Posted on 09/07/2013 12:32:12 PM PDT by beaversmom
As patrons approached the glass doors of the Pathmark supermarket in Camden on Friday, a security guard turned them away.
"We're closed," said Dan Graves, 59, who has been working security for 18 years for the company that owns Pathmark and Super Fresh stores. "There's nothing left inside."
But that didn't stop the steady stream of cars, trucks, and those arriving by bus or foot in the supermarket's parking lot throughout Friday in what took on the air of a wake.
Many said they were misled by the large "Store Closing" banner out front, thinking they had one more day. Some longtime employees gathered in clusters outside and embraced as if they had just lost a loved one.
Reality eventually began to sink in: The neighborhood icon and social gathering place was shuttered for good.
"I have a lot of memories here," said Camden native Antonio Zapata as he slowly walked back to his truck after being waved off by Graves.
Zapata, 21, began going to the Pathmark at 2881 Mount Ephraim Ave. with his parents when he was 5.
"I remember coming here when I was just a boy," he said as he turned to give the store one more look.
Zapata had come Friday to use the Bank of America ATM inside to get cash, as he had done countless times.
"Now I have to go somewhere else," he said, "probably another B of A [machine] on Route 70. Kind of far."
The supermarket's closing cut much deeper for Ursula Hardy, 53, of Camden. She started working there at 22. Her first day was Sept. 18, 1983. Her last day was Thursday as a part-time clerk making $20 an hour with full health benefits.
"I've never been unemployed," said the mother of five.
But beyond the steady paycheck, "I'm going to miss the customers, especially the older people," Hardy said. "Many of them needed help reading their debit cards, or counting their money, because their vision wasn't very good, or they'd need help walking back to their cars. . . . I can't tell you how many funerals I've been to."
While Hardy spoke openly about the store's closing, she said employees were advised by the owners not to discuss it on social media.
"We were family here," Hardy said. "Of course we're sad. A lot of us started working here when we were kids."
It was announced two months ago that three Pathmark stores - in Camden, Cherry Hill, and Edgewater Park - would close. Parent company Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) cited underperformance as the reason. A&P also owns Super Fresh.
The closures are just the latest in what has become a steady downsizing by several local supermarket chains.
A Super Fresh in Haddon Township that Kimberly Foster frequented for 20 years closed this year, which is why she had made the Camden Pathmark her main place to shop. She lives in Collingswood and works as a property manager in Camden.
"I would get everything here - dog food, fruit, and meat. It's very disheartening that these stores are closing everywhere," said Foster, 50, as she was turned away Friday from the Pathmark.
A total of 355 employees worked at the three closing Pathmarks, according to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The Camden store employed just over 100.
Security guard Graves said the store was virtually emptied out by Thursday, thanks to a "90 percent off" sale two days earlier when "everything started disappearing off the shelves."
All that remained was picked clean by Thursday's 9 p.m. closing time, leaving only a carcass Friday. He said Bank of America had removed its ATM, surveillance camera, and equipment.
Only employees were allowed inside Friday.
"We had a little going-away party for everybody," said Graves, who is being transferred to other Pathmarks and Super Freshes in Philadelphia. "We'll have to see what happens.
"Sometimes one door closes and another one opens," he said.
"That's what we told the employees today." No lease has yet been signed for the site in the Fairview section. Officials have been showing it to other potential grocery stores now that the city's only full-service supermarket has departed.
Residents will have to wait two years to get another - a ShopRite expected to open in East Camden in 2015. That will provide some relief in a city many parts of which are considered "food deserts" under federal standards.
For William "Wally" Wallace, the store's closing means losing his favorite sanctuary. He has sat in front on a folding chair every day except Sunday for 15 years. Like clockwork, he'd arrive at noon and leave by 6:30 p.m., before it got dark.
On Friday, he had a bag of popcorn that he fed to the birds and drank from a soda cup. This was theater for the 77-year-old retiree.
"I'd come out here and sit and see people I hadn't seen in years," he said. "They'd remember me cutting their hair when they were young boys. It would make me feel good."
Wallace owned a barbershop for 40 years at Seventh and Clinton Streets in Camden. He now lives at the Lutheran Senior Citizens Residence in Pennsauken.
"The residence has a patio in the back," he said. "I can maybe sit there during the summer.
"But I hope when another store moves in, they'll let me sit out here again."
It really is. It was a late “discovery” at the end of a recent vacation, and we vowed to go back.
Is that your pic?
"Food desert" turns out to have a lengthy Wikipedia article. Who knew?
Of course, studying the problem at that level just leads to band-aid solutions that ultimately make the problem worse.
Beautiful picture. Looks like its taken from a balloon.
OOPS, $47,000,000 per elementary school
LOL!
Camden is worse....
How much is due to crime?
>Camden has a 3rd World population that can only maintain 3rd World conditions.<
.
(Sigh)
The blessings of America’s diversity and “strength”.
You learned quickly not to go to the local supermarkets, a shop n’ bag and a Thriftway, on the first of the month. Busloads of people from Camden with fresh government checks would fill those places up because there were virtually no supermarkets in Camden back then
_________________
Certainly not a phenomenon limited to Camden. I lived on Pittsburgh South Side for a number of years and I learned to get my Giant Eagle shopping done after the 10th of the month because of the welfare shoppers coming over with their big orders from the hill district and the hill top projects above the South Side.
What makes ghetto grocery stores such an iffy proposition isn’t just the theft or the unions, its the obstructionism from the government and community busybody groups.
Bottom Dollar has been trying to get permission to open a store here in Garfield- every few months someone has arguments about where the trucks are going to pull in or where the shrubbery is going to be.
The long awaited Hill District Shop n Save has taken many, many years of redtape- maybe this fall it will open. Save a Lot tried to open there, but the neighborhood fathers veto’ed the idea as Save a Lot isn’t “full service”. They have an ability to do this kind of thing because of zoning and how much of the land is controlled by the URA or other governmental bodies.
Camden = Kingson, Jamaica.
I just remember reading where the cops didn’t want to go in there.
It's worth noting that the problem here may be a more simple than we seem to think. The rise and fall of grocery stores is almost a predictable act of nature. I remember when Pathmark first moved into the area where I lived, and they were seen as the hot new competitor that was grabbing market share from the older chain stores.
As time moved on, Pathmark lost its steam and was slowly supplanted by newer/bigger/better competitors. In urban areas this process is accelerated because these stores simply can't be modernized and/or expanded very easily. In my old neighborhood, large retail pads previously occupied by grocery stores are being replaced by chain pharmacies and auto supply stores ... both of which are now much bigger than they were years ago.
To hear some tell it, Camden is a lung cancer explosion waiting to happen “because of the shipyards!”*
*Picture that said with wild eyes and spittle flying.
Haven’t had reason to head near Camden myself.
My dad worked on a few elevators there back in the 1980’s if memory serves.
Camden still exists because Camden County NJ taxes are some of the highest in the US. Camden is a perfect example of giving a man a fish rather than teaching a man to fish.
“...was too much to bare.”
Bear. “Bare” goes with the Geroge Castanza kind of “shrinkage.” :)
Ah, shelf fungus city.
Much like Newburgh NY.
Well, quite a few places in NY.
Costanza
“The racial makeup of the city was 17.59% (13,602) White, 48.07% (37,180) Black or African American, 0.76% (588) Native American, 2.12% (1,637) Asian, 0.06% (48) Pacific Islander, 27.57% (21,323) from other races, and 3.83% (2,966) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 47.04% (36,379) of the population.[8]”
Obviously not enough diversity in town, not enough Whites to prey upon.
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