Rensselaer Adventures

This blog reports events and interesting tidbits from Rensselaer, Indiana and the surrounding area.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Closings

2009 saw some closings or endings in Rensselaer.

Businesses usually want to be noticed when they open but are less interested in publicity when they close. Hence, they often pass away unnoticed. Some of the businesses whose passings were noticed in this blog were the 2Bobs General Store (and here), the Check n Go (and here), GuyaTech, and the Artisan GalleryEnvoy Expeditionary services came and left without me ever knowing what it did. Does Rensselaer have any tattoo parlors left? The one north of the Amtrak station departed, and the space it occupied was renovated to be an apartment.

A more significant departure occurred south of the tracks from the tattoo place. The Morning Song Birdseed company shut its Rensselaer plant.

Another significant ending happened in the car sales business. GM dropped Charlie Roberts as a dealer, and the Dodge Chrysler dealership closed even though they had kept the Dodge dealership. (It is shown below in happier days either getting a vehicle delivered or shipping one out.) Rensselaer now has no new-car dealerships.

One other possible closing may have been Sharp Electric, though it may have closed earlier than 2009.

There were a number of renovation and construction projects in Rensselaer during 2009, but only one demolition project that I caught. (Usually demolition is much quicker than construction, so it is easy to miss.) The old bulk fuel tanks on Walnut were taken down.

Of course, there are many beginnings and endings of a personal nature as people get new jobs, leave old ones, and move from Rensselaer or into Rensselaer.

What did I miss?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always enjoyed stories of the performing arts at SJC and the links to other productions.

We are also still singing the "Potato Song" around our house.

Anonymous said...

Closings are sad, very sad.