(The following appeared in the August 23 Asheville Citizen-Times)
In 1925, a fire engulfed the Emporium Department Store on Pack Square, owned by Jack Blomberg. A salesperson and a firefighter died in the blaze. Pack Place is on the site 90 years after the fire.
Independently owned storefronts beckon along bustling sidewalks. A downtown booms with business and loyal customers who love to “Shop Local.”
Welcome to Asheville — not just in 2015, but for much of the past century.
“Shopping local was the norm for the last 100 years until malls and big box stores disconnected the majority of shoppers from buying local in the early 1970s,” said Jan Schochet, an Asheville native and daughter of downtown merchants.
Schochet fought hard in the 1980s when local residents opposed plans to demolish a huge portion of downtown to build a modern shopping mall. Asheville bounced back in the 1990s with a renaissance of reinvestment, restaurants, galleries, shops and plenty of tourists.
Now Schochet is fighting hard to resurrect the history of a downtown that bustled long before the blight of the 1980s. She’s bringing back “The Family Store” an exhibit of plaques commemorating the contributions of Jewish merchants to a vibrant Asheville from 1880 to 1990.”