Some Things Change. . .

. . . but some things don't.  A 28-year-old amateur video helped spark some reflections.

I was shared a link to this YouTube video from 1985 in Licking County.  It was shot just driving around Heath and Newark.  It was captured to show changes back then, most notably the construction of the new Indian Mound Mall.  It has survived to show changes now, and what hasn't changed.

The mall is now 28 years old and many of the landmark brands on here have long-departed the area.  Look for Sohio, Sun TV, Photomat, Rax, Glick's, Datsun, and Howard Johnson's to name a few.

By the way, when you see the gas prices on  a sign early in the video you might do like I did and think, "I don't remember gas prices below a dollar in 1985."  They weren't.  One commenter noted that the gas station shown didn't have 1's to put on their sign so add a dollar to the prices shown.

I noticed PCA still had docks that backed up to 21st Street.  But, notably, the tractor trailers were a lot shorter in 1985.

The video takers came pretty close to my current housing subdivision.  That's the part that hasn't really changed much over the years, except that there's a four-lane highway that goes across Church Street next to the YMCA now that wasn't there in 1985 (though it looks to have been under construction).

I'm taken with the changes in retail, notably along Church Street in Newark.  It makes one think.  Today, nearly every bit of retail along that section of road has disappeared.   Only a ice cream place, flooring contractor, a bar, a resale furniture place, and a power equipment dealer remain.  I'm taken by how much, much more was there 28 years ago.  Church Street, it would cause one to conclude, was harmed by  the lack of an interchange with the new SR79 bypass, the growth along 21st Street which had an interchange, and by the mall. 

Plus, even though it had been built out pretty much in its entirety in 1985, Hebron Road in Heath didn't get a whole lot busier until after the Mall opened.  Watching a car cross Hebron Road without a light is not something one could even dream of doing today.

It's interesting to get a random look back like this and see what's changed and what hasn't.  Glad someone shared it.