A Sour Deal

No Candy Rama downtown?

This is appalling news, outlined in this Post-Gazette story by Mark Belko:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07304/829842-85.stm

They're being booted from their building in the name of downtown progress after 55 years in business.

Candy Rama used to have another location at the corner of Fifth and Wood. They closed that when kids waiting at a nearby bus stop would swarm in and steal. They had a nice, large location in the Clark Building on Liberty, but that closed earlier this year.

When former mayor Tom Murphy was preaching a scorched earth approach to downtown development via the doomed Nordstrom project, he sneered, "Do we want Candy Rama to define downtown?" Maybe not, but we certainly want Candy Rama to be downtown. It's one of those uniquely Pittsburgh experiences that has survived for generations. People comb speciality websites to find rare treats that are in regular stock at Candy Rama.

The owners have apparently been unable to find a location that makes economic sense. If I ran the Union Trust Building -- in one of the few areas that gets regular foot traffic, thanks to Macy's -- I'd be on the phone to the Candy Rama people and putting out a red carpet for them to rent some of the vacant space at street level.

With any luck at all, the front page publicity will lead to some sort of deal that will allow Candy Rama to keep a presence downtown. How can we lose a first-class candy store when we have a kid mayor?

That smell

If you've been anywhere around 7th and Liberty lately, you've smelled the grease pit in the new Moby Fish take-out place. Whew.

According to the menu they put in a City Paper ad, the place is big on catfish and also offers chicken gizzards.

This doesn't seem like a positive addition to the "new" downtown. Wonder what Morton's thinks of the new neighbor?