Old safeway store on 11th street

[carltonplace]

Wow, they turned it into a little big box store.

[PonderInc]

This thing is a disaster. The pawn shop had a cool look and could've been made in to a very cool....anything. The color is tasteless, the fenced in parking lot is fug and this is one of the most notable examples of bad design I've ever seen. I live a few blocks from this catastrophe and would much rather drive by the old pawn shop. It's sad when the shady check cashing hut and the Buccaneer Bar look like architectural marvels next to your gaudy. windowless trash pile of a building. The whole corner has tons of potential and yet we have a worn looking Harvard Liquor (though the building is still cool and the guys that run it are really nice), a dumpy check cashing business and now Massaud's (sp?).

Oh yeah...No offense.

+1

Go Joe!

[tulsabug]

Does anyone have pictures of this when it was a Safeway? Or, for that matter, any pics of 11th and Harvard from the 20s-50s? Beryl Ford has one in the collection but it's facing west - nothing showing east which still has some original buildings.

[joiei]

Does anyone have pictures of this when it was a Safeway? Or, for that matter, any pics of 11th and Harvard from the 20s-50s? Beryl Ford has one in the collection but it's facing west - nothing showing east which still has some original buildings.

try going through the Beryl Ford online collection from the Tulsa Library.  THey have it broken down into streets.   

[Hoss]

try going through the Beryl Ford online collection from the Tulsa Library.  THey have it broken down into streets.   

It's still tough though.  Sometimes a picture wasn't labeled real well.  This shows promise, though...I'm not sure if this is the right Safeway:

From the Beryl Ford Collection:

[cannon_fodder]

This shows promise, though...I'm not sure if this is the right Safeway:

I'm going to say no, because the building in question does not have room to the West for a gas station.  It is a parking lot now, dedicated to the building, and probably would have been for a grocery store.  Even if it was not, the area is probably not big enough for a Texaco.  Perhaps more importantly, the building is smaller, has a flat roof, and had no raised storefront until one "tower" was recently added.

But kudos for finding an old Tulsa Safeway!

[joiei]

I went to the Beryl Ford collection and went to the Safeway stores, about page #280something.   There were a ton of pictures but I had no idea if any were that building.  Where did all those old buildings go anyway.  It looks like there was more than one Safeway downtown in the old days. 

[tulsabug]

Yea, I've been through all the Safeway photos Beryl had but no dice unfortunately. 11th and Harvard gets oddly skipped over - I wonder if there are still more pics to scan in from that area.

Oddly enough - I have run across this pic of a Safeway at 3rd and Elwood which is a dead ringer for the one on 11th and Harvard. (pic is from 1962)


from the other direction you can see the 320 Building:



I'd just love to find any pics from the 11th and Harvard area, especially of the old Sinclair station and the buildings around it which are still intact.

[MichaelBates]

The store in tulsabug's picture was there until it was demolished for the BOK Center. Sticking up behind it is the Children's Day Nursery, also still standing (and in operation) until demolished for the BOK Center. (US 64 and Oklahoma 51 traveled through downtown Tulsa on 15th, Denver, and 3rd, connecting to Charles Page Blvd.)

As for the store Hoss found, it's definitely a later generation. The 1957 Yellow Pages lists Safeways at:

509 N. Denver (just southwest of the newer Safeway that became the Tulsa County Election Board)
Cincinnati & Apache (southeast of the intersection; my guess for Hoss's photo; old gas station just to the west; 222 E Apache according to Polk)
1447 N. Lewis (EZ Pawn)
3730 S. Peoria (Charleston's on Brookside)
1840 Utica Square (Polk dir has 1940 Utica Sq.)
1802 S. Quanah (Polk has 1802 Southwest Blvd)
407 W. 3rd St. (the one in tulsabug's photo)
Pine & Sheridan Road (Stow's Office Furniture -- another downtown business displaced by the BOK Center)
3314 E 11th St. (the new dentist office)
3932 E. Admiral Pl. (Dollar General)
1624 E. 15th St. (Panera on Cherry St.)
3315 E. 32nd St. (Ranch Acres)
4804 E. 11th St. (parking lot for Tally's)
1706 S. Boston (antique store)
2615 W. 41st St. (Polk has 4074 Southwest Blvd)
1624 E. Third
317 E. 2nd, Sand Springs

