usiness activity, a few leftover department stores from the 50's, like Monnigs, the Worthington, and a couple other hotels, a skating rink in the Tandy center, the Tandy shuttle, a few restaurants, shoe stores and the like, and not a soul to be seen at sundown. The once thriving downtown was suffering. Most American cities of respectable size were the same.Enter into Fort Worth Sundance Square in the mid 1980's, and then a movie theater a year or two after that, and the downtown revival begins. Add an unexpected real estate boom cycle, a significant population migration to the south, and today, the natural gas deposits and Fort Worth is booming again. Sundance-type activity is moving south towards the post office and north with Uptown.
Long-term residents of Fort Worth speak of the stores and places they remember, most of which were struggling to survive when I arrived, here are a few of those 80's place I miss:
Mott's on Lancaster was an old 5&10 that wasn't alerted to the existence of Walmart. It had hardwood floors and a one window post office in the back. Its aisles contained items consistent with life's necessities: colored threads, sewing needles, socks, sneakers, a shirt or two, moth balls, soaps, assorted cutlery, bubble gum, candy bars, lingerie, Dickey jeans in a few sizes and one could walk those aisles without completing a marathon, with the pleasant sound of squeeking hardwood under foot. Of course, there were no electronics, but you could find a few board games like Monopoly or Life, and a deck of cellophane wrapped playing cards as well.
Taylor's Bookstore: the original, local, big bookstore. No coffee shop, nowhere to sit, but the books were good.
The original La Madelaine was a fine bakery and coffee shop. A great cafe with a limited menu, but fresh breads and pastries, flour bags stacked in once-open spaces, baking ovens, and a baker man, eyebrows, arms and baker's bib dusted with white flour -- and lots of happy customers.
The downtown Larry's shoes. Pushy, but knowledgable sales people who always said, "they look great, how do they feel ?" I still have a pair and wear them.
The old Texas Ranger baseball park. The aluminum cheap seat stands were fun to tap your foot on with the rest of the crowd. It was small venue and the baseball wasn't that great but the summer nights were perfectly hot for watching the games, and the beer was always ice cold. And occassionally you could catch Charlie Hough having a smoke in the dugout between innings.
Those few stores, notwithstanding, Fort Worth is a better place to live than it was in 1980. The parks are better, the restaurants are better, just about everything has improved but the traffic. The next 10 years will see expansion and growth similar to the last 20. Fort Worth is a great city to watch grow. As I have mentioned before, growth and improvement are not to be taken for granted. Just look at Detroit or Cleveland. They have lost half their population in 10 years with property values dropping as they go.
If you are an long standing resident of the area, here's a website with a lot of photos.
http://www.fortworthyesterday.com/
If you have a favorite 70's or 80's business or restaurant let me know.
