Flickr Photos 47
This was from the morning I went on a college visit to Lehigh, which is another testament to how long I've been holding onto these photos. It was close enough we could leave home the morning of and still get there on time, but far enough we had to leave pretty early. There was still a bit of fog when we drove by this field, around 6AM-ish.
This was a first for me... a gas station in a strip mall. I believe this was all built in the 60's. Everything to the right of the roof peak would have been auto center originally. Hess must have added the canopy.
Lehigh has quite a few old stone buildings. It was definitely one of the more attractive campuses I visited.
In the center of the ceiling, there was a really cool skylight. I'm happy with how my picture of it turned out.
Regal opened in 1999, and closed around the same time as Pathmark. By 2013, it was converted into Revolutions, which seems like it's basically a Dave & Busters.
This store opened in 1999 as a SuperFresh, which was rebranded to Pathmark in the late 2000's. It didn't last very long. Two years later, A&P filed for their first bankruptcy and closed this store.
Streetview still shows it as SuperFresh, and JoshAustin610 has a photo of Pathmark closing.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is not a corporate-operated location. This station was closed and boarded up for a few years before reopening in 2008. Unfortunately, that was not a complete re-opening. The auto center was left shuttered and now just sorta makes the whole station look trashy (although the lottery and cigarette ads certainly aren't helping). It's a waste of read estate to keep it like that. They should really consider turning it into a convenience store.
Wawa opened this location around 2005. It's one of the increasingly few modern locations to still have the halide parking lot lights. The vast majority of them were switched out for LED's in 2011. Oddly, all of the pre-1996 stores still have their sodium vapor lights unless they were remodeled.
Dunkin opened this store in 2009. I'm not sure if there are any local guidelines dictating the style of building, but they might have just made it fancy to match the hotels nearby. This is right next to a turnpike exit, so there are quite a few.
This store relocated here from a strip mall location in 2007. Like the CVS, it has a fancier design. In fact, I think I like this one even better than the CVS.
CVS, Pennsburg, PA
CVS opened this store in 2006. They gave it a fancier design to better fit in with the town. I get that it might be more expensive to build stores like this, but I really like this look a lot better than their standard one.
This Diner opened in the 60's or 70's. When I first looked it up, it had a lot of good reviews on Google. It had a lot of pictures of really good-looking food, too. Then I saw reviews on Yelp and Facebook that made it look less appealing. I wouldn't be opposed to trying it, but it doesn't look like anything I would go out of my way for. The interior has been remodeled.
I believe McDonald's is an original tenant to this center, dating back to the early 70's. This is the only wooden (as opposed to brick) location I've seen in person. The interior appears to have been remodeled somewhat recently, which is probably why this location has made it this far without being eyebrowed or totally rebuilt. I imagine if they were to remodel, they would want to get rid of the wood paneling on the outside, which would also make it more work to remodel than a brick restaurant.
Both of these stores opened in the early 70's. After Ames liquidated in 2002, Weis moved next door into their old space. Weis' original store was then divided up between Ace Hardware and a YMCA that has since relocated to a freestanding facility. Surprisingly, Ace was about double the size of the YMCA.
Western Auto, Pennsburg, PA
Western Auto was bought out by Advance Auto Parts in 1998, but independently-owned "dealer stores" were permitted to keep using the name until 2006. However, things derailed in 2004 when Advance decided not to continue supplying the 300 remaining Western Auto locations. Since they lost their connection to Advance, there was no more reason to change names and most continued (illegally) using the Western Auto name. I don't think Advance really cares about a brand they dissolved 20 years ago at this point, so they're probably not going to do anything about this, especially if there are about 300 of them all owned by different people across the country.
I also have a theory that Advance's logo was based on Western's. The checkered flags seem to be more than a coincidence.
STS/Mavis Tire, Chester Springs, PA
In late 2016, Mavis Tire bought out the STS Tire centers, including two that were still under construction. STS has a pretty good coverage of the southeastern corner of the state, so I'm impressed at how fast they were able to rebrand them. Not only did they switch out all of the signs, but they also repainted every single location from STS's red to their green and yellow.
STS opened this location in 2003.
Goodbye, First Niagara! This is my first picture from after the name change. Key Bank's logo actually goes better with this building than Niagara's.
I doubt there's much left from Food Fair inside this store, but the exterior was kept perfectly intact! I especially like the fact that they put their sign on the old tower. Update: Was Tractor Supply up until they moved to the old Jamesway.
