Philadelphia Retail with PlazaACME

For the third and final installment of Journey to the Land of the Coat Factory, we'll be taking an in-depth look at the former Eckerd.  This store originally opened around 2000. When Rite Aid bought the chain, they didn't take this store due to its proximity to the existing Rite Aid we saw yesterday. As I mentioned, this store looks a lot better and is over 5 years newer than the existing Rite Aid. At this point, this store has been vacant for almost twice as long as it was occupied. It also has the red square we saw on the Howard Johnson's yesterday. I couldn't find any specific information on Burlington's use of these, but it seems several municipalities tag dangerous vacant buildings with red to warn firefighters of structural deficiencies should there be an emergency. That would make sense here since I've only seen them on vacant buildings here, but this place didn't look like it was in any danger of collapse. In fact, the inside was in nearly prist...

Welcome back! Today we're going to see most of the rest of my photos from Burlington. There was one sorta special place I photographed more thoroughly and decided to make a separate post for, which will be up after this.  Howard Johnson's, Burlington, NJ This Howard Johnson's first opened its doors in 1959, and was still in operation at least until 1987. After that, it operated as an independent restaurant for a little while, but was closed by the early 2000's. It's been vacant ever since. Because the outside was so perfectly intact, I was hoping the inside would still have some HJ left as well. Unfortunately, it was gutted out at some point, probably when there was still some hope of salvaging and getting a new tenant in the building. Some small plants are growing out of the cracks in the floor inside, meaning it's leaking pretty bad. I'm not sure what that red square by the door means, but I've noticed quite a few abandoned buildings around Burli...

Happy Easter, everybody! This post and the next are from a quick trip we made to Burlington NJ, home and namesake of Burlington Coat Factory. Strangely, Burlington doesn't have any stores in town. They do however have quite a bit of other interesting stuff, which you'll be seeing shortly. (Sorry in advance Jersians, being from PA I'm sort of required to talk trash on NJ) Village Lodge, Bristol, PA This motel first opened in the 60's. It now caters to truckers mostly. What's strange about this is that the largest part of the building, which I'm assuming was the original gatehouse, is now operating as a mosque. Buick/Bristol Motor Cars, Bristol, PA This operated as a Buick dealership up until around 2014. Since then, it's operated as a few independent used car lots. Burger King, Bristol, PA This location opened in the 80's, and hasn't seen much change since then. It's an unusual location, and shares a parking lot with a (now closed) ...