Downtown Brainerd - Just Not The Same

Lately, my sister Susan has been waxing nostalgic about our growing up in the South Side Chicago neighborhood of Brainerd many years ago. She fondly remembers walking to Fort Dearborn Grammar School, Brainerd Park, and shopping in Brainerd's business district, a single block of stores on Loomis Street between 89th and 90th. I also remember those things, including our class at Fort Dearborn being taken trick or treating in that business district on Halloween every year. I myself never took any photographs of that district, not realizing at the time I would be looking back at that street so fondly. The only photograph I could find of Brainerd's business district is the one on the left, taken in the spring of 1943 of my sister Susan, in a baby carriage, just a little over a year old, and our Grandmother Louise Spillard. And how do I know it was downtown Brainerd? Because I recognize the High-Low Foods Store in the background (more visible if you click on the photo), which was still around when I came along a decade later. 

I went back to visit the old neighborhood in 2010, and took the photograph on the right of what that business district looks like now. Back when I was growing up, there was a Woolworth's Five and Dime and a record store on the left side of the street, and the High-Low Foods and Mayer's Bakery on the right. However, with the passage of time, I can't remember any of the other shops that were located there. Back then, all those places closed at 5:00, except for Thursday nights, when they stayed open late. And every one of them was closed on Sunday. As you can see in the photograph on the right, when I returned in 2010 it was all vacant lots, except for a senior residential building in the background on the right. I imagine all the stores on that block closed, and they bulldozed everything to prevent crime and drug dealing in that deserted stretch. I checked on Google, and there are now apartments on the left side of the street, although it is still all vacant lots on the right. An improvement, but still not the same. Most things never are.