Things Around Lionville and Radnor
One of my friends that worked at the Lionville Giant gave me a heads-up that a stray Clemens cart had made its way outside from somewhere in the back. I loved Clemens and would have really wanted to take the cart, but I decided to just get a picture for this one. My reasoning was a) Where am I going to put this? b) It's uuuuuugly and c) It's got a broken handle.
You don't see too many Giant trucks like this out on the road anymore. I'm guessing this was from the 80's. Most of them now are brand-new with a few 2000's ones sprinkled in.
AutoZone has finally opened in the old Lionville Rite Aid. The conversion went pretty fast- only three months start-to-finish, which is impressive for a total gut-remodel.
They left the old pharmacy drive-thru up, but filled in the window and placed bollards to keep cars out.
Hoss's opened here in the mid-90's and closed down in 2011, most likely due to how far this was from the rest of the chain. It was a little overpriced but I liked it anyways. The building was put up in 1992, and operated as something else for a few years prior to Hoss's. I'm not sure what, but right now my best guess is Hometown Buffet. I've got better pictures of the original part to come. The entryway pictured here was added on by Hoss's.
Sunoco operated here from the early 60's up until either 2013 or 14, when it made the switch to Gulf. The Auto center looks unusual, but I'm pretty sure it was never remodeled. The garage door was always on this side. What I thought was cool about this was that it still had the original lantern-style lights by the mini-mart entrance and a round window set into the brick just out of view in this photo.
I thought this was an unusually large building for this area. It's in an office park but there are only 2 other buildings anywhere near is size there. This building dates back to 1972 even though it looks much newer. I'm assuming the façade was redone at some point.
This building was built in the mid-2000's as a branch and regional offices for Wilmington Trust, which merged with M&T in 2010. The bank branch was rebranded, but the offices continue to operate under the Wilmington Trust name and only deal with private banking.
I'm assuming this building was originally constructed as a house, but has been in use as a bank for several years now. Up until 2015, it was a Royal Bank, which moved down the road to a former Citi Bank. Citi pulled out of PA after only a couple years, so it for Royal it was like getting a brand-new bank and not having to pay for construction. Malvern opened a private banking branch here in 2016. This was also the first location to not use the full "Malvern Federal Savings Bank" name. The other locations all dropped "Federal Savings" from the name in 2018.
Here's the former Citi Bank I mentioned up above. In early 2018, Bryn Mawr Trust bought out Royal. They operated this location for about a month, then closed it in favor of the nearby Wayne branch. Chase opened here in early 2019 as one of their first PA branches.
From 1954 to 2003, this complex was the headquarters, lab, and factory for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. There were 4 buildings here were built between then and 1980. Wyeth moved to 2 different headquarters after leaving here: one in Collegeville PA and another in Madison NJ. Pfizer bought them out in 2009. This buildings were later used for another, smaller, drug company up until 2014 when UPenn bought the property. After years of fighting the neighbors over the plans, they were finally given permission to build a new medical center on the site in late 2017 (this later caused the township's zoning code to be revised to not allow medical use on office/industrial zoned properties). This building was torn down in 2018 and the Penn hospital is currently under construction.
This station was built in 1872 by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and is currently served by SEPTA. Most of the remaining 1800's PRR stations are registered as historic landmarks, but are not well maintained. Fortunately, this one has been taken better care of. It was restored between 1999 and 2002 and even maintains its original canopy on the westbound side (pictured). I'm glad they saved it here, since SEPTA has a tendency to replace canopies rather than restore them.
I've talked about this theater a few times before. To recap, it was built in the mid-90's and closed in 2002. It sat boarded-up and started to fall apart fast before being demolished in 2008. In 2014, Timothy's Bar and an AT&T store were built on the site. I got this picture in high school (yes, I'm still a few years behind on my photos). One of the classrooms was used to teach photography and had some old projects hanging up on the walls, this was in one of them. If I remember correctly, it was dated 2006, so after the theater was closed but still a few years before demolition.
So at one point I was able to find a document online labeling all the historical buildings in Lionville. Now that I'm posting this, I can't find it again so I had to do a little research. The document I found this time didn't have any useful maps so I had to rely on the descriptions given in the write-up. So if this is the place I think it is, it was built in 1728 as a two-family house which was unusual for the time. One part of the house was used as an inn for a time before the owner built the Red Lion Tavern (where Lionville gets its name from) nearby. More recently this building operated as apartments and an office, but was abandoned by the mid-2000's. It finally sold in 2017 and work began turning it back into apartments, which were completed by mid-2018.
That poor Clemens cart looks like it's only halfway through manufacturing...
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, I like your photo of the AutoZone! Nice to see it finally open (and impressive it moved so quickly, too, though I'm sure I've commented to that effect before).
I feel like Clemens went for the cheapest carts they could get here. I don't remember those being in use but it was probably towards the end of the company's life.
DeleteThank you! I agree, it's always satisfying seeing a project you've been watching finish up.
Ah, the all-plastic Supercarts! I remember when Circuit City and ACME used to use them... by far the worst carts ever. The ACME ones would often bend if you overloaded it.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, there is a few Clemens and Genuardi's carts that you should check out in Upper Bucks... 4040 Durham Rd, Ottsville, PA 18942; the Lord's Pantry in the back has a few of them. Volunteered a few days during the summer last year, and I was packing meat in their freezers with a gray Rehrig... didn't dawn on me that it was a Clemens until halfway through!