Original Grocery Tenant: A&P
Address: 3516 Birney Ave, Moosic, PA
Opened: 1960s
Closed: 1969
Later Tenants: A-Mart (1969-after 1971)Photographed: August 12, 2020
Today's snapshot is the former A&P of Moosic, where we visited a store that's held a parade of different banners, ending up with The Fresh Grocer, just down the street. As we can tell in the above picture, the roughly 17,000 square foot store was a centennial store when it opened in the 1960s, then became an A&P-owned A-Mart Discount Foods location in 1969, which was in business at least through 1971 (although I can't find any ads that list the location after that year). After A-Mart, I'm not sure if there was another grocer here, but it eventually hosted a variety of other tenants including a mattress store and a car dealer, which it remains today. I mentioned the ShopRite in Moosic a lot in the Gerrity's post, and tomorrow we'll see the ShopRite just before it opened on The Market Report!
I have it noted as closing in 1975 (when A&P pulled out of Scranton) and probably opening before it first landed in the city directory listings because they were inconsistent for Moosic.
ReplyDeleteBefore I reply, I would like to thank the Groceteria webmaster for all his hard work.
DeleteAlthough Zachary already knows this, I want to tell the Groceteria webmaster that Newspapers.com is an outstanding source for information regarding opening and closing dates of supermarkets. (Note that Newspapers.com does require a paid subscription. Also note that the subscription automatically renews unless you inform them that you are cancelling it.)
After spending some time on Newspapers.com, I ascertained that this A&P opened on March 18, 1969 and closed on July 12, 1975. I did not research when (or even if) this A&P spent time as an A-Mart, although the newspaper article discussing the supermarket's closing identified it as an A&P and not an A-Mart.
I did not realize this at the time, but I mistakenly posted as "Anonymous" in the above post. I go by "A&P Fan" on this blog. Although I have not posted on the Groceteria message board in a long time, my user name is "Max."
DeleteI used to shop at one of the last Centennials to close: the former A&P at 110 Washington Street in Morristown, NJ. There was some insightful discussion about that store on the Groceteria blog (back when the A&P was in operation):
https://www.groceteria.ca/board/viewtopic.php?t=1246
If you are unaware, that former A&P is now a Whole Foods supermarket (which opened on April 22, 2015). Zachary wrote this terrific profile of the Morristown Whole Foods:
https://www.marketreportblog.com/2021/12/tour-whole-foods-market-morristown-nj.html
As I noted in one of the comments to Zachary's blog post, I have never seen a Centennial store that was so beautifully modernized as the Morristown A&P-turned-Whole Foods (one which still retains its classic exterior look).
Thanks. I had actually gotten my information on this store's closing date from Newspapers.com; that's how I knew that most of the A&P locations in the area closed in the 1975 meltdown.
DeleteThanks for your comments and the history here!
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