海角社区官网

The signs, starting with the instantly recognizable 1,000-points-of-light marquee spelling out the name across the width of an entire blinking city block, defining the vista of the Annex for generations. And in around those light bulbs, those eccentrically punctuated, terrible puns: 鈥淗onest Ed鈥檚 a monkey! 鈥榊ou can buy his bargains for peanuts!!鈥欌�� And down beneath: 鈥淒on鈥檛 just stand there, 鈥榖uy something鈥�!!鈥�

By the end, if we鈥檙e being candid, if you were actually looking to buy something, there were better places to do it, and plenty of them. Once upon a time, in a city whose retail landscape was dominated by staid WASPy surnames like Simpson and Eaton, Ed Mirvish virtually invented the discount retail store in this place, and it was a lifeline to generations of students and immigrants and people in plain old hard times. This is a story we know well by now 鈥� through roughly 41 months of retrospectives anticipating the store鈥檚 closing, we鈥檝e all had time to reflect on the generous turkey giveaways, the long lineups for the door crasher giveaway sales, the business that boomed from one tiny storefront to take over the block and anchor a theatre and restaurant empire.

By now, Dollarama is cheaper, Wal-Mart typically offers better quality merchandise and more consistent selection, and both of those conglomerates have many locations much closer to where today鈥檚 immigrant and impoverished populations typically live. It鈥檚 hard to imagine anyone is going to miss Honest Ed鈥檚 because they cannot get what they used to buy there somewhere else, for as good a price.

But my goodness, those places are not Honest Ed鈥檚. They have the stuff, mostly better stuff, and they have the prices, but they don鈥檛 have the signs: 鈥淐ome in and get lost鈥� they said over the door, and if you did, you would.

We wandered around inside with the kids for about an hour, up and down dusty stairwells, through rooms and into other rooms, across the bridge over the alley, poking our heads into rooms closed now that stock had been liquidated and consolidated. Ladies wear, sporting goods, housewares, antique oddities, groceries 鈥� hey, a dentist, an optometrist, a pharmacy 鈥� why not? It was a maze of a store like nothing you find in a mall, improvised through successive renovations and additions to create a feeling more carnival funhouse than merchandising science, with jokes and old theatre posters scattered wherever they would fit.

Eventually we came again to the signs 鈥� the interior ones this time, for sale as souvenirs. 鈥淐hristmas Tea Towels $1.19 ea.,鈥� 鈥淢en鈥檚 / Ladies / Teens Velcro Closure Fashion Shoes $4.99,鈥� 鈥淟adies or Misses Fancy Panties 99垄鈥� and so on. Each of them hand painted by an employee of the store in red, blue and yellow 鈥� as all the interior signage was, right up to the very end. Each a unique piece of individual labour. You don鈥檛 find that at Wal-Mart. You don鈥檛 find that anywhere.

This, this is what many of us will feel is lost when the doors finally close for the last time on Dec. 31. A place, a landmark, that was one-of-a-kind and custom made, from its blockbusting construction right on down to its price tags. You can buy the same stuff anywhere. Yet this store that sold it here was an eccentric reflection of its founder鈥檚 personality and humour, it鈥檚 own gradual evolution, the care and effort of its staff. Maybe I鈥檝e noted this before 鈥� of Ed鈥檚, of the now scrapped Captain John鈥檚 Seafood ship, of Sam The Record Man 鈥� but it seems an inescapable feeling for some of us as we watch the city change and grow, often in good, healthy ways: Something is shifting, something essential about what 海角社区官网was is being replaced by something else, what 海角社区官网will be.

Ed鈥檚 is an especially large and glaring example of a city that was cheap and sort of tacky and mostly tacked together haphazardly, but was unembarrassed by it, and was practical and audacious in its grand ambitions at the same time. And Ed鈥檚 was an especially on-the-nose holdover from a 海角社区官网full of places that offered an experience unique in the world.

We don鈥檛 necessarily just miss these places we haven鈥檛 patronized for years for what they were, but for what they weren鈥檛: generic outposts of the great global blah that makes eating or shopping or strolling a homogenous experience in major cities spanning the continent and much of the world.

The residential apartment and retail store complex slated to replace Honest Ed鈥檚 promises to be something different from the glass-wall condo template that dominates much of the city now. We鈥檒l see. It鈥檚 hard to believe it will be as different from anything else as what it is replacing.

鈥淭here鈥檚 no place like this place, anyplace!鈥� the sign on the corner of the building says, and for 68 years it wasn鈥檛 quite true, because there was this one place, right here. And now there won鈥檛 be.

We bought one of those hand-painted signs as a souvenir, 鈥淟adies and Misses Fashion Dresses $35.鈥� The signs weren鈥檛 exactly the very best part, but it鈥檚 a fitting symbol of something worth remembering: it鈥檚 bright and direct and there is not another one quite like it in the world.