Abandoned Acme! Washington, NJ

I always knew there was an Acme in Washington New Jersey but had no idea where Washington was. Thanks once again to Live Maps, I was able to track this Acme down. Sorry to see it has long been closed and abandoned. A 50's/early 60's styled store that has very little done to the exterior since it first opened.


Looks like the green section was added on in the early 90's. I am guessing that this store had the fish-eye sign up against the brick (as can be seen in the Egg Harbor City pictures). Looks like the sign-age went from the fish-eye right to Acme's new block letter logo. Both the fish-eye sign and red-oval would have been placed in a cut out section.

Another difference from most North Jersey stores is that the window on the right side were never replaced with opaque panels. This was done to allow for shelving to be put in on the inside and for the produce or floral departments to be expanded. At this store, they simply painted the inside of the windows just half way up.


Entrance and Exit to the left. These types of Acmes were most commonly free-standing stores. Looks as though there may have been some sort of drug store next door.


I never know what I am going to see on the interior when I walk up to these abandoned stores. This one has the checker-board arch decor of the early 90's. That look is still in use at the store in Manasquan NJ. But at this store only blue and green are used for all the departments. In Manasquan the Meat and Dairy departments are checked in red and dark blue.


This decor package followed the 80's remodel. But it looks like this store was skipped in the 80's as it doesn't have the checkerboard floor. Must have gone from the 70's colonial decor right to this. Acme stuck with the arch look for 3 rounds of interior designs. The next look came in the early to mid 90's in newer stores. Much more delux decor of course but arches nonetheless. I hope to do a post soon just dedicated to Acmes's interior looks over the decades.


The green lights were over the free standing produce tables. That dark area on the bottom left was probably the greeting card rack. "Lunch Meats" to the rear of the first aisle.


The deli was straight to the back. The orange panels are, of course, remnants of the 70's decor.


"Meats" to the rear. Cool blue light bars over the registers. I only count 7 aisles in this store, the first one only being half an aisle.


"Dairy" to the left. The orange stripe is left over from the 70's dairy decor.


Office/Customer Service. The classic Acme clock appears to have been removed or maybe was never at this location. The clock was built into the wall over the customer service area on the Dairy aisle wall. It might be blocked by that wall that has been put at the start of the dairy section.


Must have been a pretty busy store with 6 registers in place til the end. Most stores went down to 5 or 4 to expand the sales floor space.


Cool decorative awning hanging by the front windows.


Maybe this was the floral/plant area.


All the holes in the green section seem to indicate that this store had the latest Acme signage.


Another unusual aspect of this store is that the Produce department backed right up to the exterior wall. There was no backroom like in most stores of this style. There must have been some building restriction here that caused Acme to alter it's standard design. Here the backroom sticks out from the rear third of the building. You can see this better in the areal shot down below.


Great sign at the entrance of the parking lot.


Here you can see the unusual backroom area sticking out from the building. This does not look like an addition close up. Looks original to when the building was first built.


Here's a look at the old school ShopRite on the opposite end of town. I drove past and even pulled in but didn't go in the store. Looked very unappealing. I find ShopRite to be the least interesting grocery store chain in existence. Apologies to any ShopRite fans who may be reading this.

UPDATE 2.10.10: For not being a high volume store, the tiny little Washington Acme did get some surprising attention from the company. Was still looking good back in 1999...

Images above courtesy of Rob Ascough