Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
Good god... comic book shops, record shops, arcades, downtown theatres...it sounds like downtown was a way more interesting place in the 80s.
I am too young to ever remember theatres at Esso Plaza but I thought there were theatres at Bankers Hall as well?
Stephen Avenue is just a decrepid mess of empty vacancies now with restaurant after restaurant posting notices that they couldn't come to a lease agreement with the landlord about a rent $ that made sense. The rents are just way too high to have anything interesting down there.
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Yes Bankers Hall had some really nice theatres on the top floor. I used to watch movies there all the time because they were some of the more nicely maintained theatres in town. I was surprised they closed them because they were quite popular.
My friends and I would take the bus and LRT downtown on Saturdays. Have a meal at McD's/Subway/Dairy Queen/The Bay basement (and, IIRC, the cafeteria on one of the higher floors). Go to the sketchy arcades, visit the pawn shops, used bookstores, magazine stores (I'd pickup European Commodore 64 magazines from Billy's News). Eau Claire had a dump next to the smoke stack. Prince's Island Park was dead all the time, even on the nicest summer days. Only chicks sunbathing. Not even the bums went there, which I always found odd.
CSB: There used to be a sub shop near the arcade on 7th Ave. Just getting there was an experience. People would whisper "hash" to you as you walked by. So one day we were having lunch at the sub shop and the cops arrested some people in the upstairs area of the restaurant. We were eating at the counter by the window when a cop slammed some guy's face into the glass right in front of us.
Good times.