Mystery Store, Euclid Ave, East Cleveland OH

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Daniel
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Mystery Store, Euclid Ave, East Cleveland OH

Post by Daniel »

Anybody know if this was a grocery or not?

Image
rich
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Post by rich »

This one's easy. It was a long running Pick-n-Pay. Opened around 1960/61 and was still operating in the late 80s. This design (with the jagged roof) was used for several freestanding stores built around the same time: 79th & Hough (taken over by an independent after the '66 Hough riots) was one and I think they used it for one or more West Side stores, I think the one on Detroit near Warren, which I believe was later built out. The big "jag" over the entrance is a recent addition. Take that away and put picture windows where the white space is and you have the original front.
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Daniel
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Post by Daniel »

Thanks for solving that one so quickly! The Detroit Ave. store was indeed rebuilt or expanded into a modern Finast/Tops, and is now a Giant Eagle. I found a picture fo that corner from the 50's that shows the Kroger store Giant Eagle was originally in, and the Pick And Pay sign is in the same place the Giant Eagle sign is today.
LadyNoir
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Post by LadyNoir »

rich wrote:This one's easy. It was a long running Pick-n-Pay. Opened around 1960/61 and was still operating in the late 80s. This design (with the jagged roof) was used for several freestanding stores built around the same time: 79th & Hough (taken over by an independent after the '66 Hough riots) was one and I think they used it for one or more West Side stores, I think the one on Detroit near Warren, which I believe was later built out. The big "jag" over the entrance is a recent addition. Take that away and put picture windows where the white space is and you have the original front.
Wow, Pick-N-Pay, really? My parents always did their groceries there but we primarily went to the one on St Clair somewhere between 67th street (where we lived) and 72nd street (where my cousins all lived) So I don't remember any PNPs looking like that. My parents probably never shopped at that one because I would surely remember those zig zags! Beautiful modernist structure.

Since the blocked windows were pointed out, why is it that almost all former grocery stores that are brought to life as something else get rid of all those picture windows and block them all up with whiteboard or ugly mismtached bricks? I don't get it. I have seen tons like it.

Great photo once again, Daniel!
Toby Radloff
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Post by Toby Radloff »

In "changing" inner city neighborhoods, often times the large windows of supermarkets and other retailers would get bricked in or boarded up, sometimes with smaller glass about 6-8 feet up from the sidewalk, in order to make the stores more secure in case of an urban riot. In the 1966 Hough and 1968 Glenville riots in Cleveland, as well as in other urban riots, supermarkets were often looting targets. Two supermarket buildings at East 131st and Miles Avenue had their windows bricked in during the 1960's, when that neighborhood was changing; Miles Bi-Rite (originally a Kroger and later a Savmor) and a former Pick-N-Pay that later became an independent supermarket, and is now a Family Dollar. My grandfather, when he lived near East 93rd and Miles, often shopped at the Savmor, which is also where he cashed his pay checks on his way home from work (he once worked for Magic American Chemical when it was on nearby Caine Avenue, and stayed there even after Magic moved to Beachwood.) As neighborhoods (and some inner ring suburbs) change, the stores' windows are more likely to get bricked in, boarded up, or have scissor gates or metal shutters installed...and new-build supermarkets and other retailers would have little or no exterior glass.
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Post by Toby Radloff »

Also, after Pick-N-Pay closed that East Cleveland location, a Revco (later a CVS) drugstore was in that building, which replaced a smaller Revco at Euclid Ave. & Taylor Road. Family Dollar moved in after CVS closed. The store once had "PICK-N-PAY" in white letters inside blue squares under the roofline. The Lakewood Pick-N-Pay at Detroit Ave. & Bunts Road, before Finast expanded and remodeled it, looked similar (that store, after Tops left Ohio, became a Giant Eagle.)
Toby Radloff
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Post by Toby Radloff »

Also, I think all three of these styles of Pick-N-Pays (Euclid Ave, Hough Ave, and Lakewood) were originally Foodtown stores. It was posted earlier (either here or at Remembering Retail) that the Hough Ave. Pick-N-Pay was originally a Foodtown. Foodtown later sold out to Wrigley (a Detroit chain), and later closed...most Foodtowns became either Pick-N-Pays or A & P's.
rich
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Post by rich »

Could have been Foodtown--this one was a little over a mile away from an existing Pick-n-Pay at Euclid Green (later Green Light) center and not too far from one at Shaw & Hayden, both of which closed in the late 60s. It would have been odd for them to build stores so close together. OTOH, Foodtown really established itself in early suburban shopping centers--Lake Shore & E 228, Shoregate, Eastgate, etc. this would not have fit with their strategy.
rich
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Post by rich »

I think there was at least one other zigzag Pick-n-Pay. The old Buckeye Road store also had this design. Given that Pick-n-Pay opened both neighborhood and shopping center stores through its history, I tend to think that these were Pick-n-Pays from the beginning, although they are odd for a chain that otherwise never really spent much on distinctive architecture.

As for covering up windows, even in the suburbs, it became typical to phase out large plate glass windows in the mid-60s. Probably had to do with improvements in lighting and the need t use growing store fronts for shelving merchandise. When Fisher remodeled the Shoregate store in the mid 60s, they removed the windows entirely (an earlier enlargement of the store used half sized windows) and the Fazio prototypes from that era onward had only small windows.
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