persistence of vision: Walnut Mall, Petersburg VA

As posted back in the fall of '06, I tried taking my mom by the Walnut Mall where she used to go way back when. It was by then a red clay lot awaiting a new Food Lion to be born. The adjacent Crater Cinema building was still there (repurposed as a church), but the mall was gone.

Thanks to the online sleuthing of That Mall's Sick And That Store's Dead! (aka Sickmalls) one could check the Virginia Film Office location site & find interior & exterior shots of the vanished mall.

Unfortunately, though the location page still exists for Walnut Mall, the pictures are gone. Perhaps deleted--I can't say for sure.

UPDATE 29 Sept 2008--Forget what I wrote above and try this link for the VA Film Office pics of Walnut Mall:
http://va.reel-scout.com/loc_detail.aspx?id=2657&g=

(Thinking out loud: If these images have been ever are deleted, I hope the Virginia Film Office will pass along copies/hard originals to the Library of Virginia or some appropriate historical group or archive. Perhaps make them available online again as images of Virginia's recent past.)

Thankfully, an informative Labelscar post about Walnut Mall still has two cool pics from 1991. While some things had likely changed, I know these pictures revive my own faded memories of the mall (of Thalheimer's and Peoples Drug, in particular) as it was in the early 1970s.

Also the Labelscar post links to aerial images of the area that still (so far) show the old Walnut Mall.

Sometimes it's good when things lag a bit and information is not so up to date.

two sides to every shirt

Well, this shirt anyway.

Recently decommissioned by an anonymous acquaintance who once upon a time tripped the light fantastic in such as this. Down Va. Beach way, or so I'm told.

Even long gone and reduced to pixels, the shirt puts out quite a vibe. Click either side if you dare to look closer.

add on without permit

Here's one way of expanding your living space.






Tho' things soon become a blur . . .


And you realize it's all a mirage.

fuzzy photo of a cool concertina

An er, umm informally photographed concertina animated and joined by this singing gentleman.

At this festival.

Taken by one who was no less than a loyal fan of both . . .

c'mon Revco light my fire

Another Revco item, this from circa 1980-1981 (back when I had a Zippo lighter and before I quit smoking).

supermarket arcana

The above image is nowhere near actual size (something like 3/4" high by 1/2" wide). I'm not sure what one could get with enough Sav-A-Stamps saved (before the expiration date--here it's January 1, 1960). But I do recall the Colonial Stores supermarket in Smithfield.


Below are the front & back views of a old Food Fair courtesy card from the early 1970s: