escalator to the tearoom

 

It was sad decades ago when this landmark building emptied as the business moved to newer spaces.  It's downright depressing to see it abandoned again.  Recognize it?

 

1212 Avenue J

Lubbock, Texas

fix it today

fix it to stay

 

The Welch Plumbing sign still bedecks, although not brightly, the brick building at 14th and Avenue J.  Apparently Welch's Plumbing has been in business since 1942, but I don't know whether they started at this location.  The building was built in 1934.  About 2000 it was purchased and turned into urban lofts with masonry walls, exposed steel beams and storefront windows.  In the background is some of the downtown skyline.  The Pioneer Hotel was built in 1925, sat vacant for years and then was renovated into up-scale condos -- and still sits vacant.  The buffalo is the emblem for Plains Bank which has its operating center in the former Hemphill-Wells building -- a premiere department store long out of business.  Downtown is not quite on life support but it certainly isn't bustling.  However it does seem that urban lofts do better than upscale condos.

 

View from 15th and Avenue J 

Lubbock, Texas

 

Bonus:  This building was also at one time home to the Jackson Motor Company.  I deduced that from the ghost sign in the alley.  I know Jackson Motor Company was in business pre-1960s because the phone number is 4644 -- long before the prefixes of PO, SH and SW!

 

 

 

parking garage

 

Opened in 1949, Hemphill-Wells was the premiere shopping destination in Lubbock and the South Plains.  Long-timers will have their own stories of the department store.  As a child I remember Saturdays with my grandmother.  We would take a taxi downtown, I would fidget while she got her hair done at the Merle Norman Studio and then we would walk around the corner to have lunch in the Tea Room on the mezzanine of Hemphill-Wells.  My great-aunt Almedea was the "hat lady" in the hat department.  At Christmas cars would line the block for a view of the decorated scenes in the windows.  The department store is no more but the parking garage is vacant and still bears the sign. The Department Store Museum is a neat blog with more history of Hemphill-Wells.