Unfortunately named women‘s wear retailer DressBarn is slamming the door on 650 retail stores in 45 states as sales decline and branding loses focus.

Barn Storm

DressBarn made its debut in 1962 – a time when American women were flooding into the workforce and unlike the era’s Mad Men, had a limited choice of workwear options from which to chose from. Founder Roslyn Jaffe’s bright idea was a hit then… but a Misses now. Kudos to Flickr member Mike Mozart for the two images above taken in early April of 2014.

Agri Culture Wars

In 1982 the company was listed on NASDAQ (symbol DBRN) and in 2011 the reorganized firm was renamed Ascena Retail Group, Inc. DressBarn was flying high… or was it? By almost any measure, the American economy has been on a roll for the better part of the past decade. Yet on May 21st of 2019, Ascena announced the imminent closing of all 650 DressBarn stores. By the way, Flickr member stevetursi‘s image above illustrates what must be the cheesiest “corporate headquarters” we’ve ever seen. Just sayin’.

Not Makin’ Hay

The announcement deals a haymaker (pun intended) to roughly 6,800 employees with the pain spread nationwide as DressBarn has stores in 45 states. “This decision was difficult, but necessary,” explained Steven Taylor, chief financial officer of Dressbarn, “as the DressBarn chain has not been operating at an acceptable level of profitability in today’s retail environment.” One might say management is closing the (Dress)Barn door after the horse has escaped but that would be too obvious, so we won’t. The store above, located in Torrington, CT and snapped by Flickr member JJBers in mid-2018, appears to be getting the jump on the mass-closing.

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Dis Dressed Dressbarn Buys The Farm

Liquor by any other name may sell the same but these closed and abandoned ‘package’ stores couldn’t succeed in what most say is a can’t-miss business.

The OTHER White Castle

What the heck is a “package store”, anyway? Why not call a spade a spade? Blame the lingering effects of the Twenty-first Amendment that repealed the Eighteenth Amendment (aka Prohibition) but left alcohol marketing in the hands of individual states. Local idioms and societal culture led to retail outlets being named Package stores, ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control) stores, and South Carolina’s famous Red Dot stores.

Flickr member Robby Virus captured the shuttered store above, located in Omaha, Nebraska, in July of 2016. Sad to say that even including “package” and “liquor” on the sign couldn’t stanch the flow of red ink.

Don’t Drink OR Drive

Prohibition was literally the Law of the Land for over a decade – and for some states, even longer: Mississippi didn’t relax its state-wide booze ban ’til 1966. Other states such as Connecticut went the Package Store (“packie”, in local parlance) route, as shown in the above shot of an abandoned gas station / package store combo (“two great tastes that taste great together”) snapped by Flickr member Greg (63vwdriver) in the summer of 2016.

Dispeptic

What isn’t rusted is faded (and vice versa) at this VERY long-abandoned market and package store in Belcher Square, Great Barrington, Massachusetts. How long? Well, that particular Pepsi logo was used between 1940 and 1950 so… yeah. Flickr member Lisa DeLange (LisaSez) captured the desolate, post-apocalyptic storefront in December of 2009.

Coors’s, Foiled Again

You won’t find any Coors (or any Coors-competitors) in this ramshackle abandoned package store in Federalsburg, MD. Plenty of free parking, though… just don’t park a hot vehicle over those mangy weeds. Flickr member Adam Myers (adamkmyers) snapped this way overgrown and woefully understaffed wobbly-pop shop in the fall of 2016.

Packaged Deal

This blockhouse-like abandoned package store in Watertown, MA would make a great anti-zombie fortress, even without shelves stocked with “adult beverages”. We can’t say why this structure, seemingly built to withstand an atomic apocalypse, couldn’t withstand the mid-2000s retail apocalypse. Flickr member ChinatownKicks recorded the concrete cube corner colossus for posterity in May of 2008.

