Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Former Acme – Bath, New York



Courtesy of John from WISL1480.com

Location: 380 West Washington Street, Bath, NY

I came across the former Bath, New York Acme way back in 2009. It was among the very first former stores I really wanted to visit. The perfectly preserved exterior had me imagining the interior would be virtually untouched as well. Add to that, a former pitched-roof store is located just a couple doors away! All these years later, pictures of the store arrived in the Acme Style inbox thanks to John who has brought us tons of Acme treasures over the years. Turns out the interior is as awesome as I was hoping it would be!  


A classic 33M store here, although the actual square footage is certainly less. I would guess it is more in the 25,000 to 28,000 range. Most likely an earlier model as the interior doesn't have many of the design features that became standard in the 33M models.






Delivery door/emergency exit in the Bakery department.


Pretty sure there was a speaker for outdoor paging of employees or a fire alarm. Not sure at all.


Classic entrance and exit with the brown and beige panels in between. The weekly circulars would have been posted in the center panel.


Acme's flooring is still intact! We're getting a glimpse of the classic Produce floor here with many more views to come.


Magic carpets still in place inside the vestibule but have been removed from the outside.


Wow! You can change the name on the front of the store but it's always going to be an Acme!




Pretty great shape all these decades later.


The Produce aisle was pretty narrow here. Notice the ceiling height is consistent throughout the store. In the official 33M stores, the ceiling in Produce and the Bakery were lower, often with curved corners.




Heading back to the Corner Deli spot. Notice the gray strip on the Produce floor. Most likely a scar from cases being removed.


I suspect a new rear wall was constructed here. Probably bumped further up from the original location to hide all the scaring on the floor from the various cases that ran along the back.


Looking from the former Dairy side over to Produce.


Heading to the Bakery Department in the front corner.


No sign of an in-store bakery here. The floor in this area would not have survived so nicely especially in the far corner had there been one. Acme was pretty late to the in-store bakery game. They were generating such high profits from their centralized bakery, there wasn't much point in having each store bake their own. Of course they had a change of heart by the time the 80's remodels were rolled out.










Along the side and back of the store...





AERIAL VIEWS


By today's supermarket standards, the newer store is extremely small, yet from this vantage point appears huge compared to the original store. Looks about 3 times the size! I would say the pitched-roof store here was one of the smallest models Acme used probably topping out at 6 aisles.


The pitched-roof now totally disguised.



HISTORIC IMAGES


1992
Unfortunately, 1992 is the furthest back we can go with historic imagery. Acme was still in business at this point and probably remained open until 1994 when Acme sold 45 of their New York and Pennsylvania stores to Penn Traffic. 


2002
The newer Acme building abandoned in 2002.


Thanks to John for delivering yet another classic Acme for our enjoyment!

1 comment:

  1. We always used to stop at the McDonald's in this shopping center on the way to camping trips in upstate NY. I remember this being a P&C Foods store. Apparently it was the last of those stores, closing in January 2012.

    Had no idea at the time that it was an Acme, though nowadays I would recognize the 33M model.

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