Every year, it gets harder to tell there's a restaurant back here.
Now that Kroger's sold off Turkey Hill, I think it's safe to say those plans for this site are off the table now. I'm not sure if it's even possible to save this building at this point, but at least it can stick around a while longer now. :/
A pile of brush and trees that have been cleared for construction. It's amazing how fast it all grew up after Pennhurst closed. Those are so decently sized trunks.
The old chimney behind that was for the fire that kept the greenhouse warm in the winter, before they had electric or gas heaters.
The expansion of the long-abandoned White Hall Inn is wrapping up. I believe this is now a retirement community specifically for veterans. The former inn is now the main entrance and I think also has a rec center upstairs.
The apartments behind the chopping center. I didn't notice it at the time, but the banner off to the right still said that construction was financed by First Niagara, even though they Key Bank merger had already happened.
They're almost done with the repaint here. The area above the windows was left alone because a new awning will cover that up when the remodel is done.
They ultimately did update the Baskin Robbins logo, but it would have made more sense to do that before repainting to avoid a labelscar.
The interior construction had wrapped up at this point.
They ripped up a small corner of the Downingtown Home Depot's parking lot. At first, I thought they must have just been doing sewer work because there's no way they could fit a building in that spot. I was wrong. It's now a Patient First urgent care center.
It's kinda weird I never posted a photo of this place closed before. :/
I have one of it open as Ruby's, and two of it becoming an IHOP, but none from in between. So here you go.
Also, this is the ONLY appropriate title for a photo of a closed Ruby Tuesday. I should know, It's the third location I've done it with.
First Keystone/BMT, Exton, PA
I only vaguely remember this as a First Keystone. It had the same shape of roof, sans the tower and peak over the sign. It was looking pretty dingy when BMT bought them out. Bryn Mawr Trust completely redid the building basically as soon as they moved in (I think it was 2004 or 05). Somehow they made it match their prototype without any major restructuring.
This was among the last locations (if not the very last) to still have the old logo before it was finally updated to the one pictured in 2016. The old logo Was basically B M T Co. all written on top of each other.
Freddy's Steakburgers bought the old Lukoil site, and demolished it to make way for their restaurant. You can't see it in this picture, but the refrigerated cases were still in the store here when they knocked it down.
KFC opened here in the 80's, and closed around the same time as the adjacent Burger King. The space was then split two ways, with Quiznos Sub taking up the front, and a coffee shop in back. The coffee shop later became a pastry shop, which appears to be closed now. Quiznos closed in the late 2000's, along with most other PA locations.It changed hands a couple times before becoming Farmer's Road, a "farm fresh fast food" restaurant. That lasted a couple years before closing in 2016.
Burger King closed this location in the early 2000's. It was later replaced by El Gran Rodeo, an upscale Mexican restaurant. The drive-thru is still there, although the former exit end is blocked off and has turf rolled out on top of the pavement. The two parts of the roof that stick out were formerly the payment and pickup windows.
This store was built around 2010 on the site of two houses and a lawn tractor dealership. I thought that was a little strange considering the amount of undeveloped land along this road. It might not have been the best place to build it, but it works, I guess.
This branch opened in the early 2000's as a Commerce Bank. These are hard to estimate the age of, since Commerce hardly changed their design since the 70's.
This Target opened in 1997, and was supposed to be an anchor for the never-opened Brandywine Mall. Instead, the mall building was carved up into about 25 storefronts in 2001, but still retains the original mall look.
This Wawa was built in the late 90's. The front arch window and open ceiling were covered up sometime during the 2000's. The drywall line in the ceiling was originally where the higher portion began.
Exxon opened this location in the 80's. The auto center has sinc ebeen turned into a convenience store called Dash-In, which haven't seen before. From what I can find, it looks like it's just a Delaware thing.
Jimmy John's, not to be confused with the sandwich shop with the same name, originally opened in 1940. The current building was first built in the 50's, although most of what you see here was added on in 1960. The flat roof part was a 1970's addition. It is a very popular hot dog shop, which is locally famous for all of the model trains they have running around the restaurant.
In 2010, on the morning of their 70th anniversary celebration, a fire broke out and burned down most of the restaurant. Thankfully, the firemen were able to save most, if not all, of the interior decorations. Work quickly began rebuilding, and it was open again by 2011. Before the fire, the area with the pitched roof had 2 different roof heights, both of which were shorter than the new one. The dining space was remodeled as well, although surprisingly the kitchen looked exactly the way it did before the fire (at least until it was remodeled again around 2013).