Joe’s Deli-cate Condition

It’s a Package Store, it’s a Deli, it’s… the poster child for abandoned shops! It’s not certain which of the two buildings dispensed drinks while the other served eats but both have seen better days, MANY days ago. Likely the same can be said for “Joe”.

Flickr member DjD-567 visited the decrepit and decayed short-bus of strip malls in Brimfield, MA back in October of 2011. “The inside is in much worse shape, from what I saw through the window,” states the photographer. Contrast that with the still sharp-looking sign out front – Joe shoulda got his sign guy to work on the interior.

Flown the Coop

Signs are known for their staying power; sometimes a store’s sign manages to hang (literally) around longer than the store itself. Such was the case at Cooper’s Package Store on New Park Avenue in Hartford. CT. Nothing lasts forever, mind you. “I’m so glad you got a picture of this sign,” stated one commenter at Flickr member Pixel (improbcat)’s post dated September 17 of 2008. “I went there to photograph it a few weeks ago and it’s gone.” One might say, this package has been de-livered, de-listed, and deleted. We’d buy Pixel a drink in tribute to their excellent timing but… oh.

These closed and abandoned pet shops eerily echo with the long lost sights, sounds and smells (oh, those smells!) of what were effectively urban retail zoos.

Why Not Both?

It’s a pet shop, it’s a seafood store, it’s… both? It would appear so! Sure, Donna’s Aquatic Pet Shop and Lee’s Seafood Co., Inc may sport different signs but, as Flickr member Fuzzy Gerdes‘ horrified friend Erica reportedly and repeatedly shouted, “It’s the same phone number!” Our lead image of the fenced-over Chicago store(s) dates from April of 2008 while the second photo from Flickr member crowbert depicts a slightly more active scene from a couple of years previous.

Old Age of Aquaria

The hell is an “aquaria”? Also, shouldn’t that golden creature on the sign be a fish and not a bird? Looks like a “screaming chicken” from a Trans-Am’s hood ended up as roadkill and was painted over by a lane-line paint truck. So much for this broke-ass Bird of Paradise… Paradise Pets, to be exact. Flickr member Jon Southcoasting captured the closed not-quite-fish-or-fowl shop from Shoreham-by-Sea, UK, in April of 2014.

Reptile Needsssss

Much like a snake shedding its skin, Godiva Reptiles in Coventry, UK seems to be sloughing off its signage to reveal – no, not its final form – a previous incarnation as a video rental store. Unlike the apocryphal serpent, however, the sign’s piecemeal decomposition was a harbinger of things to come. According to photographer and Flickr member Hazel Nicholson, “As of May 2017 the shop has closed down and the former owner has been found guilty of trading without a licence.” Guess the most important “reptile need” is a license to trade in reptiles. Who knew?

Our Fur Feathers

According to photographer and Flickr member shrinkin’violet, “the number 9 in the telephone number on the signage is different from the rest. This was probably added after 1995 when Bristol received the new area code.” In related news, this rather bland “petfoods” (is that even a word?) shop in beautiful downtown Bristol, UK, managed to stay in business for well over 20 years. Still plenty of fur-lorn feathered customers (or freeloaders) hanging around outside the shop, though.

Zoohaus, Raus!

Sorry, Fur & Feathers, but the pet store longevity prize goes to the former Zoohaus-Altrock, a pet shop in Wiesbaden, Germany. From 1919 to 2011 – an incredible span of 92 years – Zoohaus-Altrock pet shop supplied the local Hessians with “erlebniswelt heimtiere” (“adventure world pets”) typified by the intrepid tuxedo kitty doing an adventurous spider-cat imitation just to the right of the sign. Flickr member Arjan Richter snapped the shop’s charming two-piece (three, including the cat) signage in March of 2011.

IAMS Abandoned

Ah, the pride of Pittsgrove Township… seriously, that is one sharp shop! From the outwardly-angled brickwork buttresses framing the store entrance to the snazzy Mid-century Modern eggcrate-grill window framing, this shop has got it all. Well, except for a tenant, of course. Flickr member Thomas captured this former Jersey store (near what appears to be a Jersey shore) in June of 2008.

