Secrets of the City

I’m totally suprised the Macy’s in St.Paul isn’t closing.

I don’t know how it stays open, but if you like Macys and are in St.Paul it’s the best place to shop.

Talk about customer service.

Before Macy’s bought Marshall Field’s/Dayton’s, Dayton-Hudson had committed itself to keeping the St. Paul store open as a commitment to downtown. Not sure if Macy’s has made a similar commitment.

But, yes, if you enjoy finding some great bargains — and not many shoppers — then by all means head to the downtown St. Paul Macy’s. My ex- used to spend her lunch hour many days tracking down some good deals there.

According to the <a href=”http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2009/01/the_magic_is_gone.shtml”>NewsCut blog</a>, the St. Paul Macy’s has to stay open through 2012 to get forgiveness on a loan of over $6 million.  I wonder if they’d save that much by just closing it now?

That was supposed to say, according to the NewsCut Blog, but the rich text editor and preview feature aren’t working fo me. Sorry.

There’s still a Brookdale?

Brookdale is something straight out of zombie movie now. No people and haunting elevator music echoing against the bare surroundings. The zombies are totally going to bust out of where Mervyn’s was.

This wouldn’t be happening if they had only opened a store in Apache Plaza.

Oh wait…

It’s a wonder that the downtown Minneapolis store doesn’t close. It’s a time capsule. No one actually shops there, just walks through on the skyway level. The food court does fairly brisk business, but I could go bowling through the rest of the store.

The only thing keeping the Mpls store open is nostalgia for Dayton’s at this point.

What at Brookdale is ever performing well?

I like that Brookdale makes Knollwood look like a real mall.

Whoa… I have been gone a long time.. I had no idea MNSpeak was re-branded. I must figure out the particulars.

Anyway, I’ve never been to a busy Macy’s in Minnesota, except for maybe the Southdale location.

As for Brookdale… poor gal. She had some spunk years ago.

Does anyone actually like Macy’s. I’m ambivialent about it. Most of the time, I don’t even go there. If it’s the weekend and I’m in my usual unshaven, ratty clothes state of affairs, the Macy’s staff at Southdale seems to stare at me a lot.

Rumor that all the local World Markets are closing.

Dougie- NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

My co-workers husband manages a liquor store and the scuttlebutt is that they are closing all MN Stores. I can’t wait to get be some clearance food stuffs and wooden monkeys.

I actually shop at the wine shop quite often so it will cut off my supply line of cheap Cava.

Kwatt, Macy’s usually has a clearance rack or two with deeply discounted items. Worth it to check out, if you are there anyway. Lately they have a LOT of clearance racks, with stuff marked WAY down.

I don’t like shopping, but if I must, I will go to DT Mpls on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

I bought our everyday china set at World Market. Too bad if they close — better than Pier One (close ‘em all), many stores with wine!

I miss Apache Plaza, AndyG. They had a nice Herbergers, a little postal shop and the Little Professor bookstore.

(sigh)

Also, they had Apache Wells, arguably the smokiest in-the-shopping-mall bar in America.

Wasn’t one of the SAV liquor stores in Apache Plaza? I’m fairly sure the one that Nick Schenk worked at was the one next to the Stone House that was torn down.

Maybe I should start working on the Nick Schenk Celebrity tour.

On your left is the former location of the SAV liquor store that inspired portions of Gran Torino. And the next stop will be Grumpys NE. That stool right there next to the waitress station is where the script was written. Free Summit EPA with tour.

The liquor store wasn’t actually in Apache mall. It was in an adjacent strip mall

mnblrmkr is correct. There are still a couple of reasons to go to the old Apache Mall area:

1) Top Valu Liquor, in new digs and every bit as good as the old SAV store.

2) Unique Thift: Now expanded to twice the size of old store. Mrs. Lungs fav.

3) Barley John’s Brew Pub.

I wouldn’t have put Barley John’s in the Apache Mall area. That’s quite a ways away.

They did move a SAV liquor store into one of the spots in the Silver Lake “Lifestyle” mall that partly replaced the old mall. Seems fine by me, but I don’t know how it compares to the old one.

One bummer that I discovered last week: The Frattalone’s Ace Hardware store that is next to the Unique store is closing.

Frattalone’s has a new store on Central and 40th(?) next to Rainbow and Slumberland.

I miss the Apache Theater.

The Apache was a great theater and pretty well maintained. I think the SAV used to actually be in the Mall before it moved to the “temporary” strip mall location. My brother in Law worked there over 20 years ago. Here is an odd Apache Plaza dedicated site.  It seems there are no links between the pages.

Could be Dougie. I can only speak for it from ~’98 and later, being in a the strip mall (I think where the Freedom gas station is).

Thanks for the Frattalone’s update, NrdeastB. I’ll have to look for it.That will be quite a bit closer for me than Roseville or Arden Hills.

It’s all “Apache Plaza” this and “Apache Plaza” that, probably ’cause Northeast has more of a voice than the Western suburbs do. But man, I *grew up* at Brookdale. That’s where I used to go scope chicks. That’s where I had my first job (at a Record Shop, where I first heard about half the music I still like). I used to go there with my mom when I was little and there was still a restaurant occupying the center court near Macy’s/Dayton’s, and there was a head shop on the far side of the mall. I miss the hell out of it, and I wish there was something could be done to make it live again. I understand its in what is considered an “economically depressed area” (read: “urban”) but wow, can’t some kind of development save it from Apache Plaza’s fate?

The crunch hits hard-if these guys are struggling imagine what must be happening to local buisnesses.

But what I wanna know is: if everyone’s losing money, where’s it all going? Is there some firm making megabucks out of this crisis?