Now here's a great picture....Ames in Dunkirk, N.Y.

[MikeinBuffalo]

Here's a photo someone posted on another forum I belong to. I am a huge Bills fan, and this is a picture from their old training camp in the 1990s in Fredonia, N.Y.  

Not only do you have the old location (the Bills now practice at St. John Fisher college in Rochester), you have the old uniforms from the glory days, you have Mighty Taco in the background, AND, the cherry on top, you have the sign for the old Ames in Dunkirk, #2207. Below that is a sign for Eckerd's drugstore that were bought up by Rite Aid in the mid-2000s.

This location is tricky because I think it closed in 1992 and reopened across the street to where Tops is now. Anyone know anything about this?

EDIT: I have found the general view on Google Maps. The Mighty Taco is closed and is now Kirk's Jewelers (I would recognize that building style anywhere, they started using it in 1997). Because the Comfort Inn is on the same side as the Ames, I can confirm that it was the newer location, which was a Twin Fair, which became Hills, which became Ames, which is now Tops. The Eckerd's is probably  Petsmart now in with Tops. Next door, the Home Depot was once Kmart.

The old Ames location, where TJ Maxx is, was once Zayre which became Ames, which went out of business in 1992ish, right around the first bankruptcy. For 6 years or so, there was no Ames in Dunkirk/Fredonia.

[TheFugitive]

We had a family reunion in Dunkirk when I was a kid.   One of my ancestors supposedly built the
lighthouse there on Lake Erie and we held it in the state park that lies just below it.

I was in that Ames store.  Even though our reunion was in late July the overnight temperature
went down to 38 degrees!  We were shivering in a motel room with a space heater, since we
had all packed shorts and summer gear.

My dad found that Ames store and took us in to buy something warmer.  He found some Bills
sweatshirts on a clearance rack in the back.  He bought one for each of us.

Of course then we had to go home and wear them to school in Pittsburgh, which did not
make us too popular.   :-[

[MikeinBuffalo]

We had a family reunion in Dunkirk when I was a kid.   One of my ancestors supposedly built the
lighthouse there on Lake Erie and we held it in the state park that lies just below it.

I was in that Ames store.  Even though our reunion was in late July the overnight temperature
went down to 38 degrees!  We were shivering in a motel room with a space heater, since we
had all packed shorts and summer gear.

My dad found that Ames store and took us in to buy something warmer.  He found some Bills
sweatshirts on a clearance rack in the back.  He bought one for each of us.

Of course then we had to go home and wear them to school in Pittsburgh, which did not
make us too popular.   :-[

Were you in the old location or the newer one?

[TheFugitive]

Most likely the old one.  It was 1974 or 75 I think.

[Crazybangles]

That is a neat photo!

[Ames303]

So I went to school at SUNY Fredonia in the mid 1980s.  As far as Ames in Fredonia and Dunkirk goes:

1. There was a Hills Store that had been there since the late 1970s. The Hills sat perpendicular to the road.  (Where Tops is today)
2. There was an Ames Store on Route 60 right next to the Thruway entrance (Google Maps marks it as Spotlight Cinemas)
3. Zayre built a brand new store in a plaza adjacent to Tops across the street from Hills in 1986. (Tops was where Harbor Freight is, Zayre was where TJ Max and Tractor Supply are today)

When Ames bought Zayre, there were then TWO Ames stores within 1/2 mile of each other, one in the brand new Zayre (now TJ Maxx and Tractor Supply) and the original Ames (now Spotlight Cinemas).

I did one shift at the Hills store, being “loaned” from store 66 in Jamestown. They had different registers (Jamestown NCR 255, Dunkirk IBM 3683) but the buttons were in the same place so we could figure out pretty quickly.  I think the original Ames closed after a couple of years and became a Brand Names while the Zayre-to-Ames stayed open until the end.