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Better rush to take your last look at the old Ashmont in Roslindale

It's wreckin' time for the old hardware store, to be torn down with all possible haste to make way for a Staples (and, yes, it's killing me to post something like that without a single "That was easy" or "Yeah, we got that" pun).

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I still miss the Rialto.

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If and when some corporate restaurant/bar chain buys The Pleasant, I will break out the weaponry and make a stand.

(I was there last night, by the way, enjoying pizza and pasta. Tastes the same as it did 40 years ago, which is a good thing.)

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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No, not the Pleasant! That would mean the Apocalypse is nigh.

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Ahhh... the Peasant! My father used to walk a beat down Washington street back in the '50s. One night, he stationed himself outside the Pleasant near closing time. He saw them looking out at him through the curtains. Next thing he knows, the phone rings at the police box across the street - someone made a call, and word came down from above to leave them alone. So much for drunk driving.

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... Those glass blocks they now have that you can't really see through :-).

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I seem to remember 50 cent drafts on the
bar side when I was carrying a fake ID...

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My favorite weird thing about The Pleasant was an item mentioned on the menu, unfortunately not there anymore. It was the Wild Vermont Turkey. As if The Pleasant had someone up in Vermont stalking the woods and shooting birds :-)

Alas, I never did order it to see if there might be some buckshot left in it, or something else that might verify its authenticity.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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The Pleasant has a WEBSITE? Damn. Thanks, Adam!

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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I shopped at the Ashmont a lot when I first got my house. I was always sad it closed. But with Home Depot nearby, what smaller business can survive?

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If they don't have it, you don't need it.

There's also a similar place on Centre Street in West Roxbury.

But, yeah, I learned about Ashmont fast when we first moved to Rozzie. Back then, there were a ton of neighborhood kids who just hung around on the street in the summer (in a good way, it was cool), and when I told one of them I needed some tools and was heading over to Sears and asked if he wanted to come, he looked at me like I was nuts: "Sears?!?"

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Consider, for instance, the continued thriving existence of Tags Hardware in Porter Square.

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Corner of Boston Ave. and Winthrop in Medford, right by Tufts. Given the number of work trucks that I need to slalom around on a given morning, the place is doing quite well.

There is also Deering Lumber in Melrose, which is likely to get a drywall order from me sometime quite soon. They did a great job bringing pavers and sand and gravel right to my driveway when we rebuilt our side entrance path.

Home Depot still has a place when you need lumber and the only time you have to shop is at 9 pm. We also got multiple rebates and discounts to kick Sears' arse on the appliances for our kitchen, along with free delivery.

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Maybe the chain is closing after 52 years, but that building was a Stop & Shop in the 60's.

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That place has been an interesting eyesore for years and years now as the locals fought the owner's attempts to turn it into a self-storage place.

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Actually, I believe the original owner tried to change it into a lot of things - eg, a pharmacy (which was nixed by the politically-connected owner of Sullivan's) and even a Staples! But the city somehow didn't think that was an appropriate use - until he was forced by financial exigency to sell it to a developer friendly with the BRA. Then - PRESTO! - it's ok to have a big chain store in Rosi square. Exactly the kind of car-attracting, local-biz killing eyesore that Menino and his cronies claimed would damage the neighborhood-based independent small businesses clustered in the city's first "Main Street" project area.

Of course, they claim they never saw such a proposal - even though the guy's lawyer has apparently shown documentation to local reporters. And the powers-that-am have waived all sorts of the regular neighborhood/zoning oversight to fast track the project - so hardly anyone but the abutters and a few news junkies know about the controversy.

If this turns out to be true - then what a sorry scam. I don't know the original owner, and I hear he was often a real PITA, but that doesn't make it right to screw him over.

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Are there local businesses in or near Rozzie Square that sell the stuff that Staples does?

I'm not a huge fan of chains, but sometimes they do add useful things to a neighborhood.

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Sucks if true about the original Ashmont guy (now that you mention it, I do remember he wanted to put in a chain pharmacy - and when that was turned down, he proposed that self-storage place).

But how does a Staples hurt local businesses? It's not like there's a Sullivan's Office Supply.

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The nationwide struggle between chain superstores and mom-and-pop shops has landed, again, on the leafy streets of Park Slope. A new Staples and a Pep Boys, planned for Fourth Avenue, are seen by many as a double-edged sword. The big stores might bring more shoppers to the Slope, but they can also hurt small businesses.

The office-supply giant and the auto-parts chain hope to open adjacent stores on a long block on Fourth Avenue between Third and Sixth Streets, opening next year. Pep Boys, which owns the site and will lease space to Staples, will compete directly with the many auto-parts and repair shops on the avenue. Staples will threaten businesses like Park Slope Office Supplies, at 405 Fifth Avenue near Seventh Street.

''It's going to hurt for sure,'' said Charles Rodriguez, owner of the business for 23 years, 13 of them on Fifth Avenue. ''Big stores already moved into the area, like Costco, Home Depot, Office Max and Barnes & Noble. My business dropped 40 percent and many others closed.''

A spokeswoman for Staples, Elizabeth Allen, said the company was opening the 19,400-square-foot, 40-employee store, its fourth in Brooklyn, because of the site's ''great location and easy access'' to much of the borough.

Staples ''will impact some local stores,'' Ms. Allen admitted.

She added: ''We pass along savings that large businesses enjoy. We bring value to small-business customers in Brooklyn, and that's a good thing. There's an enormous amount of small businesses and home offices in the area.''

There are other good things as well, some business people say: big stores attract shoppers who might never visit the area.

''Any attention being paid to this part of Brooklyn is a plus,'' said Jeffrey Raiola, president of the Fifth Avenue Merchants Association and owner of Pollio, a 74-year-old Italian specialty food store on the same street. ''Big stores do hurt little merchants, there's no doubt. But they also make everybody tighten up their ship a little more.''

But Mr. Rodriguez said that, money aside, he worried about the impact of big stores on the character of the neighborhood.

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Submited by : Caballos

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