Flickr Photos 44
This was built in the 40's as Ripley's Department Store (scroll down to second photo). That closed in the 60's. More recently, it served as a Tower Records store. Shortly after they went under, Walgreens tried out a pharmacy-less store here, which only lasted for 3 years. It's now home to a Villa Sportswear store.
Today's photos are going to be a little all over the place. I didn't take too many pictures with my phone back then.
This was inside the former Malvern Wawa which relocated in 2017. This store was one of the more unusual ones.
The original A&P flooring remained in the produce department, but had been replaced in the rest of the store.
I've been trying to keep all my A&P and Clemens photos on Flickr, but these old phone pictures were bad enough I couldn't justify having them take up that valuable real estate.
I made the trip out here about two years ago to get some more photos, but my camera battery died as soon as I walked in the door. Not wanting let the trip go without pictures, I decided to cover the store with my crappy phone camera (This was also two phones ago).
I tried to get some of these signs from the auction, but they were sold with the cases to an off-site bidder. I still got the register light, so I can't complain.
Another thing that caught my interest in the store was the mismatched lighting. The ceiling had a bunch of unused recessed lighting (both types of which you can see here- a recessed round light and a rectangular fluorescent). Concord only uses the fluorescent strip lighting in the store, which I am assuming they added when they moved in.
This was at the end of the strip mall, so they had an outdoor seating area on the side. This is looking through the patio door towards the main entrance. Update: This is now a bar as of 2018.
Personal care was given a large chunk of the store, although housewares supplanted part of it not long after the store opened.
Rite Aid first came to Lionville in 1987 and moved to a freestanding store in 2002. The 2002 store was in a horrible location, so they replaced it with this in 2010.
In case you were wondering, this was built on the site of the now demolished Lionville Regal's parking lot.
Looking towards the deli. The signage and spotlights seen here was all put in around 2012, when the store was last remodeled. I know 4 years isn't a terribly short time in retail years, but it still seems a little wasteful to toss all of this out.
Here's another reminder as to how long I've had these photos. Working at Kmart towards the end of the sale, there weren't many customers to deal with. I decided to start stamping the receipts before people checked out just to kill some time. I thought it would be a cool picture.
When Shop N Bag closed (around 1980), the space was split up between a Wawa and Kohlerman's Pharmacy. I don't think Kohlerman's has done any remodeling whatsoever over the years. It's a neat place to shop.
And yes, this picture was taken before there was an aisle 12 Flickr group. Call me a psychic.
ACME has always been fond of putting crown moulding in their stores, so it's hard to say exactly when this came from, but I'm leaning towards early 90's remodel. It doesn't match the style used in the Industrial decor (though the moulding above the cases and on bottom of the overhang are definitely from then). Given the apparent cheapness of this last remodel, I would be surprised if they added it then.
Guess you could say the deli was voted off the island.
I feel like I'm going to lose a couple followers for that joke.
The lights don't all line up here and it bothers me. This store unfortunately hasn't been redone yet, although I imagine it will be on the list this year.
Of course, a bag was one of those things!
The one and sadly only time I visited a Mars Supermarket, I picked up as much store-brand merchandise as I could.
Opening in 1809, this is not only the oldest theater in America, but the oldest continuously-operating theater in any English-Speaking country. It has changed names many times over the years, but has used the current name on now less than 5 different occasions, earliest being 1820. This theater was also the first to boast gas lighting and air conditioning.
I got two water bottles while I was out for lunch, and was surprised to see they had two different logos on them! (Keep in mind, this was Summer 2016)
Even though the change is well over a year old at this point, I'm still not used to it.
While all of the original PA Turnpike rest stops have been rebuilt, there are a couple that were closed down and relocated, leaving the original building behind. This one is one of them, and has been turned into a cold storage facility. I believe there are two others- one in Mechanicsburg, and another just west of Pittsburgh. It would have originally been a Howard Johnson's restaurant with a Gulf gas station.
McDonald's opened here in the late 90's. It is certainly one of their more unusual looking locations, which is probably the reason it has been able to dodge being remodeled for so long. "The owner operator of this and a few other locations has wised up to corporate and has found ways around remodeling. For example one of his locations was due for the remodel and just before the start he sold it to his son. The new owner then has a few years to update it. My cousin worked at one of his locations"-Coolcat4333
This store opened in the late 90's, and was remodeled in early 2016 to what I've been calling the "el cheapo" version of the old Ahold decor. The Ahold decor sorta peaked in 2013, and then was slowly stripped of elements until it was practically nothing but signage in late 2016. Thankfully, 2017 brought the new Grayscale decor to replace it.
