I'm really not sure what I was focusing on when I took this picture -- the balloons? the BECU sign? -- but it wasn't the most interesting part of this picture, which is the "serving Seattle since [date]" sign. I often grumble about Safeway's decision to just mention Seattle as a whole in these signs instead of the specific neighborhood, but in this case it's even worse -- this store is outside of Seattle city limits, in the unincorporated neighborhood of White Center! King County has long tried to get Seattle to take over White Center, but that's never gone anywhere, so for the foreseeable future this sign is rather inaccurate.
Back to things that you might actually find interesting, under that BECU sign you can see the back of the windows that replaced the original entrance, just frosted over such that very little light actually gets into the store. I really don't get what would have been so bad about just leaving the entrance here, but there really isn't much about this store that makes sense, so... whatever.
There are always things to argue with when it comes to those signs, lol. Here in Houston, most Randall's stores say "Serving Houston since 1966." 1966 would be the year that Randall's was founded. In the Dallas area, Tom Thumb stores often say "Serving North Texas since (whatever year Tom Thumb was founded, 1943 seems to come to mind, but don't quote that, lol)."
ReplyDeleteDallas and Houston has quite different ideology about suburban cities and bedroom communities. In Houston, just about everything in the Houston area gets considered to be Houston. Some of the wealthy, very distant suburbs like Sugar Land and The Woodlands kind of have their own mindset, but otherwise most people consider themselves to be Houstonians regardless of what the map or address might say.
In Dallas, there are many large cities that make up the Dallas-Ft. Worth 'Metroplex' like Dallas, Ft. Worth (those two should be obvious, lol), Arlington, Irving, Plano, Denton, Grapevine, Mesquite, Flower Mound, and so forth. A lot of these communities have their own identity separate from Dallas. Thus, I think the 'North Texas' title makes sense. That probably causes the least offense to people shopping in various different places in the Metroplex!
You may remember that recent Sears designs would put big stickers on their doors saying the name of the city the store is in (the other side of the door would say "This isn't Goodbye" even though most of those stores are gone now). Sometimes this caused odd situations here in Houston. The former Baybrook Mall Sears is one such case. The mailing address for the store/mall is Friendswood, but the mall itself is within the City of Houston boundaries. Also, the City of Webster is basically right there as well. I think Sears put Friendswood on the sticker, but they probably should have put Houston on it since the majority of the shoppers would be from Houston or some other place that isn't Friendswood or Webster.
Interesting to hear that about your area! I think people around here are more likely to consider themselves to be residents of whatever city they're in, and you certainly wouldn't hear people from places like Tacoma or Everett saying they're from Seattle (maybe "near Seattle" if they're talking to people from far away). Safeway is typically pretty good about showing what city you're in if they do have signs like this one... but they're rather inconsistent about unincorporated areas like this.
DeleteI'd also say that city boundaries here make more sense than it sounds like they do in your area, with the major exception of Tukwila, which is absolutely bizarre (and it doesn't help that it lacks an obvious downtown business district).
I don't know if you remember this because I'm not even sure if you were born at this time, lol, but do you remember when the Seattle Supersonics basketball team temporarily played their home games at the Tacoma Dome in 1994-95 while their home arena in Seattle was being re-built?
DeleteI used to watch a lot of basketball at the time and the Sonics were certainly one of the top teams at the time. Basketball arenas often aren't all that memorable, especially temporary ones, but I remember the Tacoma Dome having a visible wall of neon-like lighting that was very unique. It was very 1980s-1990s looking I suppose, lol. You can see it here in this video at around the 35 second mark: https://youtu.be/-X-CEtaUUZs
Anyway, the Sonics had pretty good support even when they played in Tacoma. I don't know how many of the fans made the trip in from Seattle and how many were from Tacoma itself. That was the last year that they wore that iconic design of uniforms if I remember correctly. Link: https://youtu.be/-X-CEtaUUZs
Huh, definitely didn't know that! And no, I wasn't even born yet at that point in time 🙂
DeleteI didn't know about the neon either (I've never been inside the Tacoma Dome), but apparently it's a permanent thing and was weirdly controversial back when the Tacoma Dome was built. Pretty cool, but it would have been even more cool if the outside of the dome was decorated in neon as was apparently originally planned!
Who knew neon would be so controversial? Lol. I wonder if Tacoma had any neon decor supermarkets and department stores. Given all of what happened, I suppose it wouldn't be a surprise if there weren't any neon stores in Tacoma, lol.
DeleteThe neon roof idea would have been pretty neat, but having it on the inside was neat as well. It certainly grabbed my attention during the brief time the Tacoma Dome hosted NBA basketball.