Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood: Shelley Green-The Green Corner Store

Not only is it called The Green Corner Store but is a literal green corner, having seen many other business pop up since it's opening in July of 2009

Webster's Dictionary has this to say about the word green:  pleasantly alluring...youthful, vigorous...fresh, new.  I would say that is a perfect fit for Shelly Green and The Green Corner Store.  One of my favorite spots in the SoMa neighborhood, it is definitely alluring and vigorous.  It's new in the sense that in an area that has been around for well over 100 years the store has only been open since July 2009.  When Shelley Green opened the store she was pretty much by herself on the corner of 15th and Main other than the coin laundry across the street.  The Bernice Garden was just getting completed pretty much.

Shelley Green is an embodiment of the word green, of the green movement, and what is best about SoMa.  Born in Kenosha, WI Shelley has lived all over the country, growing up in Anaheim, CA, and moved to Little Rock from Birmingham, AL in around 2007.  With a retail and consulting background, she was looking for a location where she could put a green store similar to the one she'd consulted with and had seen have huge success in Birmingham.  The location pretty much found her but it was exactly what she had been looking for.  Shelley knew she wanted an environment she would enjoy working in that was located in a walkable area that echoed the green movement.  She also wanted to have that proverbial "Main Street" feel.  Friends of hers had businesses or connections to non-profits in the area so that put the location on her radar.  If all the wonderful factors weren't enough, the landlady Anita Davis had refurbished the building in a very green way using eco-friendly paints and materials. 

The store feels as if it has been in continuous use as it is for the last 100 years, evolving over time as different members of a family have taken over and changed with the times.  Part of that is due to the fact that it is located in a former drug store.  It has a soda fountain, selling sodas and ice cream from Loblolly Creamery, carries locally sourced flowers, honey, jellies, jewelry, clothing, and other merchandise. 

I always enjoy the fresh flowers on the ice cream parlor tables.  These usually come from Bussey-Scott Urban Garden

A sample of the coconut chocolate chip ice cream from Loblolly Creamery! 

 

 

Whatever you choose whether it's cookies, an ice cream sandwich, cone, or fantastic soda you won't be disappointed.

 

 

If you don't like sweets or a soda, no worries there is shopping with choices ranging from fresh cut flowers to vintage albums!

 

 

Shelley has really done a wonderful job putting together a place that feels as much like a community center as it does a store.  One resident had told her that it would probably take10 years for the area to come back but it's been so much quicker than that.  I was just there today when I took a break from working at my laptop to get something to eat and then a sweet treat.  The store was full and I had to sit at the counter!  It recharged my batteries to have the light and dark chocolate mint ice cream, talk with Sally behind the counter serving her delicious sodas, and soak in the natural light coming in the big windows.  As I walked back to my building I thought how wonderful it is to be living in an area that feels like small town America use to feel where you knew your neighbors and could walk to where you needed to go. 

 

Stop by and tell the folks I said hello!

 

All photography rights shared by Brian Kelley/Imagine Photography



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying To Beat the Heat, New Tattoo, and Vacation

So it is my least favorite time of year...mid July.  I don't do well with the heat and we have even had a mild summer this year actually by comparison.  So I haven't blogged much recently and for that I am sorry...hope you missed me :)

So what do you do when it's hot out?  You stay inside, get tattooed, and go on vacation!

On July 10th I had a standing appointment to get a new tattoo with artist Adrian Berry at 7th Street Tattoo who in my opinion, and those of many others, is just about the best black and grey tattoo artist around.  He had done my other tattoo about 4 years ago and I met a lady at the farmer's market that had some great work done by him.  So he was my choice certainly.  The design that you see is the second of two that he did for me and it was perfect...completely what I wanted but didn't know.  After 3 hours and 15min it was done and I had a piece of artwork I will enjoy forever.  That is the thing that I love about them...you have an experience that is unlike anything else and you have the result forever. 

The next day I headed out to Lake Rosemound which is near St Francisville, Louisiana with my mother.  We went to have a family reunion of sorts at my great-aunt Becca's lake house there.  On the way down we stopped at Afton Villa and I got to take pictures even though it wasn't opened for tours.  The home burned some time ago but the gardens are still there and the entrance is beautiful.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew would join us the next day.  It is a gorgeous lake and on the small side which would be great for me as I am always worried that I would get lost at lake when I am at Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs.  It was great to relax and see family but the fact that there was no cell service and no internet at the house made me very anxious.  I can relax but I gotta have my connection to the outside world.  So I did the next logical thing...I ate constantly. 

Friday before my brother and his family arrived we went into St Francisville and had lunch and did some sightseeing.  It is a beautiful little town and full if historical old homes.  Here is what wiki has to say:
The town of St. Francisville was established in 1809 and a number of historic structures from that period still exist. Called the town "two miles long and two yards wide" because it was developed atop a narrow ridge overlooking the Mississippi River, it was the commercial and cultural center of the surrounding plantation country. Below St. Francisville's bluffs, another early settlement called Bayou Sara had been established in the early 1790s and was at one time before the Civil War the largest shipping port on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Memphis. Destroyed by repeated flooding and fires, nothing exists of Bayou Sara today, but a few of its structures were hauled up the hill into St. Francisville in the 1920s.
Years of contention as to exactly where the eastern boundary of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase was, depending on which treaty was cited as France and England and Spain shifted the territory among themselves, allowed Spain to continue to claim St. Francisville and territory on the eastern side of the Mississippi River which is today called the Florida Parishes. In 1810 St. Francisville served as the capital of the Republic of West Florida as the local planters ousted the Spanish government and set up their own independent republic for a grand total of 74 days before being annexed to the rest of Louisiana as part of the United States.
After the American Civil War, a number of Jewish immigrants escaping religious persecution in Germany arrived and made important contributions to commerce in the lean years, providing credit when the banks failed, building impressive Victorian homes like the Wolf-Schlessinger House, now operated as the St. Francisville Inn B&B.
In recent years, community efforts have focused on restoration and preservation of the town's historic homes. St. Francisville is currently a popular tourism destination with a number of restored historic plantations open daily for tours, including Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site, Audubon State Historic Site, Butler Greenwood Plantation, The Myrtles, The Cottage Plantation and Greenwood Plantation, as well as several antebellum gardens

My favorite place there is Grace Episcopal Church and the surrounding cemetery.  Such a beautiful place!

After several days it was time to come back and get back to work but was such a nice to time to unwind.

All photography rights shared by Brian Kelley/Imagine Photography