Groceteria.com

Noticed the Salvation Army thrift shop on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach CA is a former Kinney Shoe Store.

The sites all had the steep slope in the front of the building, and then the "flip up". This was the main clue for this site.

Yet...also, the label scar is clearly visible along the side of the building!

I am sure that there are MANY other sites still standing across the USA!

Dean wrote:I am sure that there are MANY other sites still standing across the USA!

There are probably hundreds of them, with at least one (and often more) in just about every city of 50K or more population. I even saw one in Canada last week, somewhere outside Toronto. Those were amazingly versatile buildings of a size that very much facilitated reuse.

Longview, WA has one that is now a real estate office, Vancouver has one that is now a convenience store. I know there are a few scattered around Portland as well, one on Halsey is now a Salvation Army. They had a building that, like Safeway Marina stores, was easy to recognize, and years after the Kinney chain went away, can still be spotted.

The Kinney in Venice, CA was transformed for many years as a Foot Locker, only to be changed to a (small) CVS Drug Store when the shopping center its in was remodeled. I dont know what it is now though.

Are there any photos of these distinctive buildings? All the Kinney locations I'm familiar with were in malls.

History of chain:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.R._Kinney_Company

Store picture:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3179/281 ... fe.jpg?v=0

Former store as BIG O Tires:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3033/295 ... be3977.jpg

Signage:

http://www.whspioneers.org/kinney_shoes.jpg

Distinct former sign:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2469/359 ... 0ec5a2.jpg

Now a bargain store:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2468/367 ... aba050.jpg

There's an ex-Kinney building in Lakewood, Wash. that was built in 1976: Google Street View. Obviously they had eliminated the "flip up" overhang from their standard design by then. Interestingly, the property is still owned by the Ventnor Group, Kinney's (and Woolworth's) successor.

I haven't found very many in my area yet. I did find this one in Plymouth, Michigan, that's now an AT&T dealer:

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... &encType=1

And here's one in Mt. Morris that was later a video store and seems to be vacant. It still has the sign:

http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v ... &encType=1

Other than that, all the ones I've found in my area were in strips or malls,

I don't recall ever seeing a freestanding one or its carcass in Ohio--only mall stores. Woolworth bought them around '63 or '64 and would have provided the capital and developer cred to move them into markets where they hadn't existed before in the first generation of malls. Thom McAn stores had essentially the same niche and a similar trajectory, with early adoption of open-air shopping plazas in the 50s. The only freestanding stores of their's that I recall would have been from the mid-to late 50s or very early 60s. I would guess that shoe stores became an exclusively shopping center thing pretty quickly and then easily moved into malls. Having a large number of shoe stores was the mark of relatively marginal mall, going back to the early 70s.

The one exception to the malling of shoe stores would have been the ultra cheap Pic-Way chain, which went for freestanding locations and would have been unattractive as a shopping center tenant in its early 2 pair/$5 days.

rich wrote:I would guess that shoe stores became an exclusively shopping center thing pretty quickly and then easily moved into malls. Having a large number of shoe stores was the mark of relatively marginal mall, going back to the early 70s.

Still true today. Having Famous Footwear is one of the many, many things I've seen that usually just screams "struggling mall." (Having Famous Footwear close, as was the case at Centerpointe Mall in Grand Rapids, just screams "It's a goner.")