Non-Starter

STOP me before I sell pets again… or buy POTS back from previous customers, whatever. Kudos to Flickr member Victor Reynolds for posting an explanation: it seems the store’s original name was “PET STOP” but once the store stopped selling pets, they removed the “PET” from the sign. You’ll find this abandoned pet shop in Pohatcong, New Jersey, where the photographer stopped to snap the sign in the summer of 2015.

The former Sears Crosstown Building in Memphis, TN was a high rise, Art Deco retail showcase designed to meet the needs of a car-driving America on the move.

Things were looking up back in 1927. The Roaring Twenties were at their roaring-est and Ford had finally introduced a replacement for the Model T, the car that brought affordable transportation to millions of Americans. The country’s blossoming love affair with the automobile was one of the main reasons Sears, Roebuck and Company chose a relatively open and undeveloped portion of downtown Memphis for a huge, all-in-one mail-order processing warehouse and retail store. Our lead image comes courtesy of Isaac Singleton Photography and dates from February of 2010, proving how well things were built back in the good old days. Being built to last is a double-edged sword, however.

Massive Memphis Edifice

The Sears Crosstown Building opened on August 27th of 1927, only a couple of years after the catalog-sales-based company opened their very first retail department store. The 14-story-tall building’s 650,000 square feet of floor space made it the largest building in Memphis. Yes, it was a big deal… 3,000 people attended the opening ceremonies and by the end of the day about 47,000 people (roughly 1 out of every 4 Memphians) had paid a visit. The future looked bright for Sears, and so it was… for a while.

Crosstown (Floor) Traffic

Sears spent a cool $5 million on what was to be their eighth regional distribution center, raising the roof in an astonishing 180 days! Credit construction workers working six days a week and 24 hours per day for the record-breaking erection. Planners didn’t skimp on the amenities, either: Sears Crosstown boasted a soda fountain, a luncheonette, a cafeteria exclusively for employees, even an in-house hospital.

Oh Say Can You Sears

For nearly sixty years, the “Sears, Roebuck and Company Catalog Merchandise Distribution Center and Retail Store” (aka Sears Crosstown) served shoppers from Memphis and its surrounding suburbs in style. The bloom was coming off the rose by the early 1980s, however, and Sears Crosstown couldn’t escape the parent company’s excruciating slow-motion decline.

Tennessee Value Authority

The retail store that occupied the building’s lowest levels was closed in 1983 and a decade later the catalog distribution center shut its doors, leaving this majestic Memphis landmark eerily abandoned. It wasn’t until 2010 that efforts were made to revitalize the grand old edifice, which by that time had suffered significant deterioration. The Crosstown Arts project was established with the mission of creating a “mixed-used vertical urban village” on the site while preserving as much of the Sears Crosstown Building as possible.

Pros & Concourses

Crosstown Concourse opened in August of 2017 after almost five years of reconstruction – compare that with the mere six months required to erect and outfit Sears Crosstown ninety years earlier. Keep in mind that modern renovators had to clean out, repair and re-purpose a structure subjected to many decades of use and further years of neglect.

The Call Is Coming From Inside The Building

Flickr member Chris Wieland visited the Sears Crosstown Building on May 30th of 2013, roughly one year after the massive cleanup and clearance operation had begun. Wieland’s hauntingly beautiful images depict a formidable structure in the midst of being picked clean in preparation for a grand rebirth.

Blue Light, Special

At the time of Wieland’s visit, most of the open areas had been cleared out though many of the smaller offices, woodwork and plumbing had yet to be gutted. While the Electronic Age was still decades away, early 20th century buildings like this one were extensively wired for electrical lighting and telephone communications.