Sheetz originally opened this location in the 80's, but demolished and rebuilt in 2014. It is the nicest Sheetz I've been to by far (although I still have to say Wawa's better!)
This store looks like it was built in the 2000's, but the parking lot is in awful shape and the light posts are rusted. I'm guessing this was most likely a rebuild of an older KFC.
Arby's opened this location in the late 90's. As of last Summer, it hadn't been redone yet.
Confession: I've never actually eaten at an Arby's before. Update: I've now eaten at Arby's once.
The cafe was removed and replaced with a Starbucks. Surprisingly, there was no seating, and therefore no beer department. Update: This store now has a beer department as of 2018.
I've noticed that in more recent remodels/refreshes, they've stopped replacing the hanging lights altogether. Now, they're only doing the track lights and ones in drop ceilings.
The store attached to this Sunoco has three parts: a tobacco/convenience store, a Subway, and what appears to be a closed McDonald's. I've never seen McDonald's close an attached restaurant like this, let alone not alter the roof when they leave. judging by the street views, this has been closed since at least 2007.
This was built in the 90's as a distribution center for Kmart and its subsidiaries, although Sears consolidated into here during the merger.
The way things are looking, I'm afraid it will soon be Sears-only, if it even stays open at all. With so many less stores, there probably isn't much of a need for all the centers they once had.
Target opened this in the late-90's, presumably shortly after opening their first sprinkling of Pennsylvania stores.
If you hadn't already guessed, these photos from the last few uploads have been from a fairly long road trip. It was last Summer, when I was still visiting colleges and was heading down to check out Virginia Tech. For whatever reason, the GPS took us all the way west before it went south, so I got to pass through West Virginia's narrowest point, and now have a solid three photos to prove I've been there.
Walmart opened this store as a Supercenter in the 90's. It was remodeled and received the new logo around 2013. Prior to that, this side of the store was painted an unusual maroon color.
Shoney's opened this location in the 70's. It appears this was closed by 2013, although the sign remained up. Apple Blossom Diner opened in the space in 2014, and split the old sign with the Five Guys in the parking lot.
I only managed a photo of the sign on my way by here the first time, but I'm pretty sure I managed some pictures of the actual mall on the way back home.
Apple Blossom Mall opened in 1982, and is anchored by Sears, JCPenney, Belk (formerly Belk-Leggett), and a theater that was added on in 2012. It is managed by Simon. The sign is a pretty good indication of how dated the mall's exterior is (with the exception of an entrance added when the theater was built). Despite that, the interior was recently renovated and appears to be fairly full.
Let's hope Simon doesn't replace this sign with one of their own generic ones.
I looked, and this was the only picture I got. Pretty much everything pictured here was built in the 2012 expansion.
The theater is on the right, and the new mall entrance is on the left.
This one isn't quite as old as it looks. I think it opened no earlier than the mid-90's. It looks like they used a shingle roof to go for a rustic look. The exterior walls are all unpainted clapboard.
Exxon opened here in the late 90's or early 2000's. The convenience store recently updated their logo and had a Dunkin Donuts added. For whatever reason, they didn't update the Exxon signs while they were at it.
I believe this was built as a Shell in the 80's. It was redone somewhat recently.
This opened in the 80's or 90's. I haven't seen one that looked quite like this before, so there's a chance it started out as something else. I'm thinking the store might have always been 7/11, but the gas could have been someone else.
Sorry for the awful picture. Between the rain and road construction there wasn't much of a chance to get a better one.
I love the architecture on this place. I hope somebody can repurpose it, although I know that's not likely.
I'm pretty sure this building started out. as a flat-roofed Amoco station, and had the peak added on in the 60's as an attempt to modernize. Considering how the road runs up close enough to the building they wouldn't have room for gas pumps, I think it has been closed since the road was widened in the 80's.
Popeye's opened in late 2015. It was built on the site of an old stainless steel diner that was later used as a used car dealership.
Hess took over an older East Coast station in 2011. They rebuilt the canopy when they first took over, and rebuilt the store a year or two later.
