It’s amazing what is being torn down and replaced in Tulsa.

In the 1960s, I used to work at the JC Penney Store at Southland Shopping Center, which was right across the street from Southroads Mall. Southroads Mall is still there but with different stores but many years ago, Southland Shopping Center became and enclosed mall and the name was eventually changed to the Tulsa Promenade.

When I worked at J.C. Penney, I ate at the McDonald’s on the southwest corner of the parking lot on Yale Avenue. I think that was one of the first or the first McDonald’s in Tulsa.

It has now been torn down and a new McDonald’s is being built in its place.

I was driving by 81st Street and Harvard recently when I noticed that a huge second of the shopping center on the southeast corner and something new is going.

Remember the full service car wash on the southeast corner of 71st Street and Sheridan Road? It’s been demolished and they are frantically working to build something there to replace it.

It is remarkable to watch all the brand spanking new high-tech, high-dollar chain car washes being built in Tulsa. The old-style car wash where it only cost about fifty cents to wash your car is slipping away. A car wash that used to cost less than a dollar now will set you back at least $7.

When I was at Burbank Elementary School and Bell Junior High School, we used to hang out at Sheridan Village Shopping Center on the southwest corner of Admiral Blvd. and Sheridan Road. It had a TG&Y, J.C. Penney, Rexall Drugstore and a Borden’s Cafeteria on the second floor. You could drive up a ramp and park on the roof of that center. But all the stores were replaced and a few years ago the entire building was demolished and they put up a chain drugstore.

On 71st Street, just east of Yale Avenue, QuikTrip has been a new fancy, high-tech QuikTrip right next door to another QuikTrip. They probably will tear down the old building but sometimes QuikTrip – or whoever actually owns the building – will keep the building but make sure that no one will mistake it for a real QuikTrip.

I used to like to shop at Eastland Mall on 21st Street and 129th E. Avenue. It had a Dillard’s and a J.C. Penney and was a lot less crowded at Christmas time.

Eastland Mall as not been torn down but the shops are gone. Eastland Mall was supposed to be a regional shopping center but it go overpowered by the surge in retail shopping in Owasso.

When we bought our house near 71st Street and Sheridan Road, there was a small Braum’s Ice Cream store on 71st Street just east of Sheridan on 71st. It closed and we were depressed. That building was not torn down but about 10 years ago Braum’s constructed a new one across the street with an expanded market section. The Arvest Bank next to that Braum’s was torn down not too long ago and it was completely rebuilt.

You have to wonder sometimes why it is not more cost effective to remodel than rebuild.

There used to be an independent convenience store in a new building on the northwest corner of 61st Street and Garnett Road. It closed, a seemingly nice building was torn down and the lot has been for sale for several years with no takers.

Of course, several years ago, the previous Tulsa County Commission broke the contract with Bell’s Amusement Park at the Fairgrounds and that park – including the Zingo Rollercoaster – was torn down.  Interestingly, the Bell Family (who by the way are wonderful, conservatives) is going to rebuild Bell’s in Broken Arrow.

Otherwise, the Fairgrounds has been pretty much rebuilt and most of it looks pretty nice.

When I was 16, my buddy the late Gregg Gingrich drove popsicle trucks for Melodee Ice Cream that summer. My route was near 28th Street and Sheridan Road but Gregg had a route near Downtown and the infamous “Boston Beer Gardens” on Boston just north of I-244. (It was a house of ill repute).

Back then, near North Tulsa had not had much urban renewal and there was a lot of substandard housing. With a tremendous infusion of federal funds, much of North Tulsa looks pretty good – especially the arterial street and expressways.

I know there are many more examples of minor landmarks that have been demolished, replaced or abandoned.

Most of the time, newer is better and but there still is a sense of nostalgia for us oldtimers.