This station stopped selling gas under the BP name around 2012. I think they tried selling it independently for a while, but now only appears to be a repair shop. I have a feeling they won't be investing too much in the property. PennDOT is planning on widening this stretch of Rt. 202, which means this is probably going to be torn down before too long.
The new Wawa's all framed out. It took them awhile to finish from here since they did the outside all in brick instead of stucco.
I forgot I had these photos, so I figured I'd just throw them in at the end of today's uploads.
When this store first opened, I thought the glass wall in front of the Pharmacy was the coolest thing. I also really liked the hanging circle over the waiting area.
I think these are the kinds of things that will look cool again in a vintage sort of way if the store can go another 20 years or so without remodeling.
This Exxon dates back to the 70's or 80's. It looks like it may have always had a convenience store as opposed to an auto center. The interior was heavily remodeled in the mid-90's, but hasn't been touched since then. I'm not sure if Exxon even still does Tiger Mart. The blank sign below it would have been for something like a Dunkin' Donuts, which has been closed as long as I can remember.
I dropped the ball here. I accidentally skipped over another mall tour. This one's a lot quicker than the King of Prussia one, only about 20 photos coming over the next few days.
The Aeropostale store here was also having a closing sale, although has since reopened. Even though this is technically an outlet mall, I think this is a full-scale store.
I'd drive by these ruins fairly often on my way to and from baseball practice, and always wondered what they were.
I came across several blog posts about the history of this building. As it turns out, it was built as an AME church in the 1800's. There were a number of escaped and former slaves living in the area at the time, who set up this church. It closed down in the 50's or 60's, and has sat abandoned since. The AME church still owns this property, but is unable to do much to maintain it. Thankfully, the community seems to be doing it for them. A few months after this photo was taken, church member Al Terrell, who unfortunately has since passed away, came in and cleaned up the overgrowth on the property. Since then, the property has had a few other cleanup days and is starting to get the recognition it deserves. It would be nice if they could turn it into a park one day.
An update to my previous photo when it was still First Niagara. I don't think they use the entire building, but probably lease the majority of it.
This Cadillac dealer has been here since the 70's or 80's, but was heavily remodeled around 2010. The sign was added around then. I didn't realize GM still used sign frames like this, considering how they don't put their name in the smaller square anymore.
After Coastal went under in 2002, this station began selling gas independently. It lost a lot of its parking lot when the intersection was widened a couple years ago. Wawa also built a new store nearby. Despite this, it still seems to be doing decent business.
I thought it was cool how the old Coastal promotional signage was left up.
This might be the most intact, operational 50's Sunoco out there. Aside from adding the rainbow decals and painting everything else gray, it's all original. I particularly like the glass brick wall and stone planter in front of it.
The store here is independently operated, and as a result uses neither the A-Plus or Food Market name. It wasn't open when we stopped by, but appears to have a small cafe or deli inside.
A close-up of the old sign frame. I'm surprised nobody's made them take it down yet, it's probably a hazard to keep it up there.
Norristown is kinda weird, the outer edges of the town are nice and modern, but the downtown area is full of run-down places like this.
This was built as an auto repair center, which closed in 2007. The building was then expanded (The area behind the tallest part of the facade is new) and divided into a few different stores. The restaurant on the end became Church's Fried Chicken, which switched over to Popeye's a few years after.
This station was one of the later Amoco's to open, and had a McDonald's sharing the space with it. I always thought this location looked beautiful from the outside, so I assumed the interior would be just as nice. As you will see in the next few photos, I couldn't have been more wrong.
Let's start with the convenience store portion. Those strips you see on the ceiling were LED lights that were supposed to replace the fluorescent boxes. The actual result was roughly half of each kind working. A few of them were also missing their shades. The ceiling tiles were stained, and it smelled funny. To make you feel safe, they had the checkout walled off behind Plexiglas, and a couple security cameras per aisle. Norristown might not be a great town, but I didn't think it was bad enough to merit all of this.
On a more positive note, check out that old coke sign! That's probably been here since the Amoco days.
The McDonald's portion of the building was much better maintained. My only complaint is the lack of ventilation it seemed to have, there was a lot of grease in the air. It was much cleaner and seemed larger than the store it shares a building with. It has a very open layout, which I like.
