9200 Madison Ave, Cleveland, OH

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Daniel
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9200 Madison Ave, Cleveland, OH

Post by Daniel »

Was this school originally a grocery store? The entrance looks supermarkety.

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krogerclerk
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Post by krogerclerk »

I would say with 99% certainty it was originally a supermarket. The style of the building is generic 50's-early 60's chain supermarket. Toby and Rich know the Cleveland area well and may well be able to identify the store. Of the larger chains, Kroger and pre-centennial A&P fit the style, though it looks large for their stores of the era and the amount of glass that would have been originally is generous for their stores of that era-A&P and Kroger had some of the darkest stores in those days. I'm not sure how extensive National's presence in Northeast Ohio was in that general era. Thorofare, from Pittsburgh also had stores in Northeast Ohio and I'm not as familiar with their store designs. Many of the independents and regionals have much larger and more modern stores than the larger chains. The single door entrance on the left appears to have been a separate shop, which could have been a very small pharmacy/drug store, hair salon or barber shop, cafe, liquor store, or small boutique rather than part of the store.
Toby Radloff
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Post by Toby Radloff »

This store was originally an A&P, then became a Revco (later a CVS) in the late 1970's, after A&P closed that location. This particular location, when Revco opened there, was promoted as "Revco's 1000th Store", and a plaque was posted near the main entrance. Also, at the time, it was the largest Revco in square footage, and when it opened, it had an optical department and an ice cream parlor near the main entrance...the first and only time that a Revco served ice cream...sort of a flashback to the soda fountain days. However, the optical department and ice cream parlor lasted only a couple of years. This was also probably the first Revco to have a convenience food department, as well as beer and wine. There was also a large general merchandise section. Most Revcos during that era were in much smaller locations, and future stores that opened since had the expanded square footage and departments. A few years after the Revco/CVS merger, the store closed after CVS built a free standing unit with a drive thru pharmacy a few blocks west at Madison and West Boulevard. Life Skills Academy, an alternative charter high school for at-risk or failing students, opened in the former A&P/Revco/CVS earlier in the decade. Whether the "Revco's 1000th Store" plaque is still on the building I don't know offhand.
Toby Radloff
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Post by Toby Radloff »

Another Life Skills Academy is in a former Kroger supermarket on Larchmere Avenue...it was known as Woodland Avenue when Kroger, and later, Drug World, was there. Drug World was another supermarket-sized drugstore that also carried grocery, beer/wine, and general merchandise. Drug World was an independent, and this was its only location. The address is East 123rd and Larchmere, near the Cleveland/Shaker Heights border. The section of Woodland Avenue, roughly between Martin Luther King Boulevard and the Shaker Heights border, was renamed "Larchmere" (after what Shaker Heights called the street) after the nearby neighborhood became gentrified, with trendy restaurants and shops.
rich
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Post by rich »

Larchmere has been "Larchmere" E of MLK for a long time, well before gentrification. That Kroger replaced one on E 116th St closer to Buckeye that burned down in the early 60s.

As for National--they only had stores on the periphery of the Cleveland area: Painesville, Northfield, and North Ridgeville, except for one in Berea. All of those stores were legacies of Loblaw's Youngstown division (which had been independent of National until the early 60s) and reflected Loblaw prototypes, which were a bit different from National's. Loblaw's Buffalo division (consolidated with National around 1970) had stores further east in Ashtabula & Conneaut.
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