Put on Your Coates, We're Headed to the 'Ville!

 I would use a stronger word, but in an effort to keep this PG, downtown Coatesville is not nice. However, you all know (sub?)urban blight goes hand-in-hand with wonderfully preserved vintage retail. That's mainly what we'll be looking at today. 

Double D Diner, Coatesville, PA

You might not tell from first glance, but this building started out as a stainless steel diner, likely in the 40's or early 50's. This is not my area of expertise, but I know there's gotta be someone in the diner fandom that can tell me the make and year of this place just by looking at the remaining stainless panels on the left side. Despite the altered exterior- done in a style typical of Greek-owned northeast corridor diners- the inside remains intact. The addition off to the right has more modern "retro" style furnishings, but otherwise looks very 80's.

Zeke's Fluff & Fold, Coatesville, PA

Going by the architecture, this definitely opened as a grocery store or 5-and-dime in the early 1900's. I suspect it was independently owned, but there is a chance it could have been an American Stores or A&P going way back. It has been a laundromat since 1952 though.

Chertok's Furniture, Coatesville, PA

Being a steel town, Coatesville historically had a large eastern European population, so a lot of older businesses have names like this. Chertok's is actually still open, unlike the sadly now-demolished Lipkin's Furniture down the street. They've been in town since 1902, though their building was either rebuilt or remodeled in the 60's. The brick was repainted red more recently, and the alternating pink and blue letter covers on the signage were replaced with yellow.

Artisan's Craft Food Co-Op, Coatesville, PA

Coatesville is a place that refuses to gentrify. All of Chester County's other industrial towns have been able to keep up an attractive main street at least and bring in a few upscale tenants, but nothing really sticks here. This gorgeous duplex store was built in 1889, and the two sides were supposed to be combined into the Artisans Craft Food Co-Op around 2016. It sounds like the kind of place this building deserves, but they never came to be. The interesting thing about this is that outside of the downtown, Coatesville has serious money. It is surrounded by multi-million dollar horse farms and country estates that share the Coatesville address, but none of those residents seem to want to go into town.

Here's a view inside the left half. It's gutted out, meaning work might have begun on the Co-Op but was never completed... or maybe it was just cleared out to attract new tenants.

JJ Newberry, Coatesville, PA

Newberry's opened here in the 30's, and was expanded a few times over the years. It presumably lasted either as Newberry's or successor Dollar Zone until the chain's demise in 2002. This location has not been able to attract a permanent tenant since, though through the 2000's it was used intermittently as a farmer's market. Years of neglect have taken their toll. It has been condemned by the city since at least 2016, though it still stands.

All things considered, the interior doesn't look that bad given how long it's been condemned. There must be some structural damage we can't see. This portion was an expansion of the existing store, likely made in the 50's.

Here's the main entryway, which sits in a recessed area roughly the length of the store's original frontage. I'm also surprised how the windows are not all boarded up yet... or even the fact that this isn't fenced off.

Here is the original part of the store. Pressed tin ceilings survived all the way to the end. These fell out of fashion once cheaper acoustic ceiling tiles became a thing, which I think marked a major downturn in commercial architecture.

I noticed there's a spot for incandescent bulbs in between each set of fluorescents. I don't quite know the reasoning for it, unless maybe these date back to when fluorescent lighting was in its infancy and they wanted to include a trusted type of lighting as backup.

It's got a huge footprint for just a five-and-dime. This store must have done some serious business back in the day.

The store was also expanded on the right, most likely in the 40's. They took the ground floor of an existing building here. You can see the diagonal from its staircase near the air vent. 

The expansion had its own door to the outside leading to the staircase we just saw, meaning it probably wasn't accessible from the store and the second floor was operated as a separate business, most likely an office.

JCPenney/Coatesville Community Market, Coatesville, PA

Penney's opened here in 1924 and lasted through 1990. It remained vacant, with a very prominent labelscar, all the way up until 2012, when Coatesville Community Market opened. 2012 was towards the very beginning of my retail photography interest, so I just narrowly missed my chance to get some of an early JCPenney that hadn't been touched for over 20 years. It hurts to think about.

ACME Site, Coatesville, PA

ACME opened this location circa 1950, and closed it in 1984. It sat empty for a few years, before finally being demolished in the mid-90's for Rite Aid, which occupies the far end of the site. A large portion of its parking lot remains, but the footprint of the store Rite Aid didn't use remains a grass patch.