I have to say, their later stores looked pretty nice.
It's strange seeing ceiling brackets like this in such a new store; they look straight out of the 70's.
Front Royal also has an abundance of 50's motels. I really wish I has a chance to stay in this one, I love the glass brick by the entrance to the office.
Of all the 7/11's in Front Royal, this one is the oldest. It originally opened as one of their wooden shingle facade stores, but later had it redone to match the 70's style.
Front Royal got lucky- they kept the sit-down Pizza Hut open after they put a second one in the Taco Bell. This one was recently redone, replacing the red metal roof with a gray shingle covering. It looks better this way, but it seems like a step backward.
There were two of these old Pure Oil stations in town, separated by just a block. I figure one must have been a replacement for the other, but they look similar enough in design I can't say which is older. This one has been better preserved. I love the brick on it.
Taco Bell was co-branded with Pizza Hut here in the early 2000's, but surprisingly was not remodeled. Many locations were at least given an exterior repaint to the newer look, but this one retained its original paint job up until it was remodeled to what we see here in 2015.
Front Royal has no shortage of 7/11's. I found four open ones and a closed one just driving through.
Shopping at 7/11 always gives me an appreciation for how lucky I am to live in Wawa territory.
This has been closed as a gas station for a long time, although it still retains Gulf's 30's Chinese roof and 50's lights.
This was the look Texaco used in the late 60's and early 70's. It looks a lot better when the whole front isn't painted gray.
This location replaced the one in the previous picture. I believe the gas here was originally done by Texaco.
We weren't in a huge hurry to get where we were going (it was a college visit that was scheduled for the next day), so we took the scenic route and went on Skyline Drive through Shenandoah Park. Normally, most of the route provides views like this, but it was unfortunately overcast that day. The clouds lifted a little, allowing me to get a few pictures.
This looks like it was built in the 40's. It is right at the border of Shenandoah National Park, which it was presumably a privately-run gift shop for. It appears to have been closed for a few years. Some lights are still on, so it couldn't have been too long.
I hope you like these pictures, because I have a whole bunch more of them to post.
The hard part for me will be coming up with things to say about them in the descriptions. :P
My understanding is that this motel is owned by the same organization as the caverns, and was built around the same time as the visitors center complex. Despite its age, it has been well maintained and looks like a nice place to stay.
Surprisingly, it's also cheaper than the Budget Inn in town. :P
I'm not sure what the OVV logo is, but it appears to be original to the building. My guess is that it was an independent station, as a search for the name isn't bringing up anything.
After the original Pure Oil company was bought out in the 70's, the name was bought by a co-operative to use on their franchises. There are now quite a few Pure Oil stations, mainly in Virginia, that are all operated semi-independently.
This was my first time seeing the new logo in action. Within the coming months, pretty much every other location got it as well. Just over a year later, it's next to impossible to find one with the old logo.
Update: This is now a Quality Inn
I like it when places like this have their own websites. It makes the research a lot easier. However, it's not so helpful when the "About Us" page is impossible to make sense of. What I got out of this was that it originally opened in 1939, became a real estate office in 1975, and a twin theater in 1982. At some point, it was expanded to 4 screens, and then again to 7. They neglected to update the sign with the last expansion.
I'm guessing the area to the left was tacked on in the 90's. Inside, it has been recently remodeled to make it look more like a 30's "movie palace." It looks good.
I can't figure out who used this design. It most closely matches what Sinclair had going on in the 50's, so for now I'm going with that. The slanted windows are impossible to find a match for. I've seen them at a few other former gas stations, but they have no clues about what they used to be.
Regardless, I love this design! Correction: Was a Phillips 66.
From looking at a Street View from before Dollar General moved in, I'm pretty sure this was one of Safeway's pre-Marina style supermarkets. Dollar general opened in 2013 or 14, and significantly altered the façade.
This was my first time at a Hardee's. I have to say, it was pretty good! They do have a handful of restaurants in my area, but they're not exactly easy to get to.
This location opened in the 80's, and was remodeled sometime after the Carl's Jr merger.
This location opened in the early 70's, replacing the one right next door. It's amazing how they both have been preserved so well over the years.
Blue Ridge is a small bank, they have eight branches and a handful of mortgage offices scattered around southern Virginia and North Carolina. There were two in Luray until this one closed in 2015. It has since been turned into Partners First Credit Union.
