Today, we take you to the 500 block of South Elm Street. The blue building behind the tree is Coe Grocery and Seed Company-- a Greensboro institution. However, we have been told that the two-story, brick building to the left is the original Coe Grocery and Seed. It is now houses the trendy Civic Threads. Civic Threads sells t-shirts that advertise their building's former tennant, now neighbor next door. If this brick building is, indeed, the former Coe Grocery, then the second floor should be the location where Greensboro's Jewish community held their early services.
Greensboro needs a Jeri Rowe or Jim Schlosser-like person to provide us with a complete history of this building. If those walls could talk.... We didn't see anything about the building in Gayle Fripp's book (Greensboro). If you have information, please do share it with our readers. Related, here is a Jeri Rowe article from 2009 that talks about the characters of the 500 & 600 block of South Elm Street.
Finally, at first we were upset that that giant SUV blocked our camera's view. However, nothing dates a picture better than vehicles on the street;except, perhaps, hair styles.
The two-story brick looks more like a grocery and seed store to me.
Posted by: Jane Mitchell | Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 08:24 AM
Too bad it's not part of this recent project:
http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/index.aspx?page=995
Maybe someone from Preservation Greensboro, or the Greensboro Historical Museum could confirm?
Posted by: J | Thursday, April 19, 2012 at 12:30 PM