Rite Aid, Coatesville, PA

This is Rite Aid's third location in town, which opened in 1994. It replaced a circa-1980 location in the old Woolworth's across the street. It retains its original red/blue stripes décor, but has had its logo updated recently.

Famous Restaurant, Coatesville, PA

On the ground floor of what looks like it used to be a stately apartment building, there's an empty bar. It still has a very 60's vertical sign above it reading "Famous Restaurant," but that has been gone for years. Up until around 2010, it was a later incarnation named Restaurante Famoso, which was succeeded by Kool Bar. It's been vacant since around 2015. In 2019, signs went up advertising Bobo's Restaurant coming soon, but as far as I can tell those plans never materialized.

Mexico Lindo Grocery, Coatesville, PA

By Coatesville Standards, this looked like a pretty nice store. It appears to date back to the 80's at latest, right as Coatesville's Hispanic population was beginning to grow. It closed in 2018 unfortunately, and remains empty.

Sears, Coatesville, PA

Sears here originally opened in the 1920's, and remained until approximately 1970. It was used as an evangelical church and school more recently, and last held a thrift shop and café on the ground floor. The thrift store didn't last long, but the café held on through 2018. It's looking a little worse for the wear now, with multiple windows now sitting boarded up.

Woolworth/Rite Aid, Coatesville, PA

It's got a very 50's front, but the small size of the store makes me think it might be older. Woolworth lasted until the 70's. After they closed, Rite Aid moved from a location they bought from a small chain earlier down the road. They stayed here until the location we saw earlier opened in 1994. It was later home to Bogey's Warehouse, an auction house, until recently. It currently sits vacant.

50's Storefront, Coatesville, PA

I couldn't find what this place was. It's been vacant and boarded-up since at least 2008. I love the wood paneling and terrazzo, it must have looked cool when it was open.

Old Office, Coatesville, PA

Honestly I'm struggling to figure out which empty storefront I got this picture through. I think it's the old Chester Valley National Bank annex building, but this portion looks like it was occupied a little more recently than the rest of the bank. A portion of the building looks like it was occupied until around 2012, so that could have been this. It definitely wasn't bank offices though, they were gone by the mid-2000's.

Brandywine Mansion, Coatesville, PA

There is a smaller potion of the building on the other side of what we see here that was the original house, built in 1739. The part we see here was added on in 1787, when it was bought by the Coates Family, for whom the town is named. The Lukens Family later bought it, and founded the Lukens Steel Mill on what had been the house's farmland in 1816. That mill put Coatesville on the map. It's largest commission came in the late 1960's when they were contracted to produce all the steel members for the World Trade Center. The mill isn't quite as large now as it was then, but nonetheless is still operational. In 1921, a large addition was built onto the "mansion" to serve as the company store. The store closed in 1992, and was demolished in 2009 as the first step in restoring the hou- erm, I mean, Mansion to its historic appearance. Restoration is going slow, but progressing nonetheless. The stucco was removed in 2019 to restore the original stone.

Abandoned Steelworker Houses, Newlinville, PA

Newlinville is little more than a crossroads, and it's right across the line from Coatesville so the two really should be lumped in together. There's an odd little dead-end street going steeply down the hill from the main road, lined with old wooden houses. Some are still occupied, but a bunch are sitting abandoned. 

This one's for sale. It might be a tough sell. 

VAMC Coatesville, Coatesville, PA

This complex was built in the 1920's by the Veteran's Bureau, predecessor to the VA as a veterans' mental hospital. While most mental hospitals in the area have shut down or significantly downsized, this one is still running at full capacity. It's built in the exact same style as the Lebanon PA VAMC, only smaller. Lebanon's primary function is a general hospital, so it needs quite a bit more space.

ACME/CVS, Spruce Hill, Philadelphia

ACME opened this store in the 40's or early 50's, and closed it in 1994. It became a CVS in 2000, who didn't alter the building too much but tacked on their standard awning when they opened.

Lit Brothers Warehouse, Logan Square

As you can probably guess, this isn't my photo. It's a close-up of a 1980's skyline shot I just happened to notice the Lit's name in- even though they had been out of business since 1977! I don't have a ton of information on this building other than it was built on part of the original Baldwin Locomotive Works site in the early 1900's and would have been demolished not long after this picture was taken in the mid-80's. The property is now part of Community College of Philadelphia.

