Ballwin, while far outside of the suburban ring in the 1960’s, still saw rapid growth along Manchester Road. I always noticed these older stores, which once featured much more gaudy paint schemes.
The ice cream store perhaps has the original benches, or leftovers from Dairy Queen. The giant, sweeping roofs of the buildings remind me of a more grandiose buildings further down in the city.
There’s a cool bank building nearby as well, which I have a hard time quantifying; it looks like it’s from the 1970’s.
It has a distinctive arcade out front, articulated in brick.
I used to frequent the two stores in your photo back in the mid to late 90’s. What is now Mr. C’s used to be a Silky Freeze ice cream store and the Hair Salon was a CD Warehouse.
Ah, yes, CD Warehouse! I bought CD’s from them as well.
Waay back when, they were originally constructed as fast food joints. My bicycle shop was West of there, on Clarkson Road at first, back in ’73. There have been so many different entities in those two stores since they were built in 1969, I’ve forgotten.
Another interesting building a few blocks West of there is 15215 Manchester. It was originally built as “Mike Bush’s Hot Dog Zone,” in 1985. Yes – it’s THAT Mike Bush! This only lasted a few years when US Bank bought it and it’s been that ever since. Pretty interesting and other than a coat of paint and the requisite driveup amenities on its West side, looks pretty much as when it was Bush’s place.
The ice cream store was a KFC restaurant then Buds deli. I worked at Buds for a summer in 1993 or 1994. The store next door was a golf outlet during my time at Buds. I thought the USBank was a Popeyes sometime in the eighties.