I live near Stroudsburg, PA. On Route 611, there’s a small building with a suspiciously HoJo cupola on the roof. My theory is that it could have been a HoJo that closed after Route 80 was constructed. Can’t find anything on Google. Have to talk to one of the older natives, I guess.
Had a Kmart in my hometown that closed quite a while ago. But there was a Kmart 2 towns over (only a 10 minute drive) that hung on until the Covid era I’m guessing??? I would make fun of the fact that it had a pay phone in the lobby. 😆
And let us remember that HoJo's hired both Jacques Pepin AND Pierre Franey as major hands-on consultants to up its restaurant game...don't know if it helped as we never ate at a HoJo, but I always found those hires as an interesting bit of "fine food" evolution along the interstates.
There was a KMart in Montclair NJ that was barely clinging to life the last time I went inside in the summer of 2019. A few years later (I’m assuming it closed once and for all during the first Covid wave of 2020) Essex County converted it into a mass vaccination site. I vividly remember signing up to get my very first vaccine and seeing KMart as a location option and being a bit flabbergasted. It was surreal to be in the then empty (and converted) space. I would imagine tens of thousands of people got vaccinated in there. I personally got my first two and my booster shot there. The space now sits empty again but with thousands of the vaccine time stamp stickers on the outside of it.
Why are these monstrosities - along with their grander cousins, the abandoned shopping malls-- not repurposed into homeless housing? They have partitioned spaces for dormitories, social services offices, and medical facilities, food courts and central gathering places, and acres and acres of free parking where those so inclined can set up their tents and purloined shopping carts. . .
Surely county zoning regulations could be revised to utilize and patrol these spaces rather than allow street people to camp on doorways and sidewalks?
Oh no! “Too big to fail” means “too big to be allowed to fail because of the systemic consequences,” not “this entity by virtue of its large size could not possibly fail.”
I live near Stroudsburg, PA. On Route 611, there’s a small building with a suspiciously HoJo cupola on the roof. My theory is that it could have been a HoJo that closed after Route 80 was constructed. Can’t find anything on Google. Have to talk to one of the older natives, I guess.
Had a Kmart in my hometown that closed quite a while ago. But there was a Kmart 2 towns over (only a 10 minute drive) that hung on until the Covid era I’m guessing??? I would make fun of the fact that it had a pay phone in the lobby. 😆
And let us remember that HoJo's hired both Jacques Pepin AND Pierre Franey as major hands-on consultants to up its restaurant game...don't know if it helped as we never ate at a HoJo, but I always found those hires as an interesting bit of "fine food" evolution along the interstates.
There was a KMart in Montclair NJ that was barely clinging to life the last time I went inside in the summer of 2019. A few years later (I’m assuming it closed once and for all during the first Covid wave of 2020) Essex County converted it into a mass vaccination site. I vividly remember signing up to get my very first vaccine and seeing KMart as a location option and being a bit flabbergasted. It was surreal to be in the then empty (and converted) space. I would imagine tens of thousands of people got vaccinated in there. I personally got my first two and my booster shot there. The space now sits empty again but with thousands of the vaccine time stamp stickers on the outside of it.
Fascinating topic!
Why are these monstrosities - along with their grander cousins, the abandoned shopping malls-- not repurposed into homeless housing? They have partitioned spaces for dormitories, social services offices, and medical facilities, food courts and central gathering places, and acres and acres of free parking where those so inclined can set up their tents and purloined shopping carts. . .
Surely county zoning regulations could be revised to utilize and patrol these spaces rather than allow street people to camp on doorways and sidewalks?
Oh no! “Too big to fail” means “too big to be allowed to fail because of the systemic consequences,” not “this entity by virtue of its large size could not possibly fail.”