Curious about what sorts of stores used to be on 14th Street? I’ve mentioned Larry Rosen before, a man who used to run a drug store at 14th and Clifton back in the 50s and 60s, and witnessed the 1968 MLK riots first hand. Rosen has a great blog, and a recent post is about what sorts of stores there were on the 2400 and 2500 block (that’s near Belmont and Clifton) compared with what’s there now. (Although it looks like he repeats the list a few times).
It’s a bit sobering and sad, considering that there were so many different places in just those two blocks: restaurants (grills, cafeteria, Chinese), plus bars, electronics stores, a department store, clothing stores, shoe stores, dry cleaners, and more. They were almost all destroyed during the riot or demolished afterwards. Of course, some of those types of businesses still exist, but they’re far less common, especially from Florida to Harvard: it’s mostly big apartment buildings or empty store fronts, though the new places to the south have some retail.