I'm pretty sure whatever corporate entity existed behind East Coast went out of business in the late 2000's. As a result, most of their stations have switched franchises. This one lasted as a Sunoco for a short time before switching again to Citgo. I know I've said it before, but I don't believe Citgo is going to last too much longer, so they will probably be changing names again at some point.
I really love the lantern-shaped parking lot lights this station has. Very 60's.
I'm pretty sure whatever corporate entity existed behind East Coast went out of business in the late 2000's. As a result, most of their stations have switched franchises. This one lasted as a Sunoco for a short time before switching again to Citgo. I know I've said it before, but I don't believe Citgo is going to last too much longer, so they will probably be changing names again at some point.
I really love the lantern-shaped parking lot lights this station has. Very 60's.
The building looks sorta like an old Amoco, and this was definitely built before Liberty was established in 2000, so I'm gonna go with Amoco on this one.
Despite being turned into a used car dealership, this is still recognizable as an old Mobil. This design is generic enough that it would be impossible to identify if the tile facade was removed.
The roof on this place was neat. My guess is that this was built as some kind of convenience store, and the gas was an afterthought.
I was sorta surprised to find out they made jeans here. This town seems a little more like a tourist spot than an industrial town.
Oval sign's still up! I'm not quite sure what Peebles started out as, but it appears to have been some sort of department store. My guess would be Ames.
I get the impression this place is closed, although it's hard to tell with Flea Markets. They often don't have anything set out on weekdays.
My understanding is that it these Yogi Bear statues are getting rare. The new camp sites are not getting them.
There are probably hundreds of bears hiding out in these trees, trying to avoid having their pictures taken.
We saw a few bears on this drive, but they were hard to get a picture of. They just wouldn't stop moving long enough. Towards the end of the drive, a mother with two cubs walked out in front of us, allowing me to get a halfway acceptable photo.
The lower level here was the lobby originally. After the motel closed, it became a tourist information center. The condition of the building forced them out into a trailer in the parking lot by 2009.
This motel opened in the 50's, and was closed by the mid-90's. There were originally 7 buildings, but 4 of them have been destroyed by arson and demolished. The remaining three are barely standing up as it is. I am surprised by the lack of security here. No fences, boards, or even doors to keep people out of the buildings! They didn't even bother putting up No Trespassing signs.
If these are still here by the time I get back again, you bet I'll get some interior pictures.
This station switched from Marathon to Exxon around 2012. The convenience store was in the middle of rebranding from Kangaroo to Circle K when I stopped by.
This Sheetz opened in the 80's, and is one of the increasingly few of this style that has not been redone or rebuilt yet. Even though not much work has been done to it over the years, it was among the first to get the new logo.
This is the first freestanding Panda Express I have seen. Most of the others have been in mall food courts and strip malls. It opened in 2015 on the site of a former Play It Again. It looked surprisingly fancy.
Dick's was built here in the early 2000's, on the site of a former Hess' department store. This is an anchor to the New River Valley Mall, which opened in 1988. Apparently, it never really took off, and was never fully occupied until PREIT took over the mall in 2003 (They later sold this to CBL in 2016). The mall is doing fairly well now, contrary to the rest of the retail in town. There is a large strip mall across the street with only a Harbor Freight left in it, and an abandoned Kmart just behind that. In 2016, Dick's gutted out this store and redesigned it for their newest prototype (the remodel mainly meant pulling out the drop ceilings that were over parts of the store).
Red Robin opened here in 2005, and was redone to the current look in 2014. There's a Red Robin in Lionville that has been remodeled to this look, but it doesn't fit on that location as well as it does on this.
This has the shape and layout of an older McDonald's, although the brick and metal roof look relatively new. Putting two and two together, I think they must have remodeled this in the early 2000's.
Burger King opened here in the late 60's or early 70's. It closed down after 2012, and was replaced by Zaxby's in 2016. They did a ton of work to the building, but it is still the same structure.
CVS opened this location in mid-2016. This was built on the site of a 1974-built Holiday Inn.
Heironimus was a regional department store chain that opened with the mall in 1974. They closed in 1993 when the company was bought by Dunlap's. Other stores continued operation until Dunlap's divested them in 2004-05. This particular location wasn't vacant for long, and is now Virginia Tech's book store.
