An Ames Anomaly - MICRO UPDATE
FEBRUARY 28, 2018
Hi everyone!
Just a quick microupdate with some interesting relics of an old Ames store in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware!
As many of you may remember, the Ames Department Store chain was a Connecticut-based retailer that operated in the northeastern United States. After financial struggles in 2002, they shuddered all of their stores, leaving them vacant.
One such store was in Rehoboth Beach, DE.
While doing research on the location, I was having difficulty pinpointing exactly where the store used to be. The 2002 store locator for Ames left the address for the store simply as 'Route 1, Rehoboth Beach, DE', and for those of you that know Rehoboth Beach, that's the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack. Coupled with the fact that the retail landscape of the area was constantly changing, I figured it was more than likely the building still wasn't standing (and it wasn't)
So I asked my grandparents if they remembered where the store was, as they moved to Rehoboth Beach in 1997. In fact, they did, and they told me it was located behind a CVS/pharmacy off of Route 1.
I went back through some historical aerial imagery of the site, and sure enough that's where it was!
Interestingly enough, though, that's not what I really wanted to talk about
There are some cool remnants left of the store today that I really wanted to highlight.
As I mentioned earlier, the structure is no longer standing and was demolished in 2005 to make way for a new condominium complex. When naming the roads, however, the planners left one big reference to Ames there. The main road that is used to access the complex from the main road has been named 'Ames Drive' in reference to the now closed department store that once stood there
It's nice to see these kinds of references still in place today!
Well I hope you enjoyed! Next time I'm down in Rehoboth Beach I'll be sure to take some pictures of the former Ames site
Until next time,
It's always neat to see streets names after defunct retailers survive today as a reference to the site's past. In Orlando there still is a "Woolco Way" leading up to one of the city's former Woolco stores, 34 years after that chain's demise in the US!
ReplyDeleteAs silly as this may sound, *thank you* for posting this info! I was a young teen in that area in the late 90s and remember buying a Sega Genesis 3 and copy of Frogger (the last genesis game they made) at that exact Rehoboth store. I still have the console & game, and while I remembered the inside of the store I had long ago forgot the name of it. You've solved a silly old mystery for me and I'm delighted by it.
ReplyDelete