Thursday, March 15, 2012

Caldor Rainbow Returns

Steely Dan took almost 20 years to come back with Two Against Nature. Supertramp lost the high-pitched guy and still came back. Sure, they haven't put out an album in almost ten years but I digress.

After two years of hiatus, The Caldor Rainbow will return. 

In our absence, the world has continued to spin. Thus, many of our reports that made up our foundation have been left to hang in the balance to lack of updates and on those reports and, of course, spam. But before we delve into new reports, we must assure you that we are remodeling our focus. 

Not too much, though or else we'd lose sight of The Caldor Rainbow.

For a few months now, I've been debating what to do with The Caldor Rainbow with regard to not only my readers but presence we have across the internet. I've even accepted the site as a past time pleasure, a bygone project since neglected, indefinitely abandoned leaving it to have its stamp on the internet for those looking for tidbits of info on defunct retailers no other friend sites offer. But after years of shuffling, it's been decided The Caldor Rainbow will live on officially now to exist as a dual entity; here on Blogspot and on Flickr

On our Flickr page, we have over 5,000 exclusive pictures, many of which not shared on the website or in our reports. Since June 2007, following the demise of Yahoo! Photos, we've chosen Flickr (and not just because they gave us 4 months free) as a host to reach as many people as possible that share a passion of retail and photography. We've made plenty of friends and allies along the way. Flickr allows our reach to millions and expedites our update process without the package of a researched update thus enabling more expedited updates for our readers.

As for the Blogspot side, updates will continue within the mold of our traditional focus but ultimately our most valued updates are our readers' input and submissions. Without you, we would have never seen the New Britain Caldor that inspired this blog to be where it is today. Our vastly researched Connecticut Store Locators on the big three keeps the former presence of these fallen retailers as a testament to their legacy.

Tracking The Retail Rainbows has been our goal since September 2006, as one would imagine a lot has changed almost 6 years later. Our beloved dead retail triad Caldor, Bradlees and Ames former locations are all but dried up, reported on or have been forgotten in the black hole of time. Actually, there are some still around, even if one of Connecticut's last reminders of Bradlees will be gone by Summer (or so the city of Manchester hopes). That story and more in the next few months...

So let's get some things out of the way first with a few lightning updates!

That rare Super Stop & Shop we reported on two Marches ago has been, like almost all existing Super Stop & Shops, has been remodeled and is no longer "Super". We were very lucky to capture what we did in the last months as a richly-preserved late 80's store. That dinosaur Kmart in Watertown, CT is still timewarped, a now 24-year old Toys 'R' Us in upstate New York is still preserved, the Crystal Mall has been renovated after 16 years, and the (Westfield) Trumbull mall now has carpets. We lost many more retailers we didn't think like Borders and Bernie's but Walmart and TARGET still comprise our current discount retail rivalry. Triple trump retailers Kmart, Sears and JCPenney (recently rebranding, again) is still around so, really, all's right with the world.

Before you declare us Milforded, we encourage email submissions and questions to XISMZERO@yahoo.com

Above all, thank you to all my readers for putting up with the silence. We hope you still stick with us even through the blackout. The rainbow is here to shine its earthtones once again.

14 comments:

Colin said...

First post!

Glad I bookmarked this site's feed when I found it in early 2011. I look forward to future updates, hopefully more than two years apart.

Heather Green said...

OMFG Glad to see you back! Looking forward to the new stuff.

PS: about the spam, Blogger does have a captcha you can use and you can make it so comments have to be moderated after X amount of days.

je said...

Glad to see you back; this was a very interesting blog to read. A small favor can you add my retail blog to your link page? Thanks http://southernretail.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Glad you're back ;) Love you
MEK

greg8370 said...

you're alive! welcome back!

Rich said...

Welcome back!

Lots to talk about the old Bradlees plaza on Park Street in Hartford!

Anonymous said...

Love this sight. Glad it's back.

Spectrum270 said...

Thank GOD! I thought you had teleported to Saturn or something. Let's see some posts about ShopRite or Ames. And avoid the Eggman and the Walrus!

GeorgeL said...

Nice to see you back Nick. I stop in monthly to check for updates and today I got a nice surprise! Time to read! Always enjoyed taking a few minutes out of the day to take a trip down memory lane....

Looking forward to it again!!!!

GeorgeL said...

Nice to see you back Nick. I stop in monthly to check for updates and today I got a nice surprise! Time to read! Always enjoyed taking a few minutes out of the day to take a trip down memory lane....

Looking forward to it again!!!!

Paul - Kmart World/Retail World said...

Glad to see a fellow Ames Fan Club member back in the blogspere again. I'll be looking forward to your new updates. If you wouldn't mind could you add my blog to your links list? I've had yours linked on my site for years. Anyways, good luck and if you need anything let me know.

Jeff Morris said...

Nicholas, I'm sure you're aware of this, but the one thing that really bugs me about the Blogger format is that none of the comments have a date stamp that includes the year! All those "time" stamps are meaningless without knowing what year they're from.

This photo just appeared online and I was amazed to see that Carl Bennett still looks good! Take a look:
http://www.dariennewsonline.com/news/article/Stamford-Hospital-s-Bennett-Cancer-Center-3588909.php

JPM

Sarah Mayhem said...

glad you're back! one of my favorite blogs :)

Anonymous said...

Happy to see the site is back I found it nearly 2 years ago just before the hiatus and spent almost an entire day just reading all the old posts which then made me think of all the old retail places here in south jersey. Wish the best and will be glad to see more.