Torrington

[XISMZERO]

Upon my fourth photographic trip to the still vacant Ames in Torrington I do have some updates to reveal. Let me just start by giving my take on this particular store. This store, to me, has always been interesting of the remaining Ames stores I've seen and documented given it's history.

This was a former Caldor (and something else before that most likely) as I've learned but I think there's more to this building. It's always looked to me that possible doors and entire window panes have been sealed over due to all the discolored bricks and off-colored paint on the walls. Remarkably, there are no readable label scars beyond Ames but this far-off old building has plenty of markings and such.

[XISMZERO]

A prime shot of the Ames label scar. I'll bet there's some vestige of Caldor underneath this green facade...

[d_fife]

Originally posted by XISMZERO
Upon my fourth photographic trip to the still vacant Ames in Torrington I do have some updates to reveal. Let me just start by giving my take on this particular store. This store, to me, has always been interesting of the remaining Ames stores I've seen and documented given it's history.

This was a former Caldor (and something else before that most likely) as I've learned but I think there's more to this building. It's always looked to me that possible doors and entire window panes have been sealed over due to all the discolored bricks and off-colored paint on the walls. Remarkably, there are no readable label scars beyond Ames but this far-off old building has plenty of markings and such.

interesting looking store, and I heard it will be demolished into lowe's some day soon. what an old looking caldor and I bet the caldor had the rainbow look. nice pictures XISMZERO
, keep them rolling and you could see some labelscar in that old ames / caldor.

[XISMZERO]

A look inside the window and look what I found... The former signage taken down from this Ames! While only the "A" was visible, all the lettering was there!

[XISMZERO]

Interesting thing about this Ames are the "Entrance" and "Exit" signs which are still up there! In all the stores I've seen, I've never seen entrance signs before.

[powersbt]

Just Looking at the dots on the Ames Label Scar, it appeared to me that it faintly showed the old School Caldor style Lettering.

Originally posted by XISMZERO
A prime shot of the Ames label scar. I'll bet there's some vestige of Caldor underneath this green facade...

[XISMZERO]

Here's the very difficult to see "Ames This Exit" signage which was definitely poorly placed. You can barely see it off the only vantage point which is Southbound Route 8 as it's blocked by trees. I tried to zoom up from a distant point in the parking lot rear.

[XISMZERO]

Originally posted by powersbt
Just Looking at the dots on the Ames Label Scar, it appeared to me that it faintly showed the old School Caldor style Lettering.

I suspected that had to reveal something when I saw it... but there's absolutely nothing visible apart from the Ames scar from my own eyes.

[XISMZERO]

Here's the plaza sign which excludes any mention of Ames on the otherside of the plaza. As you can see, this sign is most likely original as in never renovated and it definitely looks it. The "Super Big Y" is also an outdated sign who now simply goes by the name "Big Y Supermarket".

[XISMZERO]

The rest of the plaza from the Ames side. This plaza has some small time vacancies but is one of the only shopping plazas apart from a nearby Kmart and CVS down the road a bit. I'm not sure what a "Grog Shop" is and as far as I know, it's seriously taken them a half a year to take down that "Dollar Tree" sign.

[XISMZERO]

An Ames shopping cart sighting right out in front of the store. Having been here many times and never seeing it before I wonder where this came from...

[XISMZERO]

The really old, bizarre looking facade is really falling apart.

[nascarkevin]

The store is being torn down. I worked there when it was Caldor and ames. I closed Caldor, opened and closed Ames. I never thought that store would go. It was a Sears befour Caldor. The subaru dealership in front was the auto shop for Sears. My mother worked for Caldor for 17 Years in that building.  If you go around back there are probly caldor and Ames carts in the woods, kids alway pushed them there. Also the cart that was there came from Joann fabrics. They had in there back room for stock.

[XISMZERO]

I did a report about this location and the entire plaza on my website with updated (snowy) pictures.

This was one of my favorite existing stores but probably not because it was an Ames for a few short years. Because of this site, I became aware of its existance and visited it about 5 or 6 times every now and then over the course of 2006 and 2007. This building had an intruging, antique look in a town, Torrington, that fits that image just right.

So there was a SEARS here at one point? Someone on my website claims this became a theater then Caldor (and there were claims the Caldor had a giant "C"-shaped rainbow i.e. *the* Caldor rainbow used during the early 70s until the 80s on the wall even though it updated to the red-accent signage later) then an auto parts store then finally Ames.

