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The News for Sunday August 28, 2016
ICONIC GAS STATION TO BE TORN DOWN
Proudly Reporting For 15 Years
Read S. Lyle OConner's new edition to Idiotocity
A
The Walnut Street Shell will soon be replaced by a Quick Trip
ccording to a clerk at the Family Dollar store across the street from the Walnut St. Shell
the building will be demolished this week to make way for yet another Quick Trip. The station had been a fixture on that historic corner in town for more than half a century. A laundromat will also be razed as well to make way for sodas and bananas, a Quick Trip staple.
Quick Trip, the gas station that's popping up everywhere on the map like dandelions on a lawn has again begun the transformation of another familiar Green Bay corner in the inner city. West Walnut Street and Maple street will be the site of the newest Quick Trip in town. To my recollection at least three other Quick Trips have been built this summer suggesting that the owners of the chain plan to dominate the Green Bay gas station market. Only Grand Central Station seems to be the only other competitor on the horizon for shear total of stations in the Green Bay gasoline market.
Under closer examination however it seems that Quick Trip, a grocer want to be, seems to put more effort into selling cheap produce while overcharging for soda and candy and chips only to all but ignore gas sales.
Upon a recent visit to one store on the east side of Green Bay on the corner of East Mason and Huron St. I found I was unable to get to one of the 10 gas pumps to refuel due to people shopping for cheap bananas inside the store. I was just about to pull out and look for a Grand Central Station when someone jumped in their vehicle and vacated a pump with a small bag of grocery's in tow. While they do offer the hook of cheap bananas or doughnuts often they lack in many other areas that more customer friendly facilities like Grand Central Station or privately owned stations do like free air or vacuums. Paying before pumping is also a frequent demand at Q.T.'s where you may find that at other stations it usually is between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM, not all day like at the Trip where it seems purchasing fuel from their pumps is for them, an inconvenience. I don't know why they don't just open a grocery store anyway and get it over with and forget about the gas station and car wash and let that for the professionals.
While the gas station on that corner wasn't always a Shell it was always a popular spot for gas sales for those who worked or went to school in the neighborhood. NWTI was located only two blocks from the corner and I remember a time when all of Maple St. and Chestnut St. were parked solid with students attending classes at NWTI. Students and faculty would frequently wheel into the station which was a Phillips 66 back then to refuel. Residents of the multiple apartments in the surrounding blocks would visit the Maytag Laundromat and many times people had to wait for machines because they were all busy. The Neighborhood was a lot busier back then with the West Theater still running and Dehn's Ice Cream on the corner of Walnut and Chestnut Street where students could often be found having lunch or even breakfast. No less than three auto parts stores populated Broadway St. on either side of Walnut with Crosby "Heavy Duty" wrecker service on the corner. Throw in another crowd of people from Northwest Engineering, the construction crane builder down the street one block, and the downtown west side was a busy place. Of course between the auto parts stores and other business's plenty of taverns occupied other buildings offering those with time on their hands a way to relax and escape the days problems.
