| On January 29, 2007 the Con's Building was demolished after
standing for 56 years. It so happened that on that day I had some business to attend to in
town and at an early morning hour went past the building just as the workers started the
job. Later in the day on my return back I was surprised at how much had been done in
such a short time. I stopped and asked a worker if he thought they'd be finished by the
end of the day. "No", he said. But, a few hours later I decided to take a ride
past again and saw that most of the building was gone and I quickly parked on Washington
Street and with my little $89 Fuji camera set to 'movie' was able to capture the end of a
Berwick business icon. I grew up in the 50's
and 60's and Con's was a place where I could buy replacement parts for my Aurora HO Racing
Set. If you had one of those you know how quickly the brushes wore through on those little
race cars. Along with parts there was always a selection of cars to buy and though I no
longer have the complete track set I do have a little Ford Coupe that I bought. I believe
it was around $2.50 at the time.
Along with paint, brushes and glue I bought a lot of model
cars there. And how many of us spent some time painting and building the Frankenstein
Monster, Mummy, Dracula and Swamp Thing monster model kits? The Visible V8, AMT's large
scale T-Bucket Rod or Ol' Ironsides. I know I did and they all seemed to be from Cons.
Lionel electric trains, Plasticville buildings, extra track,
tunnels and crossing gates always seemed to be from Con's.
At some stage, I was a model airplane builder and spent many
hours building planes and flying them at the Salem School parking lot. Couldn't afford a
radio control setup so around and around in a circle I went with nylon control cable and
the whine of a Cox .049 engine. The planes, fuel, batteries and new propellers to replace
the broken ones all came from Con's. After Con's closed I was able to buy the bins that
held a lot of those parts and I'll post some pictures of them at a later date.
I spent lots of time riding my bicycle and when I wanted some
mud flaps, baskets or a pair of chrome fenders I'd pedal to Con's and always find what I
wanted. If in a wild ride down Water Dam Road I'd take a flip and bend the handlebars I
knew Con's would have an exact replacement.
Back in 1960 a twelve year old kid could walk in a store and
buy just about anything. I still have my Daisy BB gun that I saved up for and bought at
Con's.
In later years it seemed if you needed a particular size
metric bolt or faucet washer for a kitchen sink, the first place to go was Con's. It was
always the only place you needed to go because they had it.
To some it may sound silly to say it was a sad moment when
the last piece of wall fell. But for the reasons above it was. But what's more sad is now
just like where the Berwick Garage once stood on Market Street we have to look at a plot
of stones, dirt and another open space filled only with air.
NOTE: At about 5 minutes and 30
seconds into the video watch the one worker become a young brat of a kid again. He just
can't resist throwing a brick through that nice big plate glass window.
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