A nice shot of the Western Auto building (one of my favorites in this town) by a local photog captures one of the many reasons that this town kowtows to people with a little bit of disposable cash . . . Because their cribs are nice, that's why!!! Which is probably reason enough.
Flickr photog "catastrophy" has some amazing shots of this town which go far beyond luxury living space.
The photos are definitely worth a look and they make Kansas City look far better than I've ever seen it.
Those new to KC might not remember Western Auto but they were at one point the 3rd largest auto parts retailer in the world and the first auto parts retailer.
ReplyDeleteWestern Auto was bought by Sears, who ran it into the ground within a decade, then sold it for scrap after taking away their tire divisions like NTB. The last straw was when they told western auto, who sells tires, to remove their tire installation bays.
They eventually fired the entire management team and every person at 18th and grand down to the old elderly gentleman who ran the elevator and moved it to Chicago, which they had wanted to do all along (make Western just a place to sell their inferior DieHard brands).
That takeover wasn't in the name of killing off inefficiency. It was in the name of creating bloat to make their failing business look better on the balance sheet. In the process they took a company that was making 500 million a year in the year they bought the company to one that was losing 1.2 billion a year once they sold it.
The only silver cloud is that those jerks never got the building and the sign still shines reminding KC that there once was a international auto parts giant headquartered in Missouri- and I'm not talking about O'Reilly auto in springfield.
Sears continues to use balance-sheet trickery to stay alive without selling any actual products. They recently acquired KMart and are doing the exact same thing (moving around properties and assets to fudge the books).
Yeah well I don't give a fuck about auto parts or the downtrodden douchebags who used to work there.
ReplyDeleteI just like the building and anyone who lost their job can get in the bread line.