Original Tenant: ACME Markets
Address: 3035 US-46, Parsippany, NJ
Opened: 1960s
Closed: 1991-92
Later Tenants: Michaels > subdivided
Photographed: June 2020
Later Tenants: Michaels > subdivided
Photographed: June 2020
Today's second store, which is just to the north of our first stop at Subzi Mandi, was also one of the very early stores that Acme Style covered back in 2009. Since then, the 21,000 square foot building went from a Michaels arts and crafts store to a Blink Fitness and a few smaller tenants as Michaels moved up the highway into a former A&P. The exterior, as we see, was also given a light refresh with a new coat of paint at the same time.
This window, done to match the store's interior, would have displayed the sale circulars for the week to customers before they entered.
Here's a look across the front of the store, which looks to have been altered since the ACME days (those windows look larger than ACME's would have been, and we can see the differences in brick). As Acme Style points out, the entrance and exit would've been on the side of the store instead of the front. That's all for this store, but just half a mile away diagonally across 46 is a brand-new supermarket that we'll be touring on The Market Report tomorrow!
Based on what I read on Newspapers.com, I can report the following:
ReplyDelete*It appears that the Morris Hills Shopping Center opened in 1957. (The first reference to it I could find was in the September 20, 1957 edition of the Paterson Evening News.) Presumably, the Acme was an original tenant of the center.
*The Parsippany Acme definitely opened before November 2, 1958, as a robbery occurred at the supermarket on that date. I'm virtually certain that it's the same robbery that Acme Style wrote about in this blog post:
https://acmestyleblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/going-back-in-time-at-parsippany-acme.html
An article in the November 3, 1958 edition of The Herald-News stated the following: "Police said the men entered the Acme Supermarket at Route 46 and Route 202 by cutting a hole in the roof of the building, then burned off the dial and lock of the office safe with an acetylene torch."
*Along with Acme, a W.T. Grant Co. store anchored the Morris Hills Shopping Center.
*I always thought that "Super Saver" simply referred to a specific store design and was the same thing as the "33M" design. But in newspaper advertisements from 1977, Acme locations are listed separately from Super Saver branded stores. (Note that the same ads applied to both Acme and Super Saver stores.) Anyway, some ads from 1977 classify the Parsippany store as a Super Saver as opposed to an Acme. For those who are curious, a March 27, 1977 ad in the Daily Record lists a lot of Acme locations and also lists the following Super Saver locations: Hackensack, Jersey City, Parsippany, Port Reading, Union City, Wayne, and West Paterson. I have no idea if any of these stores ever had Super Saver signage in lieu of Acme signage, so I'm curious if anyone here knows. I'm also be curious as to when the "Super Saver" branding was discontinued.
*According to the July 25, 1989 edition of the Daily Record, the Parsippany Township Planning Board had approved (the previous night) the renovation and expansion plans that were proposed by the owner of the Morris Hills Shopping Center. The project was completed before December 16, 1990, as that day's edition of the Daily Record showed a picture of the renovated center. (A picture of how the center looked pre-renovation was also shown. And while I am no fan of the center's current appearance, the center looked much worse in the "before" photo.)
*The Parsippany Acme closed on either June 13 or 14, 1992. (The Friday, June 12, 1992 edition of the Daily Record was unclear about the exact date of closure. Though the article about the store's closing stated the store would close on Sunday, a photo of the Acme's windows showed a handwritten sign stating the store would close on Saturday, June 13.) Interestingly, a representative from the shopping center's management company stated that his employer was in the process of negotiating with another supermarket to take the Acme space.
I realize that I've written a lot, but before I conclude, I wanted to pose the following question: When did Acme's North Jersey business start to decline? Acme was clearly in trouble in North Jersey by the early 1990s, as evidenced by the closures of the Chatham and Parsippany stores.
--A&P Fan
In my above post (in the paragraph about "Super Saver" stores), the following typo appears: "I'm also be curious as to when the "Super Saver" branding was discontinued." Obviously, I meant to say "I'm also curious as to when the "Super Saver" branding was discontinued."
DeleteSorry for the typo.
--A&P Fan
Thanks for the history!
Delete