If the excavator and towering mound of dirt are any indication, the next chapter of Muncie Mall’s transformation is about to begin. It looks like its old cinema will finally be demolished any day now.
Continue reading “Coming soon: the final curtain”
Concord Mall felt like a ghost town when I last visited Elkhart and Goshen. Near the end of 2022, back then, the only hint of life was a small cluster of cars huddled outside J.C. Penney! After that anchor pulled out a few months later, most of the mall’s remaining tenants prepared for a future that wouldn’t involve them. By 2025, much of the property had been transformed into a business park. Here’s what the complex looks like today.
Continue reading “Concord Mall today”
Some buildings sell goods. Others sell a feeling. Long before I ever thought about retail architecture and history, one anchor at Fort Wayne’s Glenbrook Square managed to do both: without me ever setting foot inside, Sears was a true landmark.
Continue reading “The landmark Glenbrook Sears, since eradicated”
I drive around a lot, and one of my favorite games is is trying to guess what places used to be. The other day in Elwood, that instinct kicked in hard when I came across Tops TrueValue Home Center. One look was all it took: beneath the signage, it was unmistakably a former Marsh Supermarket.
Continue reading “Not fooling anyone: this hardware store in Elwood used to be a…”
Yorktown-based Marsh Supermarkets entered the booming convenience store market back in 1966. Fast-forward forty years, and they’d built a network of 154 Village Pantries across Indiana and Ohio! Many of the oldest have found second or third lives as something new, and I try to snap a quick photo whenever I drive past one. I absolutely had to when I passed the company’s bizarre outpost in Tipton.
Continue reading “Spotted in the wild: a Colonial Revival ex-Village Pantry in Tipton”
Make that thirteen threads: in February, people in Muncie learned that all of our mall would be demolished, beginning with the long-vacant Sears, J.C. Penney, and old three-screen cinema. At first, the wrecking ball was supposed to arrive in March1. Later, the timeline was pushed back to April2. Now, with two-thirds of May already gone and no visible signs of demolition outside, a strange limbo has settled over the property. Curious, I ventured in. A baker’s dozen of tenants are still hanging on compared to sixty-seven in 2004.
Continue reading “Muncie Mall hangs on by a thread”
I was cruising through the retail apocalypse that is East Washington Street in Indianapolis not long ago when a massive, empty building near the bypass caught my eye. It looked like it had a story to tell, but I didn’t know what it was. I took photos anyway! I later found out that the shell once housed a store you’ve probably forgotten, followed by one you definitely haven’t.
Continue reading “East Washington Plaza in Indianapolis”
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”