Image courtesy of Rob Ascough
The iconic red oval logo still on the store back in 1998. A few years later it was traded out for the new block letter logo which will never reach the greatness of any of Acme's previous logos. The Jersey City store closed recently and will reopen as a Fine Fare. Click here to view the original Jersey City store posts.
In the "Images of America" book on Jersey City ("Jersey City 1940-1960: The Dan McNulty Collection") there's a picture of the original Jersey City Acme. The store was located at 270 Central Ave, Jersey City. The front is nearly identical to the Acme facade. Today it's the Kennedy Department Store (https://plus.google.com/104121549680868184701/about?hl=en&gl=us). I've never been here so I don't know whether anything Acme is intact inside, although I'd guess not because the store on Garfield Ave was probably a replacement for this Central Ave store. A little bit about the exterior of the store:
ReplyDelete-- The top part of the facade where Kennedy now has their name appears to be brick. It may have been painted over.
-- There was a panel mounted on that part of the facade. It had the Acme script logo ("Acme Markets") written across it.
-- There was a vertical ACME sign reaching from the top of the windows to above the top of the store's roof.
-- The store was still in operation as of 1960. By that point, it looks like the store was in pretty bad condition.
-- The website is http://www.kennedyds.com/. Based on pictures on the website, you can't tell whether there's anything left on the inside from the original supermarket.
-- Kennedy Department Store opened in 1974, so the Acme had to be gone by then. Since you mentioned the curved ceilings in the Garfield Ave store were common to late 70s-early 80s stores, that would almost line up with the date when the store opened, if it was indeed a replacement store for this Central Ave. store.
Either the facade that's there today is extremely similar to the original facade, or it IS the original facade.
Somehow, in going through the Images of America Jersey City book, I missed a photograph of yet another Jersey City Acme, this one at Five Corners (the intersection of Summit, Newark, and Hoboken Avenues). The Acme was at the corner of Summit and Hoboken, according to the caption. The building is really interesting. It has a tower, but not like the standard Acme tower (not like the Penndel or Maple Shade stores, but wider). It had the name A C M E spelled out in capital letters going down the tower, in script. SUPER was on the building below that. You can only see Acm on the store itself, but it appears to be the standard script logo. This book is definitely worthwhile as it has two great pictures of Jersey City Acmes!
ReplyDelete