Back In Time In Midwood

yeah, that’s great. there’s also a similar art deco sears building still standing in L.A.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears,_Roebuck_&_Company_Mail_Order_Building

This is a full department store, too, actually. For whatever reason, the main entrances are closed, but once you go through the parking lot entrance you see that it is the same hustling/bustling multi-story Sears as it ever was.

As someone who grew up in Miami, this “Sears Tower” looks very familiar to me — because Miami has one too! Check it out:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/9502301

The tower, which is very similar to the one in Brooklyn, is the only surviving portion of the 1929 Sears building in downtown Miami. It was recently incorporated into a large new performing arts center.

I cannot believe this magnificent building is practically in my backyard and I didn’t have a clue it existed. As a newspaper reporter and aviation enthusiast, I helped save a stunning, albeit abandoned, Streamline Moderne air terminal at the far end of one of the city’s two major airports.
The City Aviation Dept. and the FAA were doing everything they could to raze the building for a parking lot, and being in a town that erases its own history as fast as it makes it, our chances were small. But now, 20 years later, I’m proud to report that the terminal is restored, and is a museum with landmark status and protection.
However, I don’t know how to help in the New York. But I’m willing to learn.

This is actually Flatbush, Midwood technically begins on the south side of the old LIRR Bay Ridge branch tracks. This Sears dates from the era when Flatbush was the most desirable neighborhood in Brooklyn and many retailers set up shop here to take advantage of the areas disposable income. Macy’s had a beautiful Art Deco edifice around the corner from here on Tilden Ave and Flatbush Ave. Sadly it shut down in the mid 1990s and was torn down the Staples chain which now occupies that spot.

I can remember being in our old Dodge with my mother in the back parking lot of the Sears in Hackensack,and it wouldn’t start sometime in the mid-late 50’s. I was so scared we’d never leave the lot, it cemented that Sears in my mind forever. Great style.
Just fall, Sept 2010, we drove by with both my parents. I was delighted to see it’s still there.

The fabulous old Packard Bamberger building, near the RR tracks and Anderson Ave in Hacky, dating from the late 1800’s, with wide planked flooring, was replaced by a Target. That was one building that should have been designated a landmark. It was incredible – and vendor stalls sold all kind of things. It also had one of the old murals of NYC like you see in the Law & Order courtroom scenes.

The flagship Brooklyn Sears & Roebuck is in Flatbush, not Midwood. (it’s not far from the Dutch Reformed Church, which gave Church Avenue it’s name, which is in Flatbush as well)