Newmarket's 33-year-old dairy and fruit shop has been swept aside by redevelopment in the swank Auckland shopping strip.
Sunday, September 25th 2005, 6:56AM
by The Landlord
Ramu Patel opened the shop in 1972 and its metal roller-door onto Broadway clanged shut for the last time on Sunday to help make way for a block of up to seven new stores.
Gone are the boxes of bananas and buckets of flowers once stacked on the footpath. Customers would stock up before hopping on a bus at the stop outside.
"We are very sad. It's a historical place for me," 66-year-old Mr Patel, of Epsom, said yesterday.
The oldest of the buildings to be demolished from today, which housed stores including a book shop and a toy shop, dates from the 1930s.
The site, opposite the 277 shopping mall, extends from an old Munns menswear shop to the Shoe Sheriff footwear repair shop, which will remain.
