When the new super Stop & Shop store opens today on Morrissey Blvd. at Freeport Street, shoppers in the area can be pleased to have yet one more choice for their home grocery needs.

That store replaces a smaller building that closed early this year. The closed store had been a much-neglected facility, yet it offered a great convenience. The Stop & Shop firm had inherited the property when it was acquired by the multinational firm, Dutch Ahold. The building had more recently been an Edward's Market, and before that a First National store. Recently, the facility was treated like an orphan child, as the Ahold people didn't seem to know what to do with it. Now this week, the new store opens its doors, and from the exterior it seems a welcome asset for the community.

The addition is a welcome benefit for Dorchester residents, who now have plenty to choose from. There was a time not long ago that the major grocery chains seemed to be leaving our community behind. Over the years, as the industry trended towards larger super-sized stores, Stop & Shop had closed three Dot locations, including ones on Morton Street, Columbia Road and Gallivan Blvd. We can remember the day in the early 1950s that the Morton Street store opened for business: it was a big celebration, with marching bands, music performers, and all sorts of free giveaways at that original location at 981 Morton Street, at the top of Gallivan Blvd. The "Stoppy" provided good value and great work opportunities for legions of local people. I had my first job at the old Morton Street store- working after school and on Saturdays at the meat and deli counter for eighty cents an hour back in 1960. The job helped me pay tuition at BC High.

That store was called "store 14", apparently the 14th market in the then-small chain, and Stop & Shop president Sidney Rabb made sure that shoppers had good value, and his employees were treated with great respect. In the early 1960s, Mr. Rabb opened a new, larger Stop & Shop, store 29 in a new plaza on Gallivan Blvd near Neponset Circle. One and a half times larger that the Morton Street store, it was a state-of-the-art market, a colossus to those then-young eyes. I worked there as well, temporarily for a month, as shoppers flocked to the location.

Over the years, the two stores were shut down, as the food industry trended bigger. They joined a group of other food chains- Supreme Market, later Purity Supreme, Elm Farm, Capitol Market - and several other small chains which, over the years, succumbed to competition and went into extinction.

Indeed, as one then another market shut down, local shoppers had very few choices, and many resorted to auto trips out of town, to Quincy and other South Shore locations for their weekly family food shopping.

The good news is that the grocery chains have rediscovered our neighborhood. Stop & Shop opened a new store in the decade-old South Bay Mall, said to be one of the largest grossing stores in the chain. Meanwhile, Star Market (now called Shaw's) opened a store at the head of Morrissey Blvd., and last summer shut down its River Street location, replacing it with a modern, more expansive building a block away. Stop & Shop and Shaw's now will compete for our neighborhood's business.

Competition is good for the two, and it gives Dorchester people a great advantage - right here in our own neighborhood.

- Ed Forry