Provident National Bank/Rite Aid, Rittenhouse Square

This location is one of the more unusual Rite Aid's inside. It's got three different ceiling heights, all depending on what was above it. It's also the only Rite Aid I've ever seen with a ceramic tile floor.

Pictures from this tour didn't turn out great, but still okay enough to share. Rite Aid left the walls and ceiling in the original main banking halls alone when they opened, which I really appreciate.

There's a fancy French restaurant on the second floor here, so the ceiling is a little less impressive. I don't know what it would have looked like originally, but considering Rite Aid swapped it out with their 90's standard it probably wasn't anything as impressive as the main area.

In converting it to a pharmacy, they had to cut through a couple walls leading to these awkward decorative column stubs. Also interesting to see is the decorative columns weren't lined up with the actual structural ones.

Here's the side closest to the entrance on Chestnut Street. I'm curious how different this looked when Rite Aid opened in the 90's. The paint scheme isn't from the store's current Wellness look but it at least pairs with it better than it would have with their pastel decor.

Departures Board, 30th Street Station, University City

Around the time the entire city was losing its s#$% over 30th Street Station replacing its iconic 1970's Solari flipboard with a digital display, I found this relic tucked off in a corner. It's definitely from the PRR days, but I'm not sure if it was the flipboard's predecessor or if served another area originally. It looks a little small for the center court, but it's not like they could have someone write on a chalkboard 20 feet up in the air so maybe this was the original.

Wendy's, 30th Street Station

The Station has several food offerings in its south wing. Wendy's is one of the few lucky enough to have its own designated seating area. They opened in 2012, meaning I had definitely seen what was in this space previously but can't remember for the life of me. The station will be staring a massive renovation soon, so chances are this will be forced to close or relocate before long. About 2/3 of the Food Court has already shut down in preparation for it.

Korvette's Sticker

Record stores tend to be a good place to find old price tags. Korvette's was like a Grant's or Ames back in the day. They went under in 1980. The album it's on here is George Benson's Breezin', released in 1976.

Christian Street Baptist Church, Bella Vista

This church was built in 1890 as Church of L’Emmanuello, an Italian Episcopal church. At some point toward the middle of the last century, it became the Christian Street Baptist Church which mainly served those from the then-African American neighborhood to the north of here. The neighborhood is still heavily Italian, but the Protestant fringe groups that popped up within the neighborhood did not last very long. As the area gentrified, the church cashed out and sold to a developer, beginning an incredibly long historic preservation battle. After much fighting, the Historical Commission agreed to grant this building protection- only to reverse the decision the following year on a fishy-sounding legal technicality.

As you can tell from the orange sticker of doom on the front, the reversal was a death sentence for the building. It met the wrecking ball over the Summer of 2018.

Turkey Hill, Downingtown, PA

I shared a couple pictures of this during its remodel back in 2016, which are now hiding somewhere in the blog after I moved everything over here (Thanks, Flickr!). If you remember those, great. If not, this store used to have a pre-Kroger decor but was remodeled into the convenience store version of 2012/Bountiful in 2016. Now that you're all caught up, here's the finished product.

While I'm sad there's now one fewer pre-Kroger Turkey Hill, the new look is an upgrade. I particularly like the wood flooring.

Villa/DTLR, Coatesville, PA

Here's one of the rare Suburban Villas- the only other ones I knew of around here were Upper Darby (which is practically an extension of west Philly) and the King of Prussia Mall. Downtown, they're everywhere. Villa and DTLR merged in 2019. They previously served two different areas geographically, but in an effort to integrate them more about half the DTLR's in their territory became Villas and half the Villas here became DTLR's. This one and Upper Darby have since converted, while King of Prussia kept the Villa brand.

A&P/SuperFresh/Thriftway/Habitat for Humanity & Grocery Outlet, Coatesville, PA

This store opened in the 60's as a Colonial-style A&P. I somehow missed getting an exterior shot, but it has kept the look somewhat intact. It became a SuperFresh in the 80's, and closed in 1999. It was a Thriftway for less than a year after that, and was later split between Grocery Outlet and Habitat for Humanity. 

On the H4H side, some décor from the previous life lives on, albeit painted over. I cannot match this to an A&P décor, so it must have been installed by Thriftway. Thriftway was a low-budget franchise chain, so I'm surprised they remodeled and even more surprised they'd pull the plug that quickly after investing in one.

