Tom's McLean Service closed its doors forever in 1993, ending a forty year run as McLean's main lawnmower repair shop. The shop building and the white/gray house were demolished some time later, I don't know when exactly. The site of the old house is now a parking lot, while the site of the old shop has a new building of similar dimensions, occupied by several local businesses. Only the Corner family residence remains, at 6830 Elm Street.
Tom Corner passed away in 2006 at the age of 86. He was McLean's unofficial historian in his later years, due to his encyclopedic knowledge of the town in which he spent his entire life. It is fitting that his business defied the odds and remained untouched, even as most all of the old Elm Street corridor was erased. Even today, the property still invokes the past, with the house at 6830 defiantly anchoring the corner of Elm and Beverly. The end may at last be near, however. Elm Street is directly in the sites of a plan to "revitalize" McLean. Even some of the 1970s and 1980s-era office buildings are being razed to make way for higher density residential units. For the time being though, this little corner of McLean still takes us back to the era of the horse and the electric railway. Tom would be happy.
In the future, I plan to post some recolections of my time working at Tom's, and what it was like when the business was still in operation. For now though, continue on for a few pages of before-and-after images, and memorabilia from the old shop.
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