Friday, April 19, 2013

Grand Opening of Westgate – April 1958

Here's a Grand Opening ad that may be of interest to Lorain west siders. It ran in the Lorain Journal on April 22, 1958 to announce the opening of the Lorain-Westgate Shopping Center at W. 21st Street and Leavitt Road (Route 58) – 55 years ago this month.

It's interesting to note that the shopping center's ads originally had that great cowboy theme. It was used in a few other ads for the shopping center but was eventually dropped.

Note the celebrities they had lined up: Captain Penny, KYW DJ Joe Finan, Mr. Banjo from WJW, and Cleveland Indians Minnie Minoso and Dick Tomanek (who was born in Avon Lake). Safari Jack had top billing, but I haven't been able to find out anything about him.

Anyway, many of us have great memories of shopping there over the years. The center was a regular stop for our family on Saturday mornings in the 1960s because of the Hough Bakery outlet there; we also shopped at the grocery stores that were located there.

And of course later the shopping center was home to Jeff & Flash's Monoplies as well as Stars Disco.

Today the center looks nice but is pretty much deserted except for the Family Dollar store which will soon be replaced by a brand new one to be built nearby.




3 comments:

-Alan D Hopewell said...

Westgate was a regular shopping spot for us, especially between April 1966 and May of 1967, when we lived across the street in the projects, 2039 Leavitt Road.

I remember all of those stores, especially Pick-N-Pay, Hough Bakeries, and Nobil Shoes.

Herman said...

I think this could be a good location for a Marc's grocery/variety/pharmacy. That firm often fixes older locations and is successful. Their location in Avon is, I believe, their only new-build store in the chain.

Gwen Twitty said...

Wow I lived in the projects at the same time. Right on Levitt road next to some property .