Grocery Archaeology

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 400 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1990s Closed:  2007 Later Tenants:  Big Lots Photographed:  February 3, 2021 This 50,000 square foot supermarket was built in the 1990s as a Big V-owned ShopRite, relocating from a beautiful store of half that size down the street. In 2001, ownership was transferred to SRS when Big V went bankrupt. This store was relatively short-lived, having closed in 2007 when ShopRite moved into a former Stop & Shop, directly across the street from their old location. On Flickr, Jack Thomas captured this store several times in its history, including with its original facade and after a renovation . Also of note is that a location was built to replace this store , but when Stop & Shop closed very close to this store, ShopRite moved there instead. The almost-ShopRite -- of 85,000 square feet -- is now partially a Planet Fitness . (He also has a huge library of retail pictures in this a...

Original Grocery Tenant: Big V ShopRite Address: 303 NY-211, Middletown, NY Opened:  1950s Closed:  1990s Later Tenants:  non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Welcome to Middletown, New York's first ShopRite! The store opened in the 1950s with a beautiful sweeping arched roof and an all-glass front wall, which amazingly is pretty intact these days . The 24,000 square foot store, as far as I can tell, was built as a ShopRite owned by Big V and then closed in the 1990s when Big V moved down the street to a much larger, new-build location. That's what we'll be seeing tomorrow!

Original Grocery Tenant: none; supermarket previously planned Address: 99 E Broadway, Monticello, NY Opened:  n/a Closed:  n/a Later Tenants:  vacant Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Welcome to... not a grocery store! The Apollo Plaza just outside of Monticello, NY, was constructed in 1983, bringing around 200,000 square feet to eastern Monticello. It quickly declined for several reasons, and the final tenant moved out just 20 years later. Any number of proposals have been made over the years, and it's been sold repeatedly, but no real movement has happened. I thought the expansive parking lot and wide mall storefronts looked particularly eerie with a coating of snow over everything. I always like to see abandoned things, especially large ones like this, but it must be an eyesore for locals. Zoom in below and you can still see the APOLLO sign in the middle, along with a Van Heusen sign next to it. A few years after the mall closed, a local developer (whose family ow...

Original Grocery Tenant: Great American Address: 396 Broadway, Monticello, NY Opened:  before 1980 Closed:  after 1980 Later Tenants:  subdivided Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Today's post is a very quick one, with a look at a 15,800 square foot former Great American supermarket in downtown Monticello. The setup, too, is a bit like a Grand Union with its angled parking spaces and downtown location, but I don't know whether this was ever a Grand Union. But in 1980, this was a Great American, a New York cooperative or chain of supermarkets. There's only one left -- up in Prattsville, roughly 50 miles north. Monticello has another supermarket we're going to check out tomorrow on The Market Report !

Original Grocery Tenant: Great American Address: 100 Pike St, Port Jervis, NY Opened:  mid-1990s Closed:  late 1990s Previous Tenants:  WT Grant > Kmart (closed 1993) Later Tenants:  subdivided/non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Next to the Save-A-Lot we saw yesterday is this 46,000 square foot former WT Grant, later Kmart which ultimately relocated to Matamoras . For a brief period in the mid-1990s, the space was occupied by a Great American supermarket. It sat vacant until work began in 2015 on the renovation of the strip mall. These days, the space is occupied at least in part by a VA clinic. That's all for the city of Port Jervis itself, and up next we're headed northwest along the PA/NY border and the Delaware River for a couple days' worth of independent supermarkets. Our first is on The Independent Edition on Monday!

Original Grocery Tenant: A&P Address: 107 Jersey Ave, Port Jervis, NY Opened:  between 1957 and 1963 Closed:  unknown Later Tenants:  Subdivided - Save-A-Lot > Port Jervis Marketplace > non-grocery tenants Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Port Jervis these days has only one supermarket, a Save-A-Lot in a strip mall downtown. We'll check out that store tomorrow, but here's a look at another former supermarket just down the street from yesterday's . This 15,800 square foot A&P Centennial was expanded later to its present 25,000 square feet, but I'm not sure whether A&P did the expansion or not because I'm not clear on when the A&P closed. We do know, though, that it opened between 1957 and 1963 based on aerials. I also unfortunately don't know what occupied the space when A&P closed, but it later was subdivided with Save-A-Lot taking the largest spot. Save-A-Lot closed in 2008 but later reopened, then closed again between 2015 and 2018....

Original Grocery Tenant: Grand Union Address: 191 Jersey Ave, Port Jervis, NY Opened:  between 1957 and 1963 Closed:  by 2001 Later Tenants:  Dollar General/subdivided Photographed:  February 3, 2021 Our first Sullivan/Orange county store is here in Port Jervis! Remember when we saw Matamoras just recently, with the Grand Union and the Price Chopper ? We're a little over two miles east, across the river, from Matamoras. This building bears some similarities to A&P Centennials, but is just different enough that we can place its lineage to Grand Union and not A&P. The 23,000 square foot store, which is close to a square rather than the more typical rectangular building shape, was built between 1957 and 1963, and may have closed when the more modern Matamoras store opened in 1993. At some point after that, it was subdivided and now is mostly occupied by a Dollar General. So as far as I can tell, this was never an A&P, something that apparently confused Jo...

  Happy new year, and welcome back to New York state! We are here to visit quite a few stores beginning in Sullivan and Orange Counties. We're about 75 miles northwest of New York City, just about 50 miles east of the Wyoming Valley, and around 90 miles south of Albany. These counties are mostly very spread out with large amounts of wilderness, but there are also some larger towns like Liberty, Monticello, Port Jervis, and Middletown, and one larger city, Newburgh. We'll be checking out stores in all of those places, but also in the tiny towns around the counties. We're going to start in Port Jervis and loop through Sullivan County to the northwest, stopping in Eldred, Narrowsburg, Callicoon, Jeffersonville, Liberty, Monticello, Rock Hill, Wurtsboro, Middletown, Newburgh, and Warwick. It's a good survey, but there's plenty more out here we're not seeing. But there's a lot of variety and it's going to make for an exciting couple of weeks! We're jumpin...