade the buildings' inner systems.
But these loans apply more to the built environment than to the merchants inside the buildings who are fighting to stay afloat, since, as Steiner points out, property owners will set their own, more-expensive-after-renovation, lease terms. Harrison asserts that preserving not only the old buildings, but doing it so cost effectively that the people in them survive too, "is crucial to maintaining the heart and soul of a city."
It may be too late to salvage the "heart and soul" of downtown Salt Lake City. The crux of the issues becomes whether current lessees will be able to afford future rental rates, whether in new or newly renovated buildings. "As the cost of improvements rise," Steiner says, "it's really a question of whether older businesses will be able to increase their clientele enough because of the growth to survive."
Steiner has some recommendations to the Snappy's, Jim's and even Broadway Shoe Repairs of the city: "I think good advice to these businesses would be to look upon change as an opportunity, not as a problem. That's a healthier approach than just lamenting the fact that change is occurring. Whether you lament it or not, these improvements will continue."
Broadway Shoe Repair may become one of the few downtown landmarks lucky enough to survive, in one form or another, this decade's avalanche of "improvements." Most struggling small businesses will likely not be so fortunate. Snappy and Jim's at this moment remain charming and colorful in an increasingly bland downtown, but charm doesn't pay the bills.
"I'd like to see downtown improve," says Jim Basamakis. He removes his thick glasses and rubs his eyes wearily. "Maybe someday they can improve something."
The Club That Wouldn't Die
Club Cabana opened its doors on May 5, 1940. At the helm was Tony Nicastro, who, until only months before, had been an ironworker for Steele Engineering, earning 40 cents an hour. To make ends meet, Nicastro took a night job bartending at the Beer Barrel on Main Street. Finding nightlife in the swinging Salt Lake City of the 1940s a little more suited to his temperament than wrestling with iron, Nicastro borrowed some money and bought out his boss, Izzy Wagner, when Wagner decided to sell his half of the Beer Barrel. And when Nicastro found his inherited partner (whose name Nicastro won't mention) was stealing almost all the money from the till, he sued the guy for $7,000, won, and used the money to buy Club Cabana at 31 E. 400 South, where miraculously, it still sits in the same unassuming stone building today.
"If they'd tried to move me around the way they're doing to all of these businesses today, I'd have told them to go to hell," Nicastro says. "I'd rather go out of business than be kicked around."
Nicastro is lucky to now own not only the business but the land where Club Cabana sits. Rather than being kicked around, the club has persevered, albeit at some cost. Nicastro himself persevered until a little more than a year ago, when he was in a freak accident in Mexico: a chair he was sitting in collapsed, and he ended up with numerous broken bones and 14 stitches in his head. Now, several surgeries later, Nicastro is a little fragile. He doesn't walk that well. He only comes into Club Cabana a couple of times a week these days, looking elegant and dapper in his perfectly starched shirts. "It depresses me to come in now," he says, "because I can't stand at the door and greet people like I did for years."
Carol Lee Nicastro, Tony's wife and business partner, runs the club with a fierce loyalty to her husband and a determination to keep its dwindling clientele, as she puts it, "high end."
Carol Lee met Tony going on 20 years ago when she reluctantly came to the club, which she considered "old and boring" with a girlfriend. She fell hard. "Tony was darling and I hustled him," she says.
Nicastro likes to brag about the clientele he was able to establish early on, with the Club's proximity to the City County Building and the Federal Court. "I'm not going to name any names, but let's just say that people who have been high up in government in this state, along with many of our most esteemed judges, had their own tables here for years." The club still gets a sprinkling of legal and judicial luminaries, but most of the old-timers are now gone. The new courts complex going up across the street has the potential to bring back some of the club's traditional clientele, but Nicastro isn't optimistic that it will affect their night business. "We might get more people in for lunch," he says, "but it'll be the same old story at night—those people will just go home after work."
In the early days, the club's specialty was Tony Nicastro's pizza—he was the second person in Salt Lake City to sell pizza (a place called The Pizza Oven on 2100 So. was the first), and the first business to deliver it. He had a fleet of English panel trucks to do the job.
At its peak, Club Cabana boasted the town's busiest dance floor and live music every night. "We had at least a three-piece band every night," Nicastro says, "and I remember paying the best jazz combos money could buy $150 a week." Ron Andrews, whose engineering company used to be across the street from Club Cabana until it was relocated to 900 So., says he's met all 14 of his girlfriends at the Cabana. Andrews has been coming to the club going on 40 years, and still comes in daily for lunch and evening cocktails. He misses the days when you could swing your partner here. "If you didn't get here by 7 o'clock," he says, "you didn't get in. Tony had the best music in town. It was a class act."
Nicastro remembers the day the music died. "I had a group called the Playboys, and this was about 15 years ago. They came to me and said they had a job playing at some resort or something in Park City for twice what I could afford to pay them because we just weren't getting the night crowd anymore. I figured it was a good time to get out of the music business."
Club Cabana was also for years a home away from home to the hundreds of penny stock traders who swarmed Exchange Place. Carol Lee remembers the night when a stock promoter came in with a grocery sack that contained approximately $100,000 in hundred dollar bills. "He kept buying drinks for the house. The cocktail waitress that night walked out with more than $1,000 in tipes," she remembers.
These days, regulars stake out their favorite bar stools on a nightly basis, but most of the club's myriad of tables with their comfortably stuffed blue chairs are empty, except on nights when there's a Jazz or a Ute game. While lunch business is not bad, nights are slow, especially since, unlike the once height-of-elegance Manhattan Club only a couple of doors down, Club Cabana has yet to give an inch to accommodate the lucrative youth market. The Nicastros remember the old days when Tony and Duke Hatsis ran the Manhattan. "It was a true nightclub," Nicastro says, "a classy joint. We enhanced each other's business rather than competing—there were enough people downtown to go around."
Have the Nicastros even considered catering to the young, hip crowd? "I'd close the doors before I'd consider catering to that crowd," Carol Lee says, "those kids trash this area. Every morning the streets are littered with beer bottles and everything else you can imagine." Tony has a somewhat different opinion. "Turning the Manhattan into a club for kids is the only way they could have survived," he says. "That's where all the business is these days. I'd do the same thing myself if I weren't so old. I'm just not going to wrestle with those kids at my age."
Nicastro is nostalgic for the days when there was a reason for adults to spend time downtown at night. "People used to simply go strolling downtown in the old days," he says. "You could window shop because there were so many places like Auerbach's and all the smaller shops. Most of the damn places on Main Street are vacated now."
The Nicastros are a little tired. They don't deny they'd sell if the right buyer came along. "I think this space will be a high rise building in 10 years or less, at the rate things are going," Carol Lee says.
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