Big Y World Class Market
President: Charles D'Amour
President: Charles D'Amour
Opened: 2011
Previous Tenants: Unknown > Waldbaum's
Location: 772 N Main St, West Hartford, CT
Photographed: August 2020
Contributor: Lars D.
Our first Hartford area store is this former Waldbaum's which was itself a former barrel-roof store (in the style of Penn Fruit, although I don't believe they had any stores in this area). The Big Y looks pretty nice, but the best part? The Waldbaum's decor is still almost fully intact inside... simply with additional Big Y decor on top of it! Check out the interior here. The department lettering on the storefront is also left over from Waldbaum's, simply with the plastic colored panels replaced red instead of green. The Big Y today is 42,000 square feet.
Nice to see all the old Waldbaum's stuff intact!
ReplyDeleteFor sure! Someday, when we get up to Massachusetts, I have a Big Y photographed that was previously a Hannaford and before that a Shaw's, and at the time of my photographs it still had 100% of its Hannaford decor intact with the flooring left over from Shaw's! (I also have other Big Y locations that are less historically exciting.)
DeleteThis opened as a Grand Union in 1956. Waldbaum's bought it in the 70s and operated it as Food Mart (a Springfield, Mass area-based chain that Waldbaum's owned). Grand Union also sold their Hartford area stores to Waldbaum/Food Mart except for a store in Middletown (where Food Mart opened one of their own) and Cromwell.
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