[Conan71]

Good Lord, Michael, they were almost as prolific as QT is today.  I wonder if Yeakey's (sp?) grocery just east of Lincoln school was there in 1957?  Seems like they closed about 20 years ago.

[MichaelBates]

The building where Yeakey's was located (now Camille's) was a Sipes in 1957. The Sipes listings from the '57 phone book:

7800 E Admiral Pl (Eastgate)
1338 E 15th St
541 N Denver Ave
2710 S. Harvard Ave

[Hoss]

The building where Yeakey's was located (now Camille's) was a Sipes in 1957. The Sipes listings from the '57 phone book:

7800 E Admiral Pl (Eastgate)
1338 E 15th St
541 N Denver Ave
2710 S. Harvard Ave

Lord, I remember that 15th St. Sipes.  I believe it remained a Sipes at least until 1972 (when I lived in that area).  I can remember trips there with my Mother.  Wow.

Also looks like the building remains as something else.  Good to see they renovated and didn't destroy it.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=Cd32scRaiwJzFbNzJwIdo45H-g&q=1338+E+15th+St+Tulsa,+OK+74120&sll=36.140613,-95.971005&sspn=0.011905,0.027874&g=1338+E+15th+St+Tulsa,+OK+74120&ie=UTF8&ll=36.140123,-95.972834&spn=0.002976,0.006968&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=36.140632,-95.974047&panoid=ZzRnPID_6pS2Ulgcsc-Oow&cbp=12,166.49,,0,8.53

[Conan71]

I may have my stores messed up but I think Sound Warehouse moved in there for awhile before it got sub-divided all out.

[tulsabug]

Yea - it was a Sound Warehouse for a while before 15th became yuppie central and the commercial rent all skyrocketed. That Sipes store is just gorgeous so it's nice it's been preserved.

[Steve]

As for the store Hoss found, it's definitely a later generation. The 1957 Yellow Pages lists Safeways at:

509 N. Denver (just southwest of the newer Safeway that became the Tulsa County Election Board)
Cincinnati & Apache (southeast of the intersection; my guess for Hoss's photo; old gas station just to the west; 222 E Apache according to Polk)
1447 N. Lewis (EZ Pawn)
3730 S. Peoria (Charleston's on Brookside)
1840 Utica Square (Polk dir has 1940 Utica Sq.)
1802 S. Quanah (Polk has 1802 Southwest Blvd)
407 W. 3rd St. (the one in tulsabug's photo)
Pine & Sheridan Road (Stow's Office Furniture -- another downtown business displaced by the BOK Center)
3314 E 11th St. (the new dentist office)
3932 E. Admiral Pl. (Dollar General)
1624 E. 15th St. (Panera on Cherry St.)
3315 E. 32nd St. (Ranch Acres)
4804 E. 11th St. (parking lot for Tally's)
1706 S. Boston (antique store)
2615 W. 41st St. (Polk has 4074 Southwest Blvd)
1624 E. Third
317 E. 2nd, Sand Springs

And within a few years, you can add to the list 15th & Yale (where Walgreens is today), 15th & S. Lewis (SW corner) and 31st & Sheridan in the original Boman Acres shopping center (approx. where the tacky bingo place is now.)  Safeways were everywhere through the 1960s and then began to disappear, all gone by early 1980s.

The 15th & Yale Safeway and the 15th & Lewis one were the 1960s "arch top" design like the 11th & Denver store was; the 31st & Sheridan was more conventional, built into the middle of the Boman Acres strip center.