This shopping center, along with a Hyatt hotel, was built on the site of a former Holiday Inn. The first stores opened in mid-2016, although new buildings were still being put up until late last year.
This store was built in the late 70's, and was expanded/remodeled a couple times over the years. Inside, it looks pretty boring. It was given a bare-bones version of the decor when it was remodeled in 2012, but surprisingly had the entire facade replaced. The earliest Streetview available shows it under construction.
Here's what it looked like before the renovation.
Meats and Fish was the only department along the back wall.
Prior to this remodel, I believe this store had the 80's Bauhaus look from when it was expanded.
Homewood Suites was built in 2015. There's another hotel behind it, presumably owned by the same franchisee, that this site formerly served as parking for.
The Shell in the foreground was built as a Texaco in the 60's. For whatever reason, Shell decided not to reuse Texaco's high-rise sign.
I'm not quite sure what exactly I was trying to get a picture of here, but there's a lot of neat stuff I picked up. The Dollar General Market was a first for me. It's the only one I've seen so far. Apparently, it was among the first to open. It got the new logo in 2015.
I also got the sign for a Shoney's. This one opened in 1986. It looks like there are 16 in the state total, so they must not be doing as bad as I thought they were.
There's a McDonald's that hasn't been repainted since the 90's. I didn't know they still had any of those. Almost all of them seem to have been repainted tan in the 2000's.
In the foreground, there's a Motel 6 that has been given a surprisingly nice remodel inside.
CVS opened here the same time as the Food Lion. The white signage on the brick looks good, they should use it at more locations.
This store opened in the late 80's or early 90's. It was redone and got the current logo around 2010. This part of Virginia has a lot of overlap between Food Lion and Martin's. As a result, several towns lost at least one store. Buena Vista only has one supermarket anywhere nearby, so this one stuck around.
This opened in the mid-90's with an Amoco gas station. The conversion to BP didn't change it too much, if at all. They seem to have increased their emphasis on selling beer more recently. It now takes up about 2/3 of the cases here.
No, the camera didn't make it look weird, those lights are just green. Most of the store still had mercury lights, except for a few above where I'm standing that were rewired for the whiter halide lamps.
Kroger trucks are probably a common sight for most of the country, but they have no presence (aside from Turkey Hill trucks) in my area.
I like this logo a lot. I could almost believe that it really is shining from the way the sun hits it.
This was built in the 70's as a store with an auto center. At some point, most likely in the 90's, it was turned into a convenience store, complete with a Subway. Adding the Spanish tile to their part of the roof was an interesting move on Subway's part. I like it!
This looks like a 70's-era Texaco that became a Shell in the mid-2000's. I believe it had a lot of work done to the parking lot after McDonald's opened next door.
McDonald's opened here in the early 2000's. There's a chance there could have been an old one on the site, but I can't say for certain.
This exists just down the road from the Exxon. I'm not sure why they kept both open.
This sign was supposed to direct people towards the Luray Caverns, although it spent most of the last couple decades covered up to be used for a billboard. The ads covering it came down recently, revealing this sign.
Both businesses on this sign are still in operation, which is impressive considering it's no less than 40 years old. The one thing that has changed is the price. It's now a whopping $45/night. You get what you pay for. The motel has not aged very well, but Southern Kitchen looks like a nice place. It retained the look in the linked picture until recently. The interior was just redone a few years ago.
This is the first time I've seen one of these old slanted roof Esso's that is still up and running as an Exxon. I've always loved this design.
This started out as the same thing as the Liberty I posted a few weeks ago, which I still haven't identified yet. It also has a Godfather's Pizza franchise. Apparently these are pretty popular around here, but they don't have any in my area. Herman Cain is probably the only reason 90% of the country knows about them.
While it is a hardware store now, this store started out as a farming cooperative. Its role has expanded over the years, and now carries more than just farming supplies.
This gas station appears to have been in operation for a very long time, and I'm guessing was predated by the attached general store. The gas station was Amoco originally, but later became BP. It seems like many stations have been ditching the BP name lately, this being one of them. It became an Exxon sometime between 2008 and 2012.
This railway follows alongside Stonewall Jackson Highway from Luray to the inland port in Front Royal. There were quite a few impressive bridges like this alongside the road.
