The End of an Institution

I grew up in an area called Rodgers Forge/Anneslie/Stoneleigh in Baltimore County, the same area great olympian Michael Phelps grew up. It is a group of three neighborhoods between Baltimore City and Towson, MD. We have the main road York road that runs through the neighborhoods. We have rowhomes, stand alone houses, a mansion, swimming pools, churches, shopping areas, schools, we have everything. And we had Harry Little's.

Harry Little's wasn't anything special to look at. A corner sub shop at the intersection of York and Register. It was family owned by a family who lived in my neighborhood of Anneslie. It had been there for as long as I remember. It served greasy pizza, crisp fries, onion rings, and Mozzarella sticks. It has your typical sub menu, cold subs, hot subs. you get get whatever you wanted to on it. It had an ice cream freezer and a cooler that had soda's and snapple in it. You could eat on the inside if you want, except there were no tables, a few years ago it appeared that they had put some inside and also outside if you wanted to eat outside. The scent of fried onions wafted through the area whenever you drove by or walked by. The workers were very nice never really bitter or mean. You could call ahead and pickup if you wanted to or just drop in and order something. Prices were reasonable, food was good sized and delicious. They came wrapped in an unimpressive white paper, though I will always remember it as sub paper. If you had a warm sub, they would wrap it in aluminum foil then the sub paper. They had gumball machines, and it was within walking distance of my house. It was an institution, always had been there for as long as I remember. When I moved away I occassionally got a hankering for a Turkey Club sub, or a fried shrimp sub, or even a BLT with extra meat. I would call up and drive up to get it. Or when I went to get my haircut, (I still go to my old haircut place even though it is far away from where I live) I may pop in for a sub. It was always there whenever I drove by on my way to my mom's house. Now it's history.

I found out about this through what else Facebook. One of my old friends who lived behind my house Angela Lacey nee Armstrong posted a picture of a sub she was eating. Captioning it the last Harry Little's sub ever. I was surprised and wrote a comment on it. She responded by stating that someone else bought the store and closed it down and will be putting something else in it's place. Sadness, an institution gone. I suppose you could blame progress, but still an unexciting local sub shop closing gives me pause and a deep sense of nostalgia. Sure there are tons of locally owned sub shops. There is one near where I live, which I go to every once in awhile. it's good food, but not quite like Harry Little's. Nothing ever will be. An institution that has been around since I was born almost 40 years ago, is now...History.