Painting the Hillside With a McDonald's

While in the area earlier this month, I stumbled upon an increasingly rare sight: a mansard roof McDonald's that is unique. While this location is a straight-up themed location, it seem to rely heavy on decorative paintings and just whole bunch of little things combined that made this a worthwhile visit. Check out the pictures below:

This location apparently was built right into the hillside as the landscaping suggests.

The entry on the south side of the beguiling is unlike other mansard roof locations. It wraps around the side and front before you enter here. 

Reverse view of the pic above.

It would appear the reason for the unique entry in the front is thanks to a refilling station being put it what was likely the south entrance.

Whether its the colors, the lighting or something else, this location was an absolute pleasure to visit. This picture right here is now one of my personal favorites.

The Lion King is coming.... though I mainly took this picture as I assume these are all franchised by the same person.

 I conclude this tour with a look at the outside seating area.

The Last Traces of the Lockport Mall

The Lockport Mall opened in 1971 with original anchors of AM&A's dept store of Buffalo and a Montgomery Ward. A Hills department store was added in 1984. Bon-Ton took over the AM&A's store in 1994. Montgomery Ward closed its doors before the rest of the chain in 1998, and the mall saw Hills convert to an Ames the same year. Unfortunately, many stores by this time had pulled out leading to a decline of traffic. Ames' eventual closure would likely ultimately be the final blow to the mall. By 2006, the mall closed to the public entirely, with the exception of Bon-Ton. 

Walmart would finally get their way and open a supercenter in 2011 by demolishing everything save for Bon-Ton. This made Bon-Ton the last remnant of the former Lockport Mall. Today, Bon-Ton is of course closed thanks to its bankruptcy last year, so what will happen with the space remains to be seen. I have little doubt it will stay empty long thanks to its proximity to Walmart.

We'll begin our tour with pictures of the mall before it was torn down. The following pictures are courtesy of Flickr user snappyjack1 and his album on the Lockport Mall. You can find even more pictures over there, but here a few highlights:

I also thought it'd be neat to get a satellite view on the changes:

Flash forward to summer 2018 and I stopped by to get pictures of Bon-Ton's liquidation:

Here's the obligatory pic of Walmart

If you are observant, you'll notice that entrance has changed from Snappyjack1's pic above. I have feeling it was updated when Walmart came in. Bon-Ton had owned this store, so making changes was something in their control.

So that pretty much sums it up. Hopefully, the Bon-Ton space will get reused soon.

Former Kmart #4064

NOTE: This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area.

This particular Kmart store was clearly one that was expanded upon and some money was spent to update it in the 1990s. As you will see from the store map, the clothing section of the store was expanded into what was very likely a Kmart Foods space. The garden shop also got a substantial update complete with a new entrance. At one point in time, this store was even a candidate to be replaced by a Super Kmart that would of opened down the road in the area where a Walmart now operates. Obviously that supercenter never happened, but it is still fun to think 'What if?'.