Wednesday, March 13, 2013

This House Speaks to Me



In 1977, Johnson's Bookstore in downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, offered a selection of back issues of Keith's Magazine of Home Building in their secondhand book department, the multitudinous contents of which sprawled over the entire second floor.   A browser's paradise.  Most of these issues were from the early 1900s.  Having developed an unexplained fascination for house floor plans, I purchased as many copies as my meager G. & C. Merriam salary would allow.

Johnson's closed in 1998, twenty years after I moved from Springfield to Oshkosh.  (Not that the two events are in any way related.)


"Hell's Acres" chronicles the decline of downtown Springfield.  Baystate West was still thriving when I lived in Springfield from 1976-1978, but I was also on hand for the closing of Forbes & Wallace's iconic downtown department store.  And my Aunt Millie worked in rival Steiger's bridal department into the 1980s.

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