Ghosts of Riverdale Past - Coon Rapids, MN
Recently there’s been a lot of chatter amongst the townsfolk about the retail abomination known as Riverdale. Another round of store closures has people talking about what a massive failure this shopping cluster has always been, and why retail is the way it is, and who's to blame and all that kind of stuff. Bottom line being, more stores that people liked shopping at are gone. For whatever reason. Which made me wonder, how many former businesses in Riverdale did I manage to get pictures of over the years? As I started going through the Riverdale picture folder on my external drive, I found far more than I'd expected. This is by no means EVERY former business that didn't survive the ridiculous conditions of shopping in my hometown, but it's an interesting peek into some of what didn't work. I didn't live in Coon Rapids when Riverdale was built. When I moved back in 2003, I was horrified that the western sky now had a brilliant orange glow in the middle of the nig