As I was going down Glenstone Avenue Tuesday, I happened to notice that a particularly interesting (to me) building has been razed. The address was 1328 S Glenstone. The place had been a drive-in back in the 60s and later, though I do not know when it ceased to function as one of those fine hamburger joints. A look in my old 1984 Springfield phone book reveals it to have been, as I remember it, a Master Wong's Chinese restaurant. MasterWong's is, to my memory, one of the most prominent of local Asian cuisine of by-gone days. They had some great Springfield-style cashew chicken. Anyway, Wal-Mart is putting in one of its Neighborhood Markets in that block of Glenstone Avenue. I was sad to see this little mid-century gem of a building was gone. It was not very big; like many drive-ins of its time, it had little or no dining room; one ate in the car, hence the term "drive-in." I seem to remember it having a canopy across the front, though I could be wrong; if it had one, it was long gone before Wal-Mart brought about the little structure's demise. The building was of sandstone, as were many buildings of the mid-century era in Springfield, and the roof was of a bat-wing style, meaning that instead of a peaked roof as many houses have, the roof was inverted, so it formed a V, the V running the building's length. Most Springfieldians probably passed it everyday, and don't think much of it's being gone. But it was part of a length of Glenstone Avenue that I like to call The Mid-Century Mile. This section runs from St Louis Street on the north, to Seminole Street on the south. OK, the stretch is 2.4 miles, per Google Maps, but The Mid-Century 2.4 Miles just doesn't have the same ring. Humor me! I will right about my memories of this stretch of Glenstone Avenue in a few installments, and include what is there now. Who knows, 50 years from now someone might be interested in what the strip was like in 2011.
Why do I call this The Mid Century mile? For two reasons. One, the street has a lot of mid-century style buildings, of different shapes, sizes and uses. Some of the buildings really stand out, and I think are excellent exemplars of the style: modern a little space-age, unrestrained by tradition in style and building materials, unique. Two, the Glenstone Street, in the stretch I am talking about, was mostly developed between the late 1940s through the 1960s-the middle part of the 20th century. Glenstone Street, when it was being developed, was US 65, a pretty well-traveled north-south route in the days before and during the development of the US Interstate system. At the end of WWII, the Glenstone Avenue would have been, for the most part, a two lane road that was mostly outside of the hub-bub of local life. Much of the land along the road was farmland, with some notable exceptions, like the large National Cemetery on the southwest corner of Seminole and Glenstone. But it wasn't long after the end of the war before building along the thoroughfare really took off. 30 years after the war, few open spaces would exist along the road, and for a distance well south of the Mid-Century Mile. Today, of course, Glenstone is one of the busiest streets in town. The two-lane road of yesteryear is now a four-lane road, and if the street was six lanes, it would still be quite congested throughout the day, I think.
In future installments, I shall take a geographical approach to my description of The Mid-Century Mile. In the first, I shall discuss the segment between St Louis and Grand Streets. Then, I shall discuss the section between Grand and Portland/Cinderella Streets, and finally the section between Portland/Cinderella and Seminole Streets. Stay tuned!
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