Gone
They've closed the Rite Aid pharmacy and store in the old Hollywood Fred Meyer building, on the Northeast 41st side. Apparently their last day was yesterday. They didn't even give us pharmacy customers the courtesy of a phone call. They're forwarding calls about prescriptions to the Fred Meyer Pharmacy on Weidler. I don't do Fred Meyer, and so I'll have to start all over with a drug store elsewhere.
In recent years, there's always been a sketchy person or two in front of the door to the Rite Aid, and some tents on the sidewalks in the vicinity. Wackos burned out Reo's Ribs around the corner, not once but a couple of times. The car-hating children have made a rat's maze of the traffic flow, and one soulless apartment bunker after another has turned the 'hood into a colder-feeling place than it used to be. The new buildings are are so similar that now it's easy to get lost in the concrete jungle.
There's an Umpqua Bank branch holding on in another part of the old Freddy's building. You wonder how long they'll stay. Their street ATM is definitely keep-an-eye-out-over-your-shoulder territory.
If I had to guess, I'd say that in five years the old building, which I believe started out as a garage of some kind, will be torn down for yet more apartments. More dumb kids voting for nonsense, more big bucks for the developers and construction goons, and a lot of those bucks coming from taxes on working people in the single-family homes up the street. It's Portland, 21st Century.
Bye bye, Rite Aid. Your rooftop parking was always a trip. And you were my third Covid shot. We'll always have Pfizer.
It's exciting the way Portland continually reinvents itself.
ReplyDeleteIn the same sense that a colonoscopy is exciting?
DeleteMine have all been vibrant.
DeleteTry Pill Pack. They don’t miss a beat & you won’t step foot in these faceless chain drug stores again. 100% pleased over 3 years
DeleteThe collapse is slow moving. Pollyanna doesn’t see it.
ReplyDeleteJust sad. I remember shopping there at a time when Fred Meyer was still alive. It was as wholesome as you could get. No Rite Aid, but there was the attached bank on the eastern portion of the building, not far from the magazine stands.
ReplyDeleteEven in the mid-80’s that area was quiet and fairly deserted. Had a very old fashioned feel to it, and was a great area to hang out in. What a disaster this town has turned into.
He also said that the store didn’t have enough money to buy the property. So he financed in the family.
DeleteThis is less about Portland and more about Rite Aid. They've just closed the one in Canby as well. The days of the neighborhood pharmacy are numbered. Soon we'll all be getting our prescriptions filled by Jeff Bezos PharmD.
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth.
DeleteI'm pretty sure that wasn't originally a garage. That was the grocery section of the first "suburban" Fred Meyer store and one-stop-shopping-center (aka supercenter) in the country. Built in the 1930s, Meyer originally had a gas station on the property but I'm pretty sure it was in a different part of the store.
ReplyDeleteFrom early photos (https://stumptownblogger.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b86d36970c022ad380f189200c-pi), it looks like this part of the store was an attempt to look like an open-air (when the doors were opened) public market. Meyer got his start managing a public market in Portland, so this may have felt familiar to him. The roll-up doors were eventually replaced with the windows shown in the Rite-Aid photo, which may be why it looks garage-like.
Sorry you have given up shopping at Fred's. I grew up near that store and still find FM to be far preferable to Safeway, though Winco gives it a run for its money. As for the McConnell-Chao connection, so what? If I were to boycott any company that was faintly associated with someone I didn't agree with, I would starve to death.
It wasn't an "attempt" at an open air market, it functioned as one for decades. There was another one downtown at 2nd and Pine, which was turned into food court/coffee shop in the 80's. There was a great Bento place in the corner spot, and the doors still rolled all the way up.
DeleteAmazon got them. But wait, there is more!
ReplyDeleteYou might try moving your prescriptions to the Lecare Pharmacy on 42nd around the corner from TJ's (and across from B'way Medical). They are owned by a lovely Vietnamese family (not a big faceless corp...) and have done an amazing job with the Covid vaccines. If I still lived in that neighborhood, that's where I'd go. https://www.lecarepharmacy.com/
ReplyDeleteThere is a fairly new CVS close to my house, but I haven’t set foot in it yet. I prefer Rite Aid as it is smaller and more welcoming than a mega pharmacy. I was actually surprised that CVS was out this way.
ReplyDeleteI worked at two in Boston some 35 years ago, and still possess my “CVS Passport”, that will guarantee me a job with them. At least in theory. I am probably the last person on earth who owns such a thing.
I was a Rite Aid customer too. I planned to switch to CVS, but they (like Freddie's) don't keep a lot of drugs on hand so it takes 2 days to get your script filled. I ended up back at Walgreen's.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with Costco pharmacy, even though they don't work Sundays. They have helped unsnarl things and gets scrips filled timely. And any big company that gets Wall St criticism for giving employees too much is OK with me.
ReplyDelete