Midway Plaza is a place I remember very well. As a kid back in the 1950s and '60s, my family shopped there a lot. The plaza sits on the borderline of Akron and Tallmadge, Ohio at the corner of Tallmadge Ave. and Brittain Road. There are a few stores that I really remember. One was the Western Auto store. As you entered the store, there was a full-size suit of armor that greeted you. As a young boy who watched a lot of old horror flicks on TV on Friday nights that had old castles, this suit of armor was a thrill to see. In later years as the Western Auto closed at the plaza, the armor ended up on the other side of town at the old Surplus Junk store on South Main street in Akron. It greeted customers there too.

At Midway we shopped at the A&P grocery store and at the candy shop and the hardware store where my dad looked over the guns and tools. Back then, Midway Plaza was clean and neat and the parking lot was in really good shape. But over the years it really went downhill.

In the 1990s the plaza became a hangout for youths and was not upgraded to modern times. It just began looking bad. The parking lot was begining to have large potholes and cracks and was never repaired.

In the early 2000s, my wife and I shopped at the Save-A-Lot grocery store there once in awhile and we also bought furniture and appliences at the Rent-A-Center store there. They finally moved out to another location but, at this writing, the Save-A-Lot is still there.

There's been a lot of notices given to the plaza owners over the past several years to get the place cleaned up and most of the businesses have moved out. Today, the plaza is still there but not too much activity takes place there anymore. I was really hoping that someone would take charge and get the place back up and going. I believe it would be a money maker again. The location is ideal. Only time will tell. But time is getting to be the plaza's enemy.