The picture above shows the tower of the Art Deco styled Lewis’s store in Leicester, UK, on the cold afternoon of 18th November 1978. In those days, there was no “Sunday Trading” (except for newsagents), so Saturday was the main shopping day of the week. There’s no Thanksgiving Holiday in Britain, of course, but the holiday decorations were already in place on the store!

Unfortunately, during the 1990s this distinctive building was demolished, except for the tower, which was preserved among the replacement architecture, seemingly as some kind of afterthought. As shown below in my 2008 photo, the Art Deco tower now seems completely incongruous with the style of the surrounding buildings.

Update 2022: I’ve been informed that the store was owned by Lewis’s, not John Lewis. It makes little difference to the point of my post, but I’ve corrected the text anyway. Here is a link to an article about the closure of the store:

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/history/fond-memories-lewiss-25th-anniversary-2454555