Under Armour. The Neiman Marcus Last Call store in this mall closed in early 2017, and was subdivided. Under Armour moved into about half of that space, replacing this location. This was still vacant last I saw. Update: Adidas has since relocated here.
Rue21 was supposed to close this during their bankruptcy, but decided last minute to save it. I think this is their last store in the area now.
I feel like I've already said this too many times this photo set, but I don't think this is an outlet location, either.
The Reebok store, which closed in 2017. The Adidas store next door now uses their windows for advertising, and is listed as the lessee of this space on the mall's website. Despite that, this space remains vacant, though I have a feeling Adidas is going to expand into this.
Adidas apparently owns Reebok, so they could also both have just shared a lease, and that's why Adidas still has this.
After Bethlehem Steel bought out Lukens in 1997, they painted over the name on the side of this building. Strangely, they didn't update this with a sign of their own. If you look closely, you can still make out the Lukens logo underneath.
There was talk about shutting down the Conshohocken plant a couple years ago. I don't think anything's happened with it yet; it was still open last I saw.
I decided to try seeing if the door on this was unlocked. It was, so I sat in there a couple minutes before realizing there was nothing to do in there, so I got back out. :P
The back of a Ford Ranger flatbed pickup. This would have been made sometime between 1978 and 1981, when Ranger was still part of Ford's F-Series trucks. The registration stickers on here were from the 90's, I'd say it's held up very well for the amount of time it's been abandoned.
We'll have a closer look at the truck in the background tomorrow.
Looking through the side window of the Ford LT9000. I thought the windows were cracked at first, but that's actually a pile of gravel on the other side. :P
Because of the overgrowth, I wasn't able to get a closer look through the window.
This was originally a second location for Mar-Stan's Unpainted Furniture. It closed sometime in the late 2000's, a few years before their original location. This one hasn't had a permanent tenant since then, although it has served as a Spirit Halloween for a few seasons.
Surprisingly, Mar-Stan's outlasted the Levitz next door, which closed with the chain in 2007. That's now a Christmas Tree Shops.
This CVS was one of the earlier stores built in this style, I believe it opened in the late 90's.
I've never been a fan of the roof running along the sides of this store, they make it look a lot older than it is.
I spotted something unusual on my way to ACME- they had their old logo up! It's not the best picture, but it's the best I could do since it was on an LED screen that would cycle through, only showing this for a few seconds every once and a while.
I'm not sure how they wound up using this one, considering they retired it over 20 years ago in favor of the generic-looking one seen below.
Bakery. I've pointed this out last time I gave a stour here, but It's weird enough I'll point it out again- the Albertsons Seal on the metal awning has the ACME logo in it here, but elsewhere in the store, it just has the standard Albertsons' leaf.
The Lionville Target had its parking lot lights replaced in late 2016. The interior lights were replaced in 2017, although so far there's been no remodel done.
This was the last of the original lights left in the parking lot, you can see the new ones on the other poles.
Strangely, the Exton Target, which is older, hasn't had theirs replaced- but they did repaint them gray from the original red.
I think Charlotte Russe opened here with the 2000 expansion. Its logo was "upgraded" in late 2016 to the atroci-- um, modern one seen here.
I usually come to this mall for Round 1, American Eagle, or the food court, so I don't really keep tabs on too many of the stores like this, but according to my sister, this store is a major draw for the mall. I'll take her word for it.
Spirit Halloween has been setting up in the second floor of the Exton Mall JCPenney since they closed.
Round 1 took over the first floor, and PREIT has been talking about putting in a theater up here at some point, but nothing has become of that yet.
Now if you're like me, I bet you're wondering what they did with the opening where the stairs used to be. I checked, although I couldn't get a picture- they just took out the railings and filled in the space with a new flooring slab. It's just a square without tile.
I figured I could stick my phone up to the holes in the pegboard and see the rest of the store. It looks just like it did as JCP, only empty.
Notice how some of the signs on the wall are still lit up.
While we're here, we can't not look at the old Pathmark! They're still empty and not looking any better. It looks a little rougher in person than in the picture. It's hard to believe it hasn't been three years since they closed.
There were plans for this to be torn down for a new Tesla dealership, but they instead chose somewhere else. Then, there were plans for Trader Joe's to move in part of this, but their landlord was able to convince them to stay put. As of now, it's still empty, and displaying labelscars from both tenants.
