New book filled with memories of North Richmond

“After school we’d go to Safety Town or walk over toward Parker Field, where we’d climb up on the trains near the Richmond Visitor’s Center on the Boulevard,” says Ross, 43, who attended elementary school at Luther Memorial in the North Side. “Then we’d go to Willey’s Drugstore for a limeade.”

In case you don’t know, Safety Town was a miniature town designed to instill youngsters with a pedestrian responsibility, Parker Field was the predecessor to The Diamond, and Willey’s was not just a Bellevue Avenue drugstore but an institution owned by a powerful state senator…

… Since Ross’ grandmother and a number of his aunts lived in the Bellevue and Ginter Park area, it’s not surprising that his “Memories” includes a number of North Side institutions. In addition to Willey’s Drugstore, he examines Wright’s Townhouse restaurant and Azalea Mall, an enclosed shopping center that included such almost-forgotten retailers as Food Fair, Gary’s card shop and a Hofheimer’s shoe store.

“Who can forget the monkey in the glass cage in the back of Hofheimer’s or being dragged through the Mediterranean-style LaVogue for upscale clothing with our mothers?” Ross writes.