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HHS Class of '59

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HHS Class of '59
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Re: Downtown Hammond of the 60's Part 2

Yes, even parking your car would often involve human contact, depending on where you parked. Most places charged a reasonable fee for parking and had parking lot attendants to take in the money. Many people knew my dad because of his work as the superintendent of the parking garage and of the outdoor parking lot for the Edward C. Minas Company. Dad took his turns in the booths at the garage, and he met thousands of people as he collected their parking fees. Like the other Minas employees, Dad had a smile for the customer and always had time to chat a little. Customers were made to feel very special at Minas’s: they were truly appreciated by all of the store’s employees.

Today we are only interested in buying things quickly, easily, and at the lowest possible price. We live in a Wal-Mart world. No wonder downtown Hammond died.

My trip downtown on July 20, 2005, was one of the saddest experiences in my fifty-six years of life. The mighty and noble Goldblatt’s building is gone. The Walgreen’s building and the Parthenon Theatre next to it are both gone. The cherished Minas store is gone. The buildings that remain are only partially occupied, with many of the windows covered over. It seemed that at any moment I would begin to hear the whistling of the wind and the banging of shutters, while tumbleweeds scurried down the empty streets, as in the movie scenes of old western ghost towns. There is no more retailing in downtown Hammond. There are no more customers, no more clerks, and only an occasional pedestrian walking the once bustling streets.

None of us ever dreamed that downtown Hammond would become the desolate, forlorn place that it is now. We loved our downtown, and we thought there would be no end to its glory.

Some say that the traffic congestion due to the many railroad crossings and heavy train traffic is what killed downtown Hammond. People were tired of being caught by slow moving trains, they reason. Others say that the decline in the steel industry and the subsequent layoffs spelled the death of downtown Hammond. The opening of shopping malls in the outlying areas drew the customers away from downtown. Whatever their reasons, the shoppers preferred to shop in those malls rather than to go downtown, and so, downtown Hammond died.

I hope that this brief story about my beloved downtown Hammond will make people realize what a wonderful place it was. Maybe in some way it will help us to hold dearly to things that we cherish and not be so quick to leave them behind. Our society is becoming more and more impersonal. The human interaction that was so much a part of life in downtown Hammond is all too rare these days.