My old K-Mart is getting a new tenant. It's weird to think about. I believe I was the third-to-last person to walk out of that store, and nobody has been inside since they locked the door.

Anyway, I visited one of the last 6 remaining K-Marts in Minnesota, up in God's country. They don't seem to be doing well, unfortunately. They were incredibly short staffed it seems. There weren't enough people to handle the day-to-day responsibilities of retail throughout the entire store, and with no hiring sign in sight, I'd have to imagine they'll be closing up shop in the next round of closures.

Another thing I noticed was that a Sears opened up locally. I heard it was a franchise as opposed to a corporate. I don't see much traffic when I'm in that part of town though.

This is what I expected to see when I saw this thread bumped.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro...

Abandoned Bradlees Department Store still standing 17 years after closing

https://www.lipstickalley.com/thr...

I stumbled on this Target ad from 1986 online....was surprised to see that games were that cheap each

Never saw this thread, cool idea. Pretty sad though 😢

Haven't looked through it all yet but tower records comes to mind, blockbuster of course and most recently RadioShack (which I'm still pretty bummed about) FYE I thought had closed everywhere as well but recently discovered there are still a few hanging on in the tristate area, mostly in jersey

I honestly didn't know Target was around back then. Same font and logo, too.
I don't remember stumbling across one until the late 90s. (I'm in Chicago.)

Oh, man. Shouldn't have read this at work. Can't--stop--laughing.

Game Crazy was still around when I started getting deep into video games. Before, I would buy a few games a year. I like games, but only got a game when I was home from school and had time to spare and finished my other games.
But when I started hunting and collecting games I would find some really nice deals at Game Crazy. I can't remember which titles I picked up exactly, but I remember finding some good LoZ titles for about a fourth of the price they go for now, if that.

As for Venture, that's the place my mom used to take me to get my Goosebumps books! That and B. Dalton and Borders.

The first Target store opened in Roseville, MN in 1962  
 

Hill's had the best toy and video game selection in town. 

I miss Hills, it and Kmart were the only places around here for a long time. We had a locally owned toy store but they were overpriced. We had a local chain called Fisher Bigwheel that died off in the early 90s and they weren't bad but usually were very over priced. We had one store that was like a big lots and they had robotech and star wars toys cheap in the 90s.

We didn't get a Target until the mid 2000s, and I had never heard of it before then, so I thought it was some kind of new cutting edge WalMart competitor.

What's more interesting to me is where the artist for that Duck Hunt ad got a copy where you can shoot ducks on the skeet range.
 

I didn't even notice that crazy Duck Hunt illustration, good catch!
I believe 1999 was when New England first started getting Target stores, before that I'd only seen them on travel or sports advertising. They went national in the 1980s though.
We didn't start getting Wal-Mart stores until the 1990s either, or Kohl's until the 2000s.
New England used to be Kmart/Caldor/Bradlees/Ames/Richs/Zayre country for the most part
There used to be a lot of diversity. Now even Kmart is pretty much wiped out of New England and it's just Walmart-Target.
The Kmart stores that converted to Sears were all miserable failures.

Incredibly, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, & Kohl's all opened their first store the same exact year - 1962.
Amazing coincidence!

I also stumbled on this incredible video from April 1990 of a Jamesway Department Store burning to the ground.
Amazingly, this happened to SEVERAL Jamesway locations in 1989 & 1990 in New York, Jersey, and Pennsylvania!
Apparently none of them had sprinkler systems in the building, no joke!

Jamesway seems familiar but I don't think we had one. We still don't have a target that isn't a half hour away and didn't hear about them until the early 2000s. Then again we didn't know what Walmart was until it showed up in the early 90s out of nowhere. We lost a lot of small locally owned places when walmart and lowe's moved in. We have one big shopping center that had hills as a center piece and it's still nearly empty 20 years after Hills went out of business. Is Gabriel Bros still around? The one near us was crappy but up in Erie it wasn't bad back in the early 2000s. Sears was the worst thing to happen to Kmart. I knew Kmart was doomed when they stopped carrying gaming stuff that's a huge draw to stores.

Youtuber WallieB26 took an extensive video inside of this abandoned Ames in Economy, Pennsylvania in 2017.
It sat vacant for 15 years, but has been demolished since this video was taken.
In the 32 minute mark he genuinely stumbled on an intact Ames flyer from 2000 that features the launch of Pokemon Silver/Gold

It was a tedious, painstaking process that took me over half a year to complete, but I am happy to announce
I have finally restored the original post in this thread 100% to its original form, and off of Photobucket servers.
I figured with the closing of Toys R Us coming up in the USA I might as well make one big final push toward completing it.
There is too much history in these photos to let them be lost! Over time I will continue to go through this thread and restore more of it.

Goodbye Toys R Us....nothing will ever top those very special days

To be fair, I had already mourned the passing of the real Toys R Us at least a decade ago. At least it can be officially added to this thread, now.

Today I found this photo from the Fun Tronics Nintendo department of a Sears store in 1992

You're killing it Trj, once again thanks for helping us relive the glory days.

WOW, that Toysrus World Of Nintendo fiber puts even the KB WON fiber to shame! Sadly I doubt one ever survived  

Using a Photobucket recovery app I was able to unearth this Bradlees DKC Coupon that was being sold on NA back in 2010.
The seller had never heard of a Bradlees store before.

I think I may have another one or two of these if anyones interested 

A Pinterest user posted this photo of the Child World in Salem, New Hampshire
I wish I knew what the address was so I could see what is there now