Photos courtesy of trex354
Last Friday's post of the current Burlington Acme included satellite images of the town's former Acme, the most recent image showing property with the building long gone. Thanks to trex354, we can go back in time and see the old Acme! Abandoned at the time of the photos, the building was a hodgepodge of additions and upgrades. An expansion to the left side of the store can be clearly seen in the photos. The addition appears to have been done between 1963 and 1971 when comparing the satellite images of those years. The brick on the bottom half matches quite well, but the same cannot be said for the top half. The addition here resembles that of the one done to the old Newtown store, even with a slight bump in height along the newer section. Neither store received the "Super Saver" awning when the cursive letter logo was switched out for the fish-eye sign. Stores in Newton and Sparta did receive an awning upgrade when the fish-eye sign was installed. Burlington's awning went the same way the old store in Lincroft did with this rather odd brown box.
Unfortunately signs here were removed rather than painted over. Delivery doors and trash shut along the side as there is a lack of space at the back of the building.
Burlington had the same odd door configuration as Woodstown, possibly due to a lack of a vestibule inside.
Not sure if the mini-vestibules were original to the buildings or added later. The appear to be somewhat of an after thought.
As we learned in the comments section in the current Burlington Acme post, the building remained abandoned until it was torn down in 2006. The property is now home to a Super Wawa.
When I was younger, the front doors were slide doors. When they remodeled they put these doors in. I think the remodel was in the late 80's
ReplyDeleteI'm not 100% sure, but I think the Acme in Sharon Hill PA which closed a few months ago once had the same 80's logo treatment as this Burlington store. The 80's logo remained on several Acme street signs in Sharon Hill and on the inside of the store until the end, but the store had the modern logo for at least ten years. It's ironic that the Sharon Hill store was captured in a 1986 photo of the "Walk Across America" charity event (seen in a Sharon Hill history book) but it still had the 60's/70's logo (although it started with the 50's script "Acme Markets" logo) as of this photo. I think it had to have been later in 1986 that the store got the 80's remodel. But it's possible that the store had the 80's logo on a square panel that was slightly longer than the 60's/70's panel, longer to obscure the holes left from the groovy squares of that era.
ReplyDeleteAlso, isn't it strange that Acme didn't move to the old Food Fair/Pantry Pride in Burlington when they had the chance? I'm surprised they didn't take the opportunity to be in a shopping center in Burlington sooner. Most likely, if the JM Fields there had become a Kmart instead of Bradlees (and many JM Fields were replaced by Kmart), Acme would have taken the place of FF/PP instead of IGA. Perhaps Bradlees, which was a subsidiary of Stop & Shop for a long time, put some sort of lease restriction on the Pantry Pride building in Burlington? Even though Stop & Shop didn't operate in the immediate Burlington area, we know they have a big NJ presence, and maybe they were considering entering Burlington and other areas later. There was a "Jewelcor" catalog store (similar to Service Merchandise) next to the Bradlees in Egg Harbor NJ near Atlantic City, which was a strange choice of anchor for a shopping center like that. And the building seemed like the perfect spot for a Stop & Shop, because the Jewelcor was the only store next to the Bradlees. The size was also about the same as a 60's/70's grocery store.
@Trent, as to why Acme didn't move to the Bradlees shopping center sooner, that space you are referring to was occupied for many years by a Shop n'Bag. Not sure when Shop n' Bag left but probably when the center was redeveloped and Toys R US and Marshalls came in.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it odd that Acme used the same logo throughout the 60's and 70's? I'm surprised they kept the same one for such a long time, considering two things: first of all, a lot of 60's peaked-roof Acmes were expanded or replaced by larger Acmes in the 70's (also many were converted to Super Saver), and Acme had two logos that didn't last long that came after the 60's/70's logo, the first being the red teardrop one in the early 80's, and the second being the red oval in the late 80's. And why did Acme put Sav-on signs on all their pharmacy stores in the early 2000s? That seemed like a stupid waste of money to me. It was one of the last changes to Acme made by Albertsons, so no wonder Albertsons had trouble and had to sell out to Supervalu, which just sold assets to Cerberus...
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