Owner Robert Smith, on the left, gets a firsthand look at the re-exposed Handley's Drug Store sign, c. 1901, (at least until his mother made him get down by threatening to call his wife).

 
District 1 resident, Robert Smith, is remodeling the old Handley's Drug Store, more recently known as the Nicholson Building, that is on Sixth St, on the west side of the Downtown square. The space is being renovated for a new Downtown coffee shop.
 
I posted almost a year ago that 2008 would be the first year of the new Downtown. And so it has been. The Fifth Street Crossing stores and apartments are rapidly rising, the Community College District's Garland campus is taking shape quickly, and remodeling of the old Police and Courts Building has started.

New façade

 
Now private renovation is starting on the square. The Handley storefront has had at least three faces in the last century: the original storefront with the Handley name, a tiled marble front, and the stucco front that it has worn for the last several decades. As the layers were being peeled away today, excitement grew as word quickly spread of the discovery. Numbers of people stopped on the sidewalk and in the street to watch the unveiling.
 
The historic moment will be fleeting. The newly exposed façade is structurally unstable and cannot be saved, the mortar was like "butter." However, the new façade will very closely resemble the one seen today.
 
I am so looking forward to Year Two of the New Downtown!