Here's a look at another former Grand Union, also in the Adirondacks. The small town of Schroon Lake, NY, is a vacation center and has one supermarket -- Tops, operating in a building built as a Grand Union. It closed in 2001 and was re-opened as Tops before they sold this location as part of a bundle to C&S Wholesale Grocers, which operated the store as a Grand Union Family Market. It was bought back by Tops sometime around 2012.
Looks like this store was built with a slightly more deluxe facade than most Grand Unions, and it matches the personality of the small town well.
It appears to be a later one based off the green trim. Perhaps it replaced an older location on the site?
ReplyDeleteYep, this looks like a later Grand Union. Historic Aerials shows the building looking very new in 1995, and not present in 1971 (though there is a much smaller building on the property that looks a lot like an old supermarket). That building dates back to about 1950.
DeleteIt could either have been an old A&P or older Grand Union. A lot of the GU stores that didn't close (mostly Adirondacks) appear to be very small 1960s* and earlier locations that were partially renovated in the 1970s with mansard facades.
DeleteAnd speaking of newer Grand Unions, the Bolton Landing one caught fire in 1997 and was rebuilt the following year, hence the current one having green trim and flooring. The original GU was around 30 years old at the time.
Thanks for the info!
DeleteI'm in the processing of uploading my archives of several Adirondack Tops stores on the blog. Already uploaded one of them.
DeleteI'm looking forward to it!
DeleteThank you for the info on the Grand Union in Schroon Lake. This was a weekly destination when my wife and I were young parents and summered there with our 3 children. Thank you for a wonderful walk down Memory Lane. God bless you for your work.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed it, and thanks for stopping by!
DeleteNot exactly the same as other stores, but if you remove the peaks and curve the front windows a bit it would be - maybe a bit earlier like 1980's style (which could be if the views skip)?
ReplyDeleteOr they did build (or rebuild) it in the 1990's and the small town just wouldn't approve a design like what they had elsewhere (the sloped glass roof front vestibule style)?
It doesn't look the same as the one mentioned above that was rebuilt in Bolton Landing, though.
You make a good point. To me (and I have little to no firsthand experience with Grand Union or commercial remodeling, but I enjoy talking about them anyway...) it looks more like a design that had evolved from the 1980s look you mention, rather than a store that had that look and then was remodeled. In other words, it looks to me like this store didn't get the 80s exterior, but instead got a similar one that the designers based on the 80s exterior. But I don't know for sure.
DeleteIn the 1980s design, did the awning/overhang slope down to the sides like that? I'm pretty sure I've only ever seen it sloping straight down to the front, with a vertical wall on either side.
Just trying to look at some photos, and many do look as you describe with the straight sides. A couple (former Ballston Spa location and the Rotterdam store which was converted to their Hot Dot format for a time) do have somewhat of slopes to the sides. I'd suspect Ballston was the right time, the other store was likely an older store renovated/expanded in that timeframe, as the sign frame not shown was definitely an old style the one time I was there in the new format.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Grand-Union-name-fades-into-history-4643709.php#photo-4697605
(Not sure if you can access this article, but photos of these locations and more with the straight sides are shown).
Awesome article, thank you! Rotterdam is interesting as it looks, from this image, just like the Grand Union/Stop & Shop in Basking Ridge, NJ, which I photographed a while back but haven't posted yet. Ballston Spa looks a lot like this location for sure, if it were stripped down to just the basics.
DeleteI LOVE the picture at Clifton Park with the shopping bags from Beacon Supermarket (and luckily we can actually see the address, 1028 Beacon St in Brookline, MA, which was later Johnnie's Foodmaster and now Whole Foods). Totally unrelated, but that Whole Foods is a great but tiny store, like 4 aisles. I wonder whether Beacon Supermarket was affiliated with Grand Union, or maybe was just also a C&S customer?
This was the period when C&S controlled what was left of Grand Union and they often used whatever was around like that with the bags. After all, if it's your store why spend money to buy others if you have or can get odds & ends like that cheap(er)?
DeleteAlso, at least one store (Hoosick Falls, NY) often had a variety of other store brands, particularly in perishables, as I believe that was their way of clearing out stuff that was getting close to date (and that may have been the nearest, or one of the nearest, stores to the Keene, NH HQ for C&S).
That makes sense, thanks for the information!
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