Floor Vote

Wieland’s timing was fortuitous indeed, allowing fans of architecture and abandonments to enjoy the “best of both worlds”… the bleached bones of an ancient edifice laid bare, and the characteristic cluttered debris and detritus that offer unsubtle hints of a long and honorable history.

The Trump name may be famous but it isn’t always connected to the business dynasty founded by Fred Trump, as these 7 Trump-named businesses illustrate.

If you thought the Trump dynasty was fueled by real estate, well… yeah, that’s actually correct. “Trump Oil”, on the other hand, isn’t (or wasn’t) even American. According to petroliana collector Harvey Thiessen, the Trump Oil Company operated a small oil refinery in Morris, Manitoba, about 40 miles (60 km) south of Winnipeg. Drivers in the pre- and post-war era could fill ‘er up at Trump Oil pumps and score a souvenir calendar with a built-in thermometer.

Trump Hair Magic

Hey, is that Kenny Blankenship from MXC standing outside Trump Hair Magic in Kyoto, Japan? Right you aren’t, Ken! Someone needs to bring Jimmy Fallon to this place so he can muss up the wigs in the store’s front window. Flickr member sprklg snapped the shop’s weathered storefront in June of 2016.

Trumps Inn

“Trumps Inn is a ‘no tell motel’ on U.S. Route 301 in Orangeburg, South Carolina,” according to Flickr member Gerry Dincher, who photographed the inn’s bland and generic sign in early 2018. “I should have taken a picture of it (the inn), too,” added Dincher, “but the place gave me the creeps.” Better the creeps than the cooties, or so they say.

Good thing fellow Flickr member Brian Copeland (blcope) captured the above wide-angle view and by the way… where is everyone? Alternative facts state the place is doing a yuuuge amount of business, especially compared to Obamas Inn.

Trump Optik

Sees her by the… hmm, never mind. Trump Optik is located in Bali, Indonesia, and judging from the professional-looking sign it may be part of a larger chain of optometrist stores. Flickr member Ya, saya inBaliTimur saved the snazzy shop sign for photographic posterity in March of 2018.

Doner Trump

As if the charitable Trump Foundation didn’t have enough legal problems… hold on, this is “Doner Trump”, not “Donor Trump”. Also known as Shawarma or Gyros, Doner kebab is a Middle-Eastern fast-food meat cooked on a spinning vertical rotisserie. If the shop-owners want to appeal to The Donald himself, however, they’ll need to rename it McDoner. The sign boldly features a likely (ya think?) unauthorized image of Donald Trump, as snapped by Flickr member LoveBelfast Belfast in June of 2017.

So who’s Donald Trump gonna sue first, Doner Trump from Belfast or Döner Trump from Germany, land of Trump’s ancestors? The above shop in Bielefeld uses a Statue of Liberty graphic on its sign, rather than the Belfast store’s Trump photo. Either way, it seems Europeans equate America with Trump and Liberty… though never the twain shall meat.

Trump Café

“Many people think he is a joke, but he is an inspiration for me,” explains Saiful Islam, owner of the Trump Café in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “I did not start the business with any specific thought in mind,” adds Islam, “just the fact that I am a big fan of US President Donald Trump.” Customers who share Islam’s admiration of the 45th president can order a signature Trump Cocktail and pose for photos with a life-size cardboard cutout of Trump. Flickr member Leonardo Assad Aoun (leonardoassad) posted the above image of the storefront sign in July of 2017.

Rugs For Trump

While not a Trump-named business per se, the Shambala Furniture Warehouse in Hong Kong gladly enlisted Donald Trump to promote the “hair-raising discounts” at its going-out-of-business sale. Unlike the previously featured café owner, however, this shop seems to be trolling Trump on an epic scale: a portion of the proceeds from rug sales will be donated to Syrian refugees via UN agencies Trump has recently ceased funding.

Last but not least, the sign’s “Rugs for Trump” header features an unflattering photo of Trump with his “rug” blown askew by the wind. Sad.