What killed downtown?
Subtitle: Norristown, Pennsylvania, from main street to the malls
By: Michael E. Tolle
Publisher: [Michael E. Tolle]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Charleston, SC]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 279
ISBN-13: 9780615722221
Subjects: Buildings, structures; Economic conditions; History
Description: In 1950, the classic American downtown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, centered on the six blocks of Main Street, was the bustling commercial heart of central Montgomery County, and had been for over a century. With depression and war in the past, downtown merchants looked forward to an extended period of prosperity. It was not to be.  By 1975, downtown's core stood largely shuttered and deteriorating, with 99 storefronts vacant and countless others lost to the wrecking ball, as first shoppers and then the merchants fled Main Street.  What Killed Downtown? Was it...  The Malls?-- Amazon.com.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Part I: Good Times; title: Settling along the Schuylkill --; title: Roads, rivers, & railroads --; title: Growth & expansion --; title: Enter the automobile --; title: Transportation crisis --; title: Mid-century Norristown --; title: Main street by the numbers -- -- Part II: The beginning of the end; title: The automobile age --; title: Downshifting Downtown, 1951-1961 --; title: Power struggles --; title: 1962: Sesquicentennial health update -- -- Part III: Decline and fall; title: If you build it, they will come -- and shop --; title: Establishing the time of death --; title: So .... what killed Downtown? --; title: References --; title: Index --; title: Endotes.