It's a bit of a stretch calling this place a supermarket, but it's the closest thing this town has to one. The Sunoco on the side was a recent addition. They used to sell gas under their own name. It also has a post office inside, which is sorta unusual, especially for a store this size.
This restaurant has a more interesting history than i was expecting. Joe's opened in 2011, but the building is much older. It was constructed in 1935 as the original visitors center for Shenandoah National Park, and features the first "round room" built on the east coast. I'm not entirely sure what they mean by that, since there are plenty of older rooms built in a circular shape, but it's what their website advertises. The visitors center was relocated to a more sensible location that was actually IN the park, and sold off this building. It has changed hands a few times, but has been a restaurant ever since the NPS moved out. Here's how it looked when they were still here.
This building appears to be on the same property as the previously pictured. It has been abandoned longer than the other ones, and doesn't really have anything to help me identify it.
This was built in the 30's, and has always served the same purpose, although under a few different names. McCarthy bought out the Duncan Brothers chain that operated this for several years beforehand around 2010. I'm pretty sure it didn't open as Duncan Bros.
This Amoco never made it to the BP merger. Instead, it served as an independent gas station for a few years, before becoming just a repair center
Royal Auto and Sunoco previously shared this property. Sunoco did the gas, and Royal was just the repair shop. Royal took over the entire thing a few years ago. Incidentally, Sunoco reopened across the street in 2017.
Rite Aid opened here in the late 90's, and was remodeled to the current look in 2016. I didn't get to see inside, but I'm guessing this was more of a decor swap than a full remodel. They kept the old awnings up. It opened as one of the first to have the new logo. Update: Appears to still be open as of 2019, unlike most in VA which were sold.
This restaurant was built in the 90's, although I'm pretty sure there was a 70's location on the site beforehand.
This store started out as some sort of department store. I believe it was a former Ames, although I can't say for certain. They had a presence in the area, and this sorta looks like one of their store designs. There was a Grant's/Kmart across the street, which is now home to Rural King.
Big Lots updated their logo sometime between when this photo was taken and July 2017.
Update: This was actually the original Food Lion
Original 60's store on the right, the 2000's replacement next door on the left. It's amazing how much the stores have changed over the years- the new one is nearly four times the size of the original!
This store was built as a Roses in the 70's. After they closed, Food lion moved in from their space at the other end of the center, which is now a Big Lots. This store was sacrificed to Shop N Save as part of the Ahold-Delhaize merger, since the nearby Martin's was larger, newer, and nicer.
If I had more time, I definitely would have checked this store out. Update: SNS will probably close this store sometime in 2019, as it has not been sold to Martin's. They have a store across the street.
While most of this shopping center dates back to the early 70's, Martin's was either added on or rebuilt in the 2000's. It is almost identical to a Giant-PA store inside and out.
This store was kept open during the Ahold-Delhaize merger, and the Food lion in town was sold to Shop N Save. Correction: There was originally an old Martin's at the other end of the center that was demolished after this moved.
Like most of their older 2000's stores, Floral is set in the front corner instead of next to the checkout. Later stores put their cafes here.
Given the size and layout of the store, I think this must have been one of the earliest stores to open with Fun House V2 decor. Most of the stores like this were built with V1.
The banner hanging above has been there probably since 2011 or before, it still has the "Neighborhood Drugstore" logo, which was phased out for a generic Pharmacy name when the Ahold decor first came out.
This RadioShack managed to survive until the second bankruptcy. Like the majority of their stores, it didn't last much longer past then. The space was still vacant as of last fall.
This opened in the early 70's as a Grant's department store, which was sold to Kmart in 1977. They closed in 2015, and Rural King took over not long after. They stripped a lot of paint off of the building, bringing back the original Grant's concrete façade.
Exxon built this location in the 80's as a relocation of their old 60's location across the street. The original location is now a restaurant, although the original exterior was restored recently, canopy included. The new one was also given a remodel around 2010, turning the service station into a mini-mart.
This was built as a comfort food place called Stonewall Jackson Restaurant. It went out of business, and was quickly replaced by Rancho Nuevo, which was in the process of outfitting the space when i got this picture. It has since opened, and is apparently one of the most popular restaurants in town now.
Flying J, Clear Brook, VA
On our way back home from the Virginia trip, we didn't have many options when it came to gas stations, aside from truck stops. As a result, I had my first Truck Stop experience. It was much nicer than I was expecting. It must have been recently remodeled.
