Gone but not forgotten

Street photography in its most classic form.

Thank you very much, m̌ ḫ.

I remember this place from your previous images..........so it's nice to see another shot, which is just as bright and colourful as the others!!

Thanks for including the PiPs as a reminder!

Thank you very much, Keith, and you're welcome. The experience inside was invigorating, too.

I hope you gave him lots of money John :-))

I tried, Keith. We all did. But property values were going up, his son thought there was more opportunity in their theatre business, so no more free turkeys at Christmas. They did own a huge piece of valuable land there.

Wonderful shots to remember Ed's!

Admired in: www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Thanks, William.

Good to have a chuckle on Sunday morning. And then it hits one that the place isn't there any more. Good shot!

Thanks, Bob. There's no equivalent where I live now. The big shopping experience here is competing with Old Order Mennonite women in the bargain bins at Wal-Mart, and I have been boycotting Wal-Mart for some years now.

Superb and bright capture.

Thank you very much, Don.

Epic fun for customer and photographer!

A very good point, Steve. Thanks.

Great shot, sorry to hear that individualism is giving way to the bland, boring and corporate.

Everyone wants to be respectable, now, Maggs, and respectability has become synonymous with not attracting attention.

Great colourful images, John. Very sorry to see that it's being replaced by bland and boring,

Thanks, George. These days people seem to think not standing out is the height of respectability.

Bright and beautiful, John. A reminder of how things used to be (and still should be).

Individualism is, unfortunately, dead and is unlikely to return. Boring and bland appears to work best and promises survival, but the rapacious corporations and hedge funds will snap up every small trader in an instant, especially if the land is valuable. They pretend to be socially conscious and well-meaning, quoting cheapness and offering a semblance of variety, but in reality they are sharks. Our high streets are all the same nowadays; every suburb is the same. Ain't capitalism grand! Grrrr!

That's not true Capitalism. Some have distorted it into Greed - a totally different thing.

Ed's was eventually done in by big box stores, notably Wal-Mart. Now Wal-Mart Canada is in trouble because of the boycott of American businesses here. I was already boycotting them because of their maniacal union-busting.

I agree, Kenneth. They've been helped by the gutting of competition laws around the world. Their goals are low costs, high prices, and lots of money for the execs. Quality and value, not so much.

I seem not to have replied to you, John, so here's a very tardy reply. Corporations have become huge because of the gutting of competition laws, starting in the US with Reagan. The excuse in Canada for allowing giant corporations to merge has always been that they need to be big to compete internationally. But of course reducing the number of competitors at home doesn't increase domestic competition. Well-regulated capitalism can be helpful (as a staunch old-fashioned socialist I espouse a mixed economy), but crony capitalism is a cancer.

The photographs are great! Makes me sad it's no longer there and I never even was near there to shop at it. So much of the world we knew is disappearing.

Shopping there was quite an experience. Ed was continually offering real loss-leaders: free turkeys at Christmas, free food on his birthday, free food on the store's anniversary. And he made it fun to shop there.

Shopping there must have been quite an experience John - and isn't that what we all want rather than the same chains in every town - and even less of them now so we shop online which is even more of a vanilla experience. Ed sounds like he was quite a character and thank you for the link.
I would have loved to mooch around there. So sad that the son saw the dollar signs and sold out.

A great series of images that gave me a smile

Best wishes Carol

Ed was indeed quite the guy, Carol. He got a CBE, for examp;e, for saving the Old Vic. On the British honours list.

The store was suffering from competition from big box stores, especially Wal-Mart, and David Mirvish thought the theatre side of their business offered more opportunity, so selling was probably a good idea. They owned almost an entire city block.

That's an interesting point about online shopping. Maybe online stores could borrow some of Ed's techniques. Thanks for pointing that out.

A colourful and enticing shop lost forever and probably in the name of progress John,
It's good to know images of this fine store will exist, A fine series well captured ,
Have a good week!

Thank you very much, Roger, and a good week to you.

Beautiful image

Thank you, Annemarie.

Great shot. It is a shame it no longer exists.

Yes, Costco really isn't a replacement.

This is (was) great!!!