There used to be a website that tracked buildings that were once obviously Pizza Huts. There may still be one today, but there used to be, too. As it turns out, Fort Wayne has its own version of that game: instead of pizza joints, it’s pyramids. Four of them scattered across the city all share the same unmistakable shape! Each started its life as a bank.
Continue reading “Fort Wayne’s pyramid banks”
Despite America’s reputation for the wrecking ball, we’re actually pretty good at second acts. All across the country, old buildings quietly slip into new roles. Some transformations are so seamless you’d never suspect a thing. Others practically shout their former lives from the rooftop. New Castle has a perfect example in Victory Church. It used to be a Marsh Supermarket!
Continue reading “Not fooling anyone: this church in New Castle used to be…”
Just east of Irvington’s carefully preserved core, a sprawling, worn-down shopping center sits quietly along Washington Street. Irvington Plaza doesn’t fit the story its neighborhood tells today, but it once did. Long before the vacancies and the slow decline, the center was one of Indianapolis’s most ambitious retail destinations.
Continue reading “Indy’s Irvington Plaza”
After a recent trip to the moribund Washington Square Mall in Indianapolis, I found myself fixated on the modern Target out front. More specifically, I wondered about what had come before it. Fortunately, I had reason to head back soon after and took the time to look a little closer. An old Target practically stared me in the face! Its oversized, boxy entrance was a dead giveaway that it started life as Ayr-Way.
Continue reading “Ayr-Way East in Indy”
In terms of restaurants, big names tend to crowd out the near-misses. Every once in a while, though, something surfaces that makes you stop and wonder how it ever slipped away. That’s exactly what happened when my friend Dylan stumbled across Golden Dome, a short-lived fried chicken concept from MCL. It seemed poised to be its next big thing! Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
Continue reading “The Golden Dome of MCL”
There was a time when Indy’s superregional Washington Square wasn’t just a mall- it was a destination. Today, that version of the place feels almost impossible to imagine. It was real, though- I swear. I was in the area not too long ago and decided to see how things have changed at the sprawling property. It’s rough but, somehow the mall’s still open.
Continue reading “The state of Washington Square”
Ever stopped in at Frisch’s Big Boy for a Brawny Lad or a nice Swiss Miss? I sure have, at the Anderson, Indiana, location on Broadway Street. Believe it or not, though, Anderson once had three Frisch’s restaurants. One of them even sat right downtown, just across from the Madison County Courthouse. It must have been fun to smash a big burger in the heart of the city.
Continue reading “Anderson’s downtown Big Boy”
A few years ago, people in a distant boardroom studied a map of Randolph County and decided that tiny Losantville, Indiana, was the perfect place to unveil one of retail’s newest concepts- a co-branded Family Dollar and Dollar Tree. It wasn’t one dollar store. It was two. Together. Next to an established Dollar General. In a town with two-hundred people. What were they thinking?
Continue reading “HUBRIS”
As it grew across Indiana and Ohio, Yorktown-based Marsh Supermarkets wasn’t content to just dominate the grocery aisle- it wanted a foothold on the corner. In 1966, the company jumped headfirst into the booming convenience-store business with its Village Pantry division. Many of the oldest examples have found second lives as something else, and I can’t pass one without slowing down.
Continue reading “Spotted in the wild: the first “Victorian” Village Pantry”
Muncie Mall has been a fixture of East-Central Indiana life for more than fifty years. After news broke that the complex will be demolished, my brother and I made one last trip inside for a walk down memory lane. It wasn’t quite the nostalgic farewell we had hoped for. If anything, it was a pretty depressing visit.
Continue reading “One last trip to the Muncie Mall”