The Wawa closed without replacement in August, 2016. It was supposed to be replaced when the Phoenixville store opened in 2008, but they decided to keep both stores open for the time being. I'm guessing they were just riding out a 30-year lease or something. The space has since been redone for Village Optical, who relocated from a nearby center.
Wendy's opened here in 2003. It is one of the increasingly few restaurants in the area to still have not had the remodel yet, although the exterior trim and lights were painted black after this picture was taken.
This is one of Wawa's older stores (number 30, meaning it would have opened around 1967). It was one of a handful remodeled in 2014 or early 2015, shortly before they came out with their current exterior look. The decor inside matches the newer stores, but applied to the old layout.
Grant's opened this store in 1969, and sold to Kmart in 1977. They didn't last too long, and were closed within 5 years. Ames later took up the space, but closed in 1991. After that, a couple smaller things came and went, but it has been largely abandoned for most of the past three decades. Now that the rest of the center is fixed up, this store has been fenced off. I imagine demolition isn't too far away. The space just to the left of that was the Dollar General, which began life as an Eckerd. Eckerd sold to Thrift Drug in the early 80's. When they later bought out TD, they closed this store since there was a newer Eckerd that had opened further up the road. Dollar General opened in the space shortly afterwards, and lasted until the entire center was evicted.
This strip mall was built in 1969, along with the ACME and Grant's on either end. Even though both anchors sat abandoned for over twenty years, there were stores operating here as recently as 2011. I remember the space on the left was a Curves Fitness, and adjacent to that were three spots occupied by the ARC (one was a copy center, and the two to the right of it were combined into a thrift store), followed by a couple vacancies and a Dollar General. The roof failed, and the remaining tenants were evicted due to the mold caused by water leaking in. The reason they didn't fix it right off the bat was because there were plans to knock down and rebuild this entire center. Those plans fell through, and instead they fixed up the remainder of the center. Current plans call for only the former Grant's to be knocked down, and an apartment complex to be built on the site. What I'm excited about is that despite all the work they're doing to rehabilitate this, they're not going to get rid of the original 60's look.
This store had been here since the center was built in 1986, and closed suddenly in 2015. I'm not quite sure what happened- the store was still filled with merchandise- the only difference was a lock on the door and a couple "For Lease" signs. The center was redone in 2017 , and this store was finally cleaned out, but remains vacant.
Even though Save-A-Lot decided to keep the open ceiling, they got rid of the upper windows. It's a shame, but after over 20 years of abandonment, there probably wasn't much they could do to save the originals.
Tinicum Light House, Paulsboro, NJ
This light house was built in 1880, and is one of 6 made of cast iron. Since it's of a rare variety, this attracts a lot of tourists and lighthouse enthusiasts (apparently that's a thing). Even though it is open to visitors, it is still in operation, and is maintained by the Coast Guard.
The Exxon Station (Photo 163) In New Market, VA With The Subway Was Actually Built As A Texaco Station. The Exxon Tall Sign Was Made By Sunoco. The Sunoco Was Next Door And It Is A Burger King Now.
ReplyDeletehttps://vintageaerial.com/photos/virginia/shenandoah/1981/TSH/112/20 - Current Site Of Exxon Station
https://vintageaerial.com/photos/virginia/shenandoah/1981/TSH/112/19 - Current Site Of Burger King Restaurant
The Royal Auto (Photo 183) Started As A Sunoco Station In The Late 1960's Or The 1970's. It Became An Exxon Station When Sunoco Left Virginia (Except For The Washington, D.C/Northern Virginia Metro Area) In The 1980's. It Switched Back To A Sunoco In The 2000's When They Came Back To Virginia. It Switched To Royal Auto A Few Years Ago.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1984/01/12/some-sunoco-gas-stations-in-virginia-to-be-closed/759b66e6-24a1-45e1-8bed-5bb0597fc6dc/?utm_term=.f05fcdf0f5f4
The Gas Station (Photo 182, Next To The Royal Auto Photo) Which Is Currently A Repair Shop Never Was An Amoco Station. It Was Actually Built As A Citgo Station In The Late 1960's Or The 1970's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkQZnAFr5M - (Citgo Commercial, Youtube) - Citgo Station With The Same Design As The Front Royal Location Will Be Seen Here.