Road Trip

Just returned from a brief road trip in the environs of Washington, Baltimore, and Wilmington DE, and here are a few photos for your amusement. This wasn’t really a “research” trip, so I didn’t come back with too much.

121407-edmonston

I think this was my favorite find. It was at Kenilworth Avenue and Riverdale Road on the border between Edmonston and Riverdale Park MD. I’m guessing it began life as an Acme, but I’m not sure. A sign on the other side suggests that it’s about to be converted back into a supermarket.

121407-pennfruit

This one was pretty groovy as well. It’s a former Penn Fruit on Governor Ritchie Highway in Glen Burnie MD.

121407-acme

This one is undeniably an Acme, located on Concord Pike in Wilmington DE. Interestingly enough, I’d never visited an Acme, a Pathmark, a Shoprite, nor a Genuardi’s, and that’s a good part of why I extended my trip slightly northward to Wilmington.

121407-giant

This was an odd find. I’d been to this Arlington VA Giant in 2004, but apparently I hadn’t caught it from quite the right angle before, and therefore hadn’t realized that it seems to be a converted A&P location. Alas, the 1950s pylon Safeway next door (still open in 2004) is now gone, replaced by an uninspiring construction site.

121407-safeway

Speaking of Safeway and Arlington, isn’t this a tasteful renovation? No, really…

One thought on “Road Trip

  1. Kevin

    February 9, 2015 at 4:38pm

    I came across this page in a random image search of my old hometown, Riverdale, MD. The first image, at the top of this page, was an old furniture store for as long as I can remember and my memory of it being a furniture store goes back into the early to mid 1970’s. In the 1980’s I used to work at a small pizza shop that was just across the street. I see that it’s an Animal Hospital of some sort now. Back then, it was Jon’s Pizza and Crabs A Plenty (Crab house).

    I showed this image to my mother, who grew up in Hyattsville, not far from this location (and also lived in an apartment building within walking distance of this location in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s) and she doesn’t remember it ever being a grocery store. I see that it is now a “Megamart International Food” store. Just to the left, in that picture, is Saint Bernard’s Catholic church and school. I played football for their CYO team in the early 80’s and even won a championship with them.

    There is (or was) an old Safeway very close to this location though, on Kenilworth Ave. It was an operating store in the 70’s and if memory serves, it was converted to a headquarters office sometime in the 80s. Looking at Google Maps, it now seems to be something named “A&S Dept & Furniture Store”.

    Driving up Riverdale Road, (going to the left and up the hill in the image at the top of this page), and going under the B-W Parkway bridges is East Pines Shopping Center. In that shopping center, there used to be an IGA grocery store that my mother used to shop at a lot up until it closed in the mid to late 70’s or very early 80’s.

    Further down the road used to be another Safeway, but it closed down due to rampant shoplifting in the late 80’s or early 90’s. They tore it down and built a Rite-Aid in its place.

    I left Riverdale when I joined the Army in 1988 and have only visited the old stomping grounds a few times in the nearly 30 years since then. So seeing that top picture was an instant memory spark when I spotted it.

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  2. jim

    December 20, 2023 at 8:17am

    This first picture in Riverdale park, was originally a grocery store many years ago called “Grand Union”.

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    • Ken

      September 1, 2024 at 6:32pm

      If you are referring to 5801 Riverdale Road as being originally a Supermarket, than you must be talking about a time before the late 1960’s to early 1980’s because I attended Church at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church, which shares a parking lot with the store, and from the late 1960’s to at least the mid 1970’s, possibly even into the 1980’s, that location was a Marlo’s Furniture store.

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