None of the signage remains, but a lot of pillars and trimwork are still up here. I haven't been over to the Grocery Outlet side, but I think it's safe to assume they wiped all this out.

In addition to the trim, the flooring also appears to be left over from Thriftway. The tile still has some color, so I can take some guesses as to what colors the trim used to be. I'm assuming the walls were originally the beige color in the center of the tiles, while the accents were the deep red.

Starbucks, Rittenhouse Square, Phila

Remember a few years ago when Starbucks closed down their stores for all their employees to do racial sensitivity training? You can blame Philly for that- specifically this location. You'd think they'd try to keep the newspaper article about that out of here, but it was sitting right on the table. The picture in it is the same wall in the background of my photo. The store remodeled in 2019 despite only being a few years old in an effort to disassociate themselves from the events.

I walked by it again a few days later and there was a protest going on outside.

Spruce Food Market, Rittenhouse Square

I put up a picture of the exterior last post, but figured I should swing by again and check out the inside... well that and it was hot out and it was the closest place to me that sold iced tea.

The interior isn't quite as old as the outside, but vintage nonetheless. I don't think this has remodeled since about 1970 and I love it.

It's a tiny store so there's not a whole lot to see, but I'm glad I stopped here.

Wawa, Graduate Hospital

I'm surprised this neighborhood went so long without a Wawa. That issue was fixed in 2018 when they signed on to occupy the retail space at the bottom of a new apartment building. It opened across the street from a 2014-built 7-Eleven which was by far the nicest one in town, not counting their A-Plus acquisitions. 7-Eleven held on for a little while, but closed early last year.

Giant Heirloom Market, Graduate Hospital

A few blocks south of there, Giant announced they would be opening their first Heirloom Market- a small-format store with a focus on prepared and local foods. This was their second attempt at a downtown store after Ahold's Everything Fresh on Walnut Street crashed and burned earlier that year. It opened in late 2018 in a space formerly planned to be another Everything Fresh, and was a success this time. It was followed by 2 more the following year- University City (another never-opened Everything Fresh) and new-build Northern Liberties. A fourth was announced on South Street in Society Hill but those plans have either stalled or fallen through (coming soon signs are still up but nothing has happened). The eastern South Street corridor has dried up in recent years, so that could have changed their plans. More recently, they announced they would be taking the final still-vacant remnant of Strawbridge's in East Market to be their next location.

Christ Memorial Church, Spruce Hill

The Christ Memorial Episcopal Church was built in 1887, and was inarguably the neighborhood's most prominent building. A lightening strike in 2004 brought down their 100+ foot stone steeple, causing millions in damage and forcing the church to permanently close. The main sanctuary was vacated, but a fringe group church took over the attached chapel and its rectory became a rehab center. A stabilization effort was made in 2014, but further restoration plans were cancelled citing prohibitive cost.

The building sat vacant for a few years after that. I think everybody knew what was going to happen, but that didn't lessen the outrage from the community after its demolition was announced in 2018. The owner who had previously tried to save it had given up, and wanted to clear the site to make it easier to sell. It worked, the site sold and construction began on a 7-story apartment building here in late 2019.

The collapsed steeple, some of which is still lying in the grass, used to rise above this corner. The edges of the stump left behind were cleaned up during the 2014 stabilization, making it look a little less broken.

There was a gaping hole in the foundation used to get construction equipment in and out during the stabilization too. I thought it would just lead to the basement so I never bothered wandering in, but I regret it. The sanctuary floor had been caved in by the steeple falling in, and was later removed so wandering in through the basement actually would let you see the entire room. I did eventually get in during demolition, but at that point the sanctuary was already gone.  Add this to my list of exploration regrets.

This side staircase led to the chapel, which was still being used by a small evangelical Hispanic congregation up until demolition was announced. While unfortunately not all of the stained glass was salvaged, I'm happy to report at least the stuff on this portion of the building was- as were the heavy oak doors.

I got these photos shortly after demoliton was announced, so salvage work was starting up. Doors that were saved here were replaced by plywood.

Here's a view of it from across the intersection. The complex was massive, but is dwarfed in comparison to the apartments that occupy the site now.

Man I'm feeling pretty angsty after that last part. We need some grunge.