Tour of a Caldor

We've got more photographs, following in our saga of recapturing the late Caldor of New Britain, Connecticut all courtesy of Jim.

Over the last week, we've shown you a series of exterior shots of the "swept wing" frontage store, now Jim has submitted a series of shots, most of which were taken after the chain shuttered and cleared out the store in mid-1999, giving us a glimpse into what the store looked like in its last days. If you haven't seen the previous posts, you can do so here and here.

July 4, 1990: Dick Tracy Merchandise on a no-frills endcap display, stand fans behind them on "Super Buy" for $37.99!


August 1989: Big red "SALE" and Caldor Low Price! cache


July 1989: A cluttered mess of a store.

According to Jim, the store was remodeled once, in 1988 and never again. This stage sought to end color-coded departments moving onto a red-orange racing-striped motif and a largely white look, but not without brown liners of the floor and faux-wooden poles. The gaps in between the stripes on the back walls formerly held department names. Here's a slew of photos taken after the store closed up, presumably mid-1999, though not disclosed exactly by Jim.

Mid-1999, post closing: Far-left end, facing the back of the store. This was once home to gifts, furniture, domestics and shoe departments -- now empty and void of fixtures.


Mid-1999, post closing: A haunting view of the shuttered store standing at the front gates, looking to the left where checkout counters once where. Yes, those are faux-wooden poles!


Mid-1999, post closing: Another photo, looking to the left-end of the store. Scars below show where shelving once was. If you looked to your immediate left, you'd see the customer service desk, which was located next to the entrance gates.


Mid-1999, post closing: The jewelry/photography departments.

And lastly here's Jim, who submitted all of these wonderful photos. He wished to be pictured here looking sharp in his shirt-and-burnt-orange/brownish-tie Caldor garb in May 1992, which was just one of the uniforms warn over the years. He is still hoping to unearth a portrait of himself in what he refers to as his "shirt/smock/jacket." His photo was taken at the customer service desk, which looked like it contained wood paneling and an unmistakably giant cash register (which had sweet orange digital numbers).