A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go

One of the reasons I like to watch "Colombo" is that it was essentially filmed in Los Angeles and around Southern California.

It's an ad hoc capture of the southland in the early 70s. I like to reference IMDB to try to see if the landmarks in the show still exist. Some do, some don't. The criminals used to live in some very nice houses up in Bel Air.

A recent example had Colombo at a winery. Well, the Pomona and Cucamonga Valley is where many of the wineries were back in the day. But, that's been transitioning away from that area for some time. The Ontario Airport exists where that winery was in the show.

But there's still vestiges of all that in the area, and the area is still in rapid change. What used to be dairy farms are all turning into warehouses or new residences. Yet, there's still that same old local convenience store on the corner in its 70+ year old building just down the street.

It's a very interesting place to just watch the change happen around you.

> I have a similar feeling when I bring friends to places I spent lots of time, but which have now been completely transformed by redevelopment

Our family's 1800s home was one of five, on 2 forking dirt roads that meandered thru the woods. From our front porch, we could see across the creek, out to where the prison grew alfalfa and corn.

Our dirt road+creek met the paved road; that was the school bus stop. Across the pavement and past a 40ac cow field was a domed radar installation. It served a nearby Nike missile base. The prison guard towers, maximum security and it's railroad were a half mile to the side.

The missile base left in 75. The train ended in 77 w/ stock sold by 80. My brother evicted us in 87 - and for good measure razed the house and every tree. I married and left the area in 90. The sprawling prison complex sold to developers in 2000s.

I visited my birth home (site) in 2019. I needed a map to find it. The paved road I knew had been ripped up and replaced with a different road going different places.

The cow field where I waited for my bus was a forest. In it's way, this was the most disorienting part of the visit.

The dirt road forking off of ours led to a sportsball park. It continued on a bit and was bisected by an 8 lane cross-county highway.

My dirt road was paved and ended at a cul-de-sac of townhouses where my neighbors had been. Our lot was occupied by the commercial nursery that my brother had built and later sold. Our ramshackle garage still stood for some reason. The fields across our creek were more townhomes.

I have historical photos of our home and nearby. However, I regret that we never took pictures of the 2 miles around our home - the land we walked and drove 1000s of times.

It certainly never occurred to any of us that the roads themselves would disappear.

There's many pockets in Toronto with high density of Chinese commerce, the area around Steeles east of the IBM campus is one. Pacific Mall mentioned in the article is only one of the commercial centers in the area. There's also Metro Square a few blocks west, the T&T plaza next door, Skycity on Midland/Finch, and various other small plazas around the area, full of Chinese food goodness.

Grosse Pointe Blank reference? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50G3ScEKP6Y

Ironically his former home got turned to a, well not a mall, but a convenience store.

Apparently people who grew up in East Germany have this but worse. Their "home culture" (TV shows, snacks made by the state snack factories) got "demolished" when East Germany got absorbed into Germany...