"Coming Soon -- A Complete Renovation and Modernization of this Property"
NEW CITY, N.Y. -- With half the ghostly "Bradlees" building side logo in tatters, peaking behind florishing trees from the road, the elderly and dilapidated "Mini City" plaza site on the North Main Street-Cavalry Road split apparently has a plan for the future. A nearly forty-year, former Stop & Shop Companies relic hopes to seek new tenants and a new life after its neigh decade of vacancy and ages of age.
Bradlees, the New London, Conn. discount department store chain quickly expanded under the banner of the Stop & Shop Companies in the early 60's with a progressive expansion plan shortly after, opening one of its first New York state outlets in New City back in the mid-1960's, apart of a "Mini-City" with Bradlees, Stop & Shop and Medi-Mart. Sharing success for many years, the plaza fell on hard times when the bond ended in the early 1990's, but even deeper as the decade went on.
Bradlees shared a good level of success in the state of New York, with its earliest sites in Poughkeepsie and New City with one of its last vacant sites in southern-tier Elmira-Horseheads formerly anchoring at the Arnot Mall.
Today, the New City site is only half-diseased. still hanging in there as a well-known town blight.
A former Bradlees, sitting silently, boarded-up against a caramel-toned brick and signature early rockface facade since the liquidations in early 2001 following the chain's December 2000 closure. The encompassing "Mini-City" site, now a mere ghost of its original self is a lot now used for vacationing truckers, breaking construction workers at the outparcel, nearby McDonald's, and patronage to an outdated Walgreens on the far-side of the plaza. Its largest tenants sit rotting away in addition to the long-fallen discounter including a neighboring, long departed Stop & Shop which has become home to a future supermarket before its label-scarred vacancy.
News last year came about with Stop & Shop purchasing the lot to build a new store -- but almost one year later, nothing has happened. Town talk has hopes to build an entirely refaced plaza, complete with landscaping and total facade renovation.
...greeted The Caldor Rainbow upon its recent visitation to one of New York's earliest Bradlees sites in New City (not New York City), which has remained vacant for over seven years since the chain's closure.
NEW CITY, N.Y. -- With half the ghostly "Bradlees" building side logo in tatters, peaking behind florishing trees from the road, the elderly and dilapidated "Mini City" plaza site on the North Main Street-Cavalry Road split apparently has a plan for the future. A nearly forty-year, former Stop & Shop Companies relic hopes to seek new tenants and a new life after its neigh decade of vacancy and ages of age.
Today, the New City site is only half-diseased. still hanging in there as a well-known town blight.
News last year came about with Stop & Shop purchasing the lot to build a new store -- but almost one year later, nothing has happened. Town talk has hopes to build an entirely refaced plaza, complete with landscaping and total facade renovation.
New City "Mini City": Bradlees, a vacant former Stop & Shop and Walgreens
Nearly forty-years later, the fate is still blurred, but not without hope to start anew.
Enjoy our pictures on a beauitful late May afternoon. It may be some of the last shots you see here of Bradlees in New City, thus ending the dead discounter Bradlees' saga in New York as this site edges closer to being revitalized. Luckilly, we were able to avoid a line of questioning when my trusty sidekick picked me up upon the sudden sighting of a local police patrol (bottom right corner of the header photo)!
Currently, there are still a handful of remaining Bradlees in New Jersey including ones in Bordentown, Woodbury, Hazlet and Toms River. The Caldor Rainbow seeks to bring you those updates as the Summer months move along.
For more on The Stop & Shop Companies and "Mini City" sites including outstanding full-color vintage photos of Bradlees in its youth, we urge you to view the excellent Pleasant Family Shopping site, who provides many valuable visuals from their respective eras.
For more info on Bradlees in Connecticut, please visit our Premium Store Locator.
UPDATE: Site entirely demolished.
21 comments:
Toms River NJ Bradlees, is a Boscov's local warehouse...where they keep overstock and send it out to the monmouth mall and Ocean county mall Boscov's. So in theory yees, the building is still standing, and it may still have some old bradlees label scarring inside...i was there in 02 for training classes when i worked for Boscov's
Thanks for the fresh post! Great job as always.
STILL an abandoned and vacant Bradlees AND Foodtown on route 36 in Hazlet, NJ.
I worked in Bradlees Store #868 New City NY. She is a wondeful store. She had bus trafic from W&Haverstraw. Seniors add the family touch,. From 16-? we will train as a team.
John an I are just a dreamer
There is a vacant bradlees in the Riverside mall in Utica New York. The interior of the mall is now dead, but you can see the vaguely see the scarring of the old sign in this picture http://www.theshadowman.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=23&pos=3
Hamilton, (Trenton) NJ Bradlees still sits empty. Since is closing the shopping center has gone down hill. The ShopRite Super Market and PFO Clothing store have closed. I dont ever see this place coming back. They have built a couple brand new Super Complex shopping centers over on the nicer side of town. The Bradlees in Bordentown, NJ is still standing and a few lights are still on inside. I dont drive by there too often but remember a few letters in the sign being lit at night a few years back.
The New City Bradlees was demolished a week ago (this is being posted Nov. 20, 2008)
the whole parking lot area will be demolished..supers top and shop is moving in along with a gas station. CVS will move to where pizza hut used to be and walgreens will be moved out, shuld be done all by summer
The Toms River, NJ location will soon be demolished along with the rest of the old buildings at the Dover Mall, including the old ShopRite building, and The Old Time Tavern. They are supposed to widen Rt. 166 and build a totally new shopping center soon.
Representing Bradlees Store number 116, Coventry Mall location, Pottstown PA. Division - Early Morning Flow Crew.
I loved my time there. Even though the pay sucked, It was the best job I ever had. The people I worked with, some of the managers I worked under, and the overall zeitgeist.
I miss the f'n store more than anything. It was a home away from home.
Maybe the parking is demolished but we know that and still hoping that there's a much better and the best replacement for it. Thank you for sharing.
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