Record and Bookstores...

Jackson/Cass Suburbs, including South KC
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Zasco
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Joined: Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:16 am

Record and Bookstores...

Post by Zasco »

Hi again, friends, this is Zasco.

I have a story I'd like to share with you.

In the mid-to-late Seventies and all of the Eighties I was a frequent visitor to the greater KC area, there were old used-and-rare bookstores as well as record stores on the Missouri side...I've noticed that the businesses are now defunct today, if the buildings are still standing, they're boarded up, or another business is located in it.

I wondered whatever became of the people who ran them, I struck up friendships with a lot of them...I also wonder if maybe they'd started other shops in another town or city.

These places are:

Royal Bookstore, 16th and Grand (they were once at 12th and Washington but the building was razed in late 1984 or so to construct a parking garage)

Time To Read Newstand and Bookstore at 7 West 12th Street (a 50-story IBM building, I was told as to what business was in it, sits practically on the site of where the Bookstore once was)

There was also a bookstore at 34th Terrace and Main, I had named it the "34th and Main Bookstore", a Progressive Insurance branch now occupies that space

Love Records, 3941 Main (ah, the good old days! This was one of my major stops, I recall their superb "bargain tables" where one could find 45s at 12 for a dollar at one point--!)

Garrett's Records and Tapes, 3835 S. Prospect (I've seen that the building still stands, but it's been boarded up...I knew the owner(s) very well, they always used to be concerned for me traveling on a motorcycle the majority of the times)

Miss Cherry's Records, Tapes, and TV/Radio Repair, 4244 Indiana (The complex which housed that facility also still stands, but is boarded up as well)

The 12th Street Adult Bookstore and Novelty Shop (just east of the intersection of 12th and Main, on the south side of the street, it was not too far from where an elevated sidewalk is now...I believe a cafe is in its place currently)

Davidson's One-Stop Records (as I recall, it would've practically been on the state line on Southwest Boulevard)

Again, I would like to know what became of the owners/operators, and if they could be located today. I haven't seen a lot of them in years and would also like to tell them how much their stores meant to me (and to others as well who were frequent shoppers).

Thanks for listening...Zasco.
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