The Last Holdout

Over a month shooting video of the demolition, and I completely overlooked this.

On this stretch of West Division Street across from the demolition site,surrounded by newly-built 3-story red-brick condos, one owner of a now-shuttered mom-and-pop grocery store refused to knuckle under to a developer who, apparently, offered him much less that what he felt his property was worth. Unfazed, the developer simply built around him. Now that the real estate market has tanked, it may be quite a while before he gets his asking price.

I admire this guy (woman?) for standing his ground, and I can't help but feel a little schadenfreude at the yuppies who bought $250,000 condos on this block assuming that pesky little eyesore would eventually be bought out and torn down. Speculating: never a good idea.

Of course, they could have made lemonade out of lemons by supporting this little grocery store, just like neighborhoods have supported little mom-and-pop stores for years. But they'd never do that. Not with a glitzy Dominick's a 5-minute drive away, and two Jewel's less than 10 minutes drive east and west, and a Whole Foods near North and Clybourn (20 minutes). Walk!? Take public transportation!? Yeah, right.

In the meantime, a tiny bit of "Little Hell" remains, in a neighborhood where hell these days is getting caught out in the rain in suede Ferragamo loafers. Water on suede!? Oh, the humanity!

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[Strannik01]

Interesting. I've been wondering how it managed to survive demolition.

[idahodad1]

Looks like ther is a new setback ordinance with the condos. I agree, you would think this little store would be patronized by the community A nice littl bakery to get them coming in.