Another Landmark Bites The Dust

(From the Archives)
 

Barbeque sandwich, French fries and a coke! Yum, yum. 

AND ALL FOR 50 CENTS!!

In the 1950s, and early 1960s, you’d find this bargain at Katz Drug — later to become Key Drug, and ultimately The Little Chicago Deli.

But now the building is gone.

 

“Why did you move from that location?” I asked a clerk at the new and improved Little Chicago Deli and Grill, which had moved to 525 4th Street in the old Grand Jewelers building.

“We had to. The bank wanted a parking lot,” the clerk said. “Like we need another parking lot.”

Nope, I can’t say that we do. We lost another downtown store.

Oh well.  

There is a picture somewhere of the old Key Drug — the one here is when Katz Drug occupied the building — but I am not sure if it was Katz or Key that had the Saturday special for 50 cents. It was good, though, and cheap, even for then.  

The drugstore was a blast, for sure. There was a mezzanine with magazines where you could stare at the people below, and they gave us a good meal just for coming over to the lunch counter after the clerk asked us to leave the mezzanine.

We kids always started at the ground floor, though, coming in the door off Pierce (right by people rifling in the dumpster before the deli moved to 4th Street), asking the clerk at the pharmacy register by the back door questions — I am not sure if she thought we were serious or not.

Then, we wandered our way up to the front of the store.

The building has always been there on the corner! What is going on? Everything keeps disappearing.

We were bored rugrats in those days, and by the time we got up to the magazines on the mezzanine, we were on our way to wearing out our welcome. We never got kicked out, but we would move on to another downtown store after a good time and a cheap meal -- unless we were low on money. Then we just sat at the counter and asked the clerk dumb questions.

The building has always been there, right on the corner! What is going on? Everything keeps disappearing. It didn’t look the same after the neat drugstores disappeared, but it was still there. 

Iasked a reference librarian downtown if there were any pictures of the old building or when it was Key Drug. We couldn’t find any, and I will check the Pearl Street Research Center, but she knew right away what I was going for in my research about the missing building becoming a parking lot.

“It was there for so many years,” she said. “It’s weird to see it gone.”

I thought so, too. The corner of Pierce and 4th Street will never be the same.

I hope the Central Bank will do some landscaping in the parking lot, perhaps a fountain or a unique historical marker — or even some trees and resting places — to add charm to the corner missing from my youth.

Don’t bet on it, though. The city and downtown merchants keep building parking lots, and parking structures — fun buildings (not) where a once vibrant downtown awaited the adventuresome.