Remembering Broadway-Sprigg

Thanks to Kenny Pincksten for renovating the building at Sprigg Street and Broadway instead of taking it down. It know it is an old building and has seen better days. I still don't want to see it come down.

During the 1930s and 1940s, the corner building was occupied by the Seehausen Meat Market. It was a good grocery store owned and run by two brothers, Eddie and Walter Seehausen. My mother was a regular customer. She would call in her order in the morning, and it would be delivered promptly. The store closed when the big supermarkets came in. The two brothers went to work as butchers in those stores.

On the Sprigg side of the building were stairs going to the second floor, which was rented for living quarters.

Directly behind the grocery store on Sprigg was a barbershop. Next door the market on Broadway was a small cafe call The Toasted Shop. It was later renamed. In the 1940s there were numerous home-owned cafes up and down Broadway: Coney Island, Hollywood, Reed's, Plaza, Wayne's Grill and Jones Root Beer Stand.

The Sprigg-Broadway intersection was busy with Cape Cut Rate Drug run by Max Blitstein and Bauer Bakery run by the Bauer family. You could always smell the bread baking. It smelled so good.

On Sunday mornings paper boys would sell from their paper carts the two St. Louis papers at Broadway and Sprigg Street. Also on that corner was a spot where ladies of the night would be. I remember one of them was called Eight O'clock Susie. Broadway was a busy and much-used street in the olden days. I am looking forward to see what Mr. Pincksten will do with the building.

MAXINE BUSCH BOREN, Cape Girardeau