Description
For decades, downtown Grand Rapids enjoyed a long run within the limelight as the epicenter of shopping in western Michigan. The colourful Monroe Avenue corridor included three homegrown department shops, a couple of chain department shops, five-and-dime shops, and scores of clothing and specialty retailers. It weathered mother nature, wars, the Great Depression, the arrival of neighborhood shopping centers, and civil disturbances―but the only change it might no longer conquer used to be the regional shopping mall.