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Storefronts and mall plants at Fairlane Village Mall

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Tropicana, the second-oldest resort casino on the Las Vegas Strip, is closing.

On May 9, 2023, it was announced that a 33,000-seat baseball stadium will be built on the Tropicana site. It has to be removed by late 2024 so construction can start.

The Tropicana dates back to 1955, when hotelier Ben Jaffe, part owner of the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, purchased the land. Gone is the original showroom where Les Folies Bergère dancers danced for 50 years, where Siegfried & Roy made their Vegas debut in 1967 and where Muhammad Ali held public training sessions for his fight against Ron Lyle in 1975.

Pictured here in the 1950s, 1990s and 2023. Two of my favorite features are the ornate stained-glass ceiling (built in 1979) above the blackjack tables and the bright orange carpet.

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Opened in 1901 and closed in 2009 due to financial issues, the Nevele Grand Hotel was one of many Borscht Belt resorts in the Catskills Mountains of New York. There are multiple buildings and hotel wings on the property, as well as the tower, pools, a ski chalet, golf course, lounges, conference facilities, etc. Pictured is the Winter Lodge, in a postcard from the 1930s, 1977 and 2020. Source

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Pocono Palace has been sold. The property will close and change hands on May 2nd, 2024.

I’ve spent so much time exploring and researching the dead resorts in this area and in the midst of all those visits, Pocono Palace has been my saving grace. It’s one of the few places I feel is still so authentically old-school-honeymoon-era-Poconos and still has its champagne glass tubs, round beds and heart shaped pools. It has also been one of the places we have continuously stayed at while doing Pocono research for this account.

So seeing it join the long list of dead Pocono hotels breaks my heart. I’d like to think the new owners will continue to run it exactly as it is but I’ve heard that it will be turned into a rehab center or wellness facility. Time will tell.

Enjoy some vintage photos + a few unedited snapshots from our last visit. 💘

[the-gone-ton]

Sorry! Mall Currently Closed.

Food Court at Pittsburgh Mills, 2023

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Having a grand old time at Sears Grand, Pittsburgh Mills.

Sears Grand was a concept launched in 2003 by Alan Lacy, the not-so-successful CEO and Chairman of Sears USA at the time. Sears Grand stores were generally larger than a regular Sears department store, more often located at strip centers rather than malls, and carried an expanded array of merchandise, including full grocery section, to compete with Target and Walmart Supercenters. But according to Mark Cohen, the CEO and Chairman of Sears Canada at the time, the prototype stores for Sears Grand did not do well. While that's not unusual for new prototype stores, Cohen says his visit to one of the stores showed him that the presentation failed to emphasize the thing that Sears had over its competitors: desirable brand names like Craftsman, Kenmore, and DieHard. In addition, the grocery section was a money pit, as few people were buying the food and it ended up just getting thrown out.

Nevertheless, Alan Lacy pushed the Sears Grand concept further. He bought 51 stores from Kmart, which had just survived its first bankruptcy, for $605 million, with the intention of converting them to Sears Grand. That was a dramatic overpayment for some of the crappiest Kmart stores you could find. In 2005, Kmart Corporation, under the infamous rule of Eddie Lampert, bought out the entirety of Sears. From this point on, the Sears Grand concept was basically abandoned, and a handful of stores kept the glorified "Grand" moniker for seemingly no reason. The last Sears Grand in Thornton, Colorado, closed in March 2021.

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I've never seen a Littman Jewelers that looks like that. This location apparently opened in 1994, but that decor package must be way older than that. It closed in January 2020, shortly before the whole chain was closed.

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Apparently I did see one other super old pink and wood grain Littman store, I just didn't know what it was till now. I wanted to turn this into a post about Littman Jewelers but was surprised to find that I hadn't taken very many pictures of them... oh well.

Littman Jewelers traced its history to a watch repair business started in Brooklyn in 1885. It expanded greatly, becoming a top 4 privately-owned jewelry business in the US by the 1980s and operating over 100 stores by the mid-90s. The stores, located mostly in the northeast but eventually also Florida and a few other states, were ubiquitous at shopping malls. It was bought in 1998 by northwestern US-based Fred Meyer hypermarkets, which operated Fred Meyer Jewelers stores in that same area. Very shortly thereafter, the whole Fred Meyer company was bought by Midwestern grocery chain, Kroger. It seems like retail jewelry changed a lot just within the past five years, and as the going got tough, Kroger seems to have pulled the plug on just about their whole jewelry business by 2022. Fred Meyer Jewelers remains, but only in 5 states in the trade area of the full sized Fred Meyer stores.

I've never seen a Littman Jewelers that looks like that. This location apparently opened in 1994, but that decor package must be way older than that. It closed in January 2020, shortly before the whole chain was closed.

[the-gone-ton]

I've never seen a Littman Jewelers that looks like that. This location apparently opened in 1994, but that decor package must be way older than that. It closed in January 2020, shortly before the whole chain was closed.

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An odd sight - an old winery at the mall converted into a small arcade.

Fairlane Village Mall, part 2

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Fairlane Village Mall, part 1. This is Pottsville's "good" mall. The last picture of the crummy looking hallway is a decommissioned section of the mall that has been separated & closed off since Dunhams Sports was added.

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The Mt. Pocono Motel is closed. The words MOTEL have been removed from the sign, the fountain no longer flows and the pool has been filled in. From 2012 to 2021, there were multiple shootings and drug related arrests on the property. This former motel now rents its rooms as apartments and the adjoining restaurant is still open as Mi Casa. Located in Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania.

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Inside the North Hanover Mall. This one I don't think will be around much longer.

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North Hanover Mall, from the outside. Most of the mall entrances are totally unlabeled, but the one that actually does say "North Hanover Mall" on it also has a little labelscar at the top where the logo for Crown American (the mall developer) used to be. Also, we got a Sears Auto Center surrounded by farm equipment courtesy of Rural King, a classic Spirit Halloween moment, and a visually mold-infested mall entrance.

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Hey, North Hanover Mall... how you feelin'? You good?

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Somewhere in time? It certainly is.

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Closed Regal Cinemas in Quakertown, PA. Some of the neon was still on inside.