- Jan 6, 2015
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Not that long ago but Maas Bros fell apart sometime in the 80s.
Maas was the first to come to mind. Not that I particularly enjoyed it, but my Grandma always went there and took me.
I remember the S&H Greenstamp store, and the weeks of buildup until my parents took me there and I got my first ever am(fm?) alarm clock. Listened to Spanish radio late at night coming in from somewhere south (Miami? Cuba? Idunno).
Eckard's was THE drug store, long before anyone else got on the scene.
I remember lots of things related to the Oaks mall, starting when the first foundations were poured, then it grew, and grew, and grew. So many stores turned over in my time there.
As a youth, video game arcades were more my thing than stores to buy stuff. I remember Tin Pan Alley across from UF, as well as Blue Chip Gaming next to Albertson's.
First real theater was the Center Theater on 6th or 13th st, later torn down and has some office supply store on that footprint. I remember going there every summer for free movies for the kids, and I saw King Kong in 1976 there...and went to the bathroom only to come out and find they'd pulled the names off the theater rooms so I wandered into the wrong door. I was mesmerized in the doorway watching some horror film with a country redneck witch telepathically throwing knives and pegging someone to the wall until the point an usher showed up and hauled me to the correct theater.