I'm really curious what they're going to do with this in the redevelopment, as it doesn't appear they have a new tenant lined up.
Hhgregg closed this store shortly before the entire chain liquidated. They first opened this shortly after Circuit City went out of business, giving it about an 8-year run. The landlord has announced a "major redevelopment" of this shopping center. I'm not quite sure what that means for the former Pathmark and the western strip of stores, but they made it clear the eastern portion would be demolished to make way for a new multi-story apartment complex. The former hhgregg and still open (for now) Golf Galaxy are the only two tenants on this side. I imagine Golf Galaxy is going to move over to the west end of the center, as there are a couple vacancies there.
Circuit City's facade here looked more like SuperFresh's, with a pointed roof.
Looking along the back of the store. In photos, this store always looks a little darker than it does in person. I guarantee it's not as sketchy as it looks.
All of Giant's Savor Coffee shops were shut down when the company struck a deal with Starbucks, even in stores that didn't (and in this case STILL DON'T *ahem*) have a Starbucks. If/when they add one, I'm pretty sure it will go in the former 1N Bank next to customer service.
Here's how it used to look.
Another thing I thought was strange was how after this was removed, they replaced the flooring with ceramic time like the rest of the produce department has, which is something that's (thankfully!) being removed from stores as they get remodeled. They made for a bumpy and loud cart ride.
Wegmans always has something interesting outside their bakery. This in particular caught my attention. I don't think I've seen personal-size cheesecakes anywhere else before. Naturally, you know I needed to by one.
A nighttime look at the Downingtown store. Somehow the sign escaped replacement after two remodels (2011 and 2015), but was finally updated to the new logo earlier this year.
It always bothered me how their signs are white in the daytime, but light up red at night.
Howard Johnson's opened in the 60's, and had a restaurant across the street. They were both gone by the 90's. The hotel became a Best Western, and the restaurant a Chili's. Chili's was demolished and rebuilt in late 2013, but the hotel is still up and running!
This was among the last Best Westerns to still have the old logo. Practically every other had it switched over right as it came out, but this one made it to 2018 before the change was made!
This Verizon store was built in 2015, on the site of a former Hertz.
I think it also may have been among the last to open with this logo.
This was Royal Bank America's flagship location (they had a branch in their headquarters, but I'm not gonna count that). It was also their only remaining location with the old logo when Bryn Mawr Trust bought them out this Spring.
On the site of the old Gino's, a massive new Bassett Furniture store is going up! The property looks a lot bigger now than it did with the restaurant on site.
This was built as a Flying A gas station in the 50's, which was later bought by Getty. This station closed around 2000 (Getty Oil itself went out of business in 2015, most stations were re-branded to Gulf over the next few years, a few are still operating independently under the Getty name). After that, it became Royal India, which in addition to gas, had an Indian restaurant and grocery store. In 2012, it briefly operated as a Citgo before switching back to independent. Within the past couple weeks, this was closed and demolished. I'm not sure what they plan on putting here.
Sports Authority closed this store a couple years ago, prior to their bankruptcy. I was surprised, since the chain seemed unstoppable at the time, and of all their locations you'd expect King of Prussia to do very well.
After about three years of vacancy, it was finally divided up. Stein Mart took over the majority of it, with PLCB getting a small sliver on the right, and Fortunoff Backyard got about a quarter of the building on the left.
Staples closed here in 2014. After sitting vacant a couple years, it became one of Duluth Trading Post's first actual brick-and-mortar stores. It's pretty neat, they have an antique tool museum in back.
Based on the condition of the sign and lack of windows, I just assumed this place has been long gone. Turns out, they're actually still open. Their main entrance is in back, where their parking lot is.
I can't find much history on this place, other than that it has been around since 1865 at least. It looks like it had been used as a bank fairly recently, as it still has the depository and bars over the windows. It is now operating as some sort of Hispanic evangelical church.
Giacomo's takes up the whole block here, across four storefronts. The two pictures here are a beer store, and their take-out restaurant. To the left is the sit-down restaurant, and beyond that is a second (less fancy?) sit-down area that appears to be closed.
I don't know who Giacomo is, but he seems to have a food monopoly here.
This store was being built new. It's hard to imagine how big these stores are until you look at what they had on this site beforehand- there were at least 5 different buildings, all decently sized. I don't think they were all demolished on Wawa's behalf though. The roads on three sides of the block were redone around the time they came down, indicating the buildings might have just been in the way of the construction.
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