Over the course of the last ten years or so, certain areas of Spenard have been experiencing some sort of renaissance. One of the most notable locales is the area whose epicenter is the Bear Tooth or perhaps REI. It doesn't seem too long ago that the mall in which REI stands was mostly vacant and tenuously toeing the line of collapse. Now a regular Mecca of gore-tex, tofu sandwiches, lattes, bagels, and books, the mall has all the ingredients to attract yoga enthusiasts from afar (actually not too far, just across Northern Lights).
I remember when REI was located in the current Brown Jug liquor store at the corner of Northern Lights and Spenard, and the Bear Tooth used to be Denali Theater. The Theater's original marquee still stands above Play it Again Sports. Shortly before the theater shut down, they used to offer $1.01 movies, usually movies which have already played at the more popular theaters. It was sponsored or ran by KGOT radio who donated the one lonely cent to charity. It was a decent cheap date if you could suffer through sitting on the springs poking through the seats. AMH and Quick Tow has been there through all of it, the bohemianification, yuppification, and gen-X-ification, and now as i understand it gen-Y and gen-M.
Spenard Road seems to be a curvy windy aberration within in a city which demands structured grids. At one end is Chilkoot Charlie's and at the other a relatively new congestion of bad airport hotels and crappy chain restaurants. The two seem to be holding the ends of a jump rope which makes up Spenard. There's a lot more to say about Spenard, but this is just the first post and it's late for me. Anybody remember 'Foodland'? How about the relationship between Foodland, Annabel the elephant, and the Alaska Zoo?
Check out some wiki-info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenard
I remember when REI was located in the current Brown Jug liquor store at the corner of Northern Lights and Spenard, and the Bear Tooth used to be Denali Theater. The Theater's original marquee still stands above Play it Again Sports. Shortly before the theater shut down, they used to offer $1.01 movies, usually movies which have already played at the more popular theaters. It was sponsored or ran by KGOT radio who donated the one lonely cent to charity. It was a decent cheap date if you could suffer through sitting on the springs poking through the seats. AMH and Quick Tow has been there through all of it, the bohemianification, yuppification, and gen-X-ification, and now as i understand it gen-Y and gen-M.
Spenard Road seems to be a curvy windy aberration within in a city which demands structured grids. At one end is Chilkoot Charlie's and at the other a relatively new congestion of bad airport hotels and crappy chain restaurants. The two seem to be holding the ends of a jump rope which makes up Spenard. There's a lot more to say about Spenard, but this is just the first post and it's late for me. Anybody remember 'Foodland'? How about the relationship between Foodland, Annabel the elephant, and the Alaska Zoo?
Check out some wiki-info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenard
1 comment:
this is very nice.
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