For 140 Years It Stood, But Landmark Store Is Now A Burned-Out Ruin
Source: Agencies |
August 10, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
FOR more than 140 years, the House of Reeves was a landmark in Croydon, a family-run business that supplied generations of families as the area changed from a small town to a London suburb.
But yesterday, it was a smoldering ruin, reduced to a shell in minutes by rioters who surged through the neighborhood, looting and burning.
"I'm the fifth generation to run this place," said owner Graham Reeves, looking puffy-eyed and shocked. Edvin Reeves first opened the store in Croydon, then a separate town south of London and now one of the capital's larger suburbs, in 1867.
"I'm devastated. All my life was there," Graham Reeves said. "No one's stolen anything. They just burnt it down. It's pointless."
He said his father, who ran the business before handing it down to is sons, is distraught. "He is 80," Reeves said, adding that when he told his father the news "I thought he was going to die."
But yesterday, it was a smoldering ruin, reduced to a shell in minutes by rioters who surged through the neighborhood, looting and burning.
"I'm the fifth generation to run this place," said owner Graham Reeves, looking puffy-eyed and shocked. Edvin Reeves first opened the store in Croydon, then a separate town south of London and now one of the capital's larger suburbs, in 1867.
"I'm devastated. All my life was there," Graham Reeves said. "No one's stolen anything. They just burnt it down. It's pointless."
He said his father, who ran the business before handing it down to is sons, is distraught. "He is 80," Reeves said, adding that when he told his father the news "I thought he was going to die."
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