Mark, who posted on my site said this:

"Mark said...
When it was Caldor it had the 1990s latest years of signage (the white on red logo with the wedges in the D and the R) This was a Caldor since at least the 1970s (the building inside distinctly had the rainbow "C" near the front entrance still there in the early 1990s however today it has been since repainted over by the Ames signage) One thing to note the Torrington Caldor closed years before the company went out of business around 1993-1995 I think it closed. (I remember this because when the Torrington Caldor closed I thought the whole company went out of business,but I found out later on in the 1990s it was still around) Ames bought the property and opened it's store in 1999 and closed in 2002 so that Ames was only in business for three years but it was vacant for five,pathetic isn't it?"

Nascarkevin, can you give me further details of how this Caldor looked over the years?

[C. Fontaine]

Here are some priceless photo's taken by one of our members.

http://www.amesfanclub.com/archive/main.php/v/ames/stores/CT/torrington/Ames+Destruction/

[XISMZERO]

I swung by this afternoon. It's probably half demolished by now. I was floored when I got see the interior and remaining decals. Give me a bit to post some of mine.

[Amish79]

Here is also a link from the local news paper about the demolition (and some of the other building projects in Torrington!)

http://www.registercitizen.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18299197&BRD=1652&PAG=461&dept_id=12530&rfi=6

[nascarkevin]

Hi everybody, Caldor never closed that early I worked there from 1997 till 1999 when it closed. Ames opened 3-4 months later in 99. The movie theater was where the jo-anns store was not in caldor/ames.  When it was still caldor it looked like the 70's never remodeled. when Ames came in they didnt spend much money on the store justed painted the walls and redid the floors. The worst part of caldor was the ceiling and ames didnt even redo it. Its sad to see her go, I spent a lot of time there when I was kid, because of my mother and worked there for 5 years of my life also. But you have to think its good in a way because frist caldor went out of business, then ames. The building has a curse and now its a fresh new start. Anyway I hope someone posts more pics, I live in Bristol now and dont get to torrington much anymore.

[XISMZERO]

Shameless self-promoting brought to by The Caldor Rainbow. Here's my full story with pictures and photo albums. Enjoy!

http://thecaldorrainbow.blogspot.com/2007/06/ames-demolished-at-torrington-parkade.html

[C. Fontaine]

Wow, it seems Torrington and Meriden are meeting similar fates around the same time, nice write up!  Xismzero, if you want to, send those pics over to amesfan@gmail.com and I'll throw them up here as well.

[TRJ22487]

I can back up the claim that this was a Caldor until at least 1998 because this was the last Caldor I ever went to. My Uncle lives in Torrington, I definitely remember going to the Torrington Caldor in 1998 and finding a very outdated Nintendo dogbone NES controller brand new in the box in electronics (they came out in limited quantity in 1993, so I snagged it up) , never saw this store as an Ames. I remember at the time, feeling like I was in the past.

Sort of the feeling I get going into certain K-Mart's now, but a 70's feel rather than a 90's feel

[CTAmeshopper]

I remember the leaky roof, in it's later years as an Ames they had trash bins in the middle of the floor near the enterance to catch the water dripping from the roof,they never fixed it.

It was quite an old building probably had more problems that we customers probably never even knew about, no wonder they ended up tearing it down.

The old Big Y is gone replaced by new construction for Lowes, and the old Plaza sign was removed recently, probably got tired of the thing malfunctioning,luckily I got pictures before it was gone. The new big Y is nice, it's quite a big improvement over a old building with a leaky roof,Burger King still sits there, like it's oblivious to whats going on. :insane:

So far I like the progress, I'm surprised it looks so nice.

[torringtonstars]

The Big Y is really nice inside, my baby sister works there and gave me the tour when I was back home this summer. I wish someone would fix up the old Burger King, it still has the nice wood beam ceilings... man, this website just makes me homesick!

I was just reminiscing with some of my old pals on facebook and they reminded me of a friend who was arrested for shoplifting at the Caldor, in '97. Sweet girl but always doing airheaded things. She didn't realize she couldn't take her basket of stuff into the restroom (which you had to go through the entry doors to access) :duh:

I also remember the floors being kind of warped by the Ames years... probably from the water damage?