Amherst's downtown character changed when family owned mom and pops--the kind that inspired Norman Rockwell--closed or abandoned town center in favor of a high volume commercial areas sited in a sea of concrete.
Louis Foods gambled on a new commercial building on busy University Drive back when The Chequers bar was the toast of the town and soon succumbed to competition from the larger corporate supermarkets.
Amherst Drug Store suffered a major fire and new ADA requirements would have forced the aging owner to include an elevator in the renovations, so it was left vacant and blighted for many years before Barry Roberts purchased it and did what had to be done. Now it's a well maintained, attractive Subway franchise.
But one of my favorite places to hang out as a kid (along with sitting on the stairway reading comics at AJ Hastings) was Aubuchan Hardware across the street from historic Town Hall. In the summer the door was propped wide open and under the awning tools and nick knacks on display to attract the attention of folks causally ambling by--the same folks you would later see on Sunday morning at St Brigid's Church.
But the New England based family owned chain hardware store relocated from main street Amherst into that newfangled thing called a "strip mall" in Hadley with Zayre Department Store as an anchor, back in the late 60s or early 70s.
The growth of UMass created a gold rush for entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the big city located within a town. Soon the big box corporate chains came a calling, most recently Home Depot and Lowe's.
I'm told by a reliable source, that before Home Depot came to town shareholders were assured that Home Depot's market analysis showed they would close Aubuchon and Rocky's and take 20% of Cowls Building Supply's market share. Of course little did they realize Lowe's was simultaneously making the same assumption.
So the rest, as the say, is inevitable. Turn the page on another sad chapter.
