Stores I Can Never Visit Again

I'm only 22 years old, but that's still old enough to have visited places that no longer exist. As I've grown up, my home town and the surrounding towns have changed. There are a number of places I visited as a child - some very frequently - that closed their doors later, and I genuinely miss some of them.

New England Video
This was a local video rental store that was a very popular destination for me and my brother from the mid-90s up until the early 2000s. While I enjoyed renting the occasional VHS tape from the kid's section (most frequently a Disney film or Garfield cartoon), the main reason for me to visit New England Video was the extensive collection of video games for the Sega Genesis system. I grew up with the Genesis, and it was a big part of my childhood. There are a number of games for it that I closely associate with New England Video because I rented them so frequently. Later, around 1999, my family got a Nintendo 64, and we rented games for that very frequently as well.

In the mid-2000s, New England Video began to falter from my perspective. They started selling off their collections of Genesis and N64 games, and my brother and I took advantage to pick up some of our old favorites. However, their selection of games for the next set of video game systems was lacking. It was a stark contrast to the all-star lineup of awesome games they had for older systems, and it was worrying. Another problem was that I wasn't and have never been a huge movie buff, so their VHS collection and their new DVDs weren't attracting me either. Without game rentals, I cared little for the store, and we stopped visiting around 2005. New England Video technically still exists (although they've moved twice, once when I was still visiting and once after), but I haven't been inside in years and it's not the store I grew up with anymore. I have, however, passed by it frequently, and it has one of those signs out front with the interchangeable letters that talks about movies you "won't find at RedBox". Exclusivity or not, RedBox and NetFlix are killing the video rental store, and I can't imagine New England Video hanging on much longer.

BlockBuster
Another video rental store. Blockbuster was late to the game, showing up around 2006, just in time for the launch of the latest wave of video game systems (The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii). Like New England Video, game rentals were what I cared about. I rented from Blockbuster a few times and discovered some good games, but I never got into it as much as I had New England Video. Within a couple years, the Blockbuster franchise was sold and renamed the incredibly silly "Moose Mountain", which sounds more like a mini-golf course or a hunting supply store than it does a video rental shop. Predictably, Moose Mountain folded in under a year.

Ames
This is the big one. This is the greatest shopping tragedy of my childhood. I loved Ames. Loved it like you wouldn't believe. It was the only full-fledged department store in town, and it was the de facto destination whenever my family needed something. Clothes? Go to Ames. Toys? Stop by Ames. Holiday decorations? Ames again. They had just about everything. This was the place my family bought a lot of things that were near and dear to me. I remember the time my brother and I came here with our savings and bought the Nintendo 64. I remember walking through the holiday aisles around Christmas time, seeing the displays of those little Christmas town figurines. I remember reading a Pokemon comic book while relaxing on a chair in the furniture section. And speaking of Pokemon, I remember buying pack after pack of Pokemon trading cards, eagerly collecting as many as I could.

In my mind, there was always going to be an Ames. It was a constant presence. Tons of people shopped there. It was the biggest fish the the small pond that was my hometown. And it was a chain - there were Ames stores all over the place, in other states, across the country! Truly, it was too big to fail.

It was in 2002 when the news spread. Ames was going out of business. Not scaling back to just the profitable stores (ours had to be profitable, there's no doubt in my mind). Going away forever. I was distraught. Ames was the best place in town for so many things! How could it vanish? Where would we go? There wasn't anywhere else in town that sold video games, and the selections of other merchandise left much to be desired. As it turned out, our town would never see another department store. Fortunately, my family eventually discovered the wonders of buying things online, and we've had little difficulty finding things to buy since.

The liquidation sale was a fun last hurrah. I was able to get a bunch of stuff for cheap. At the time, I was a big Spongebob Squarepants fan, so I got a bunch of Spongebob toys. I also remember getting a Halloween CD and Pac-Man for the Sega Game Gear. A year or two after Ames' demise, the space was filled by a grocery store (Shaw's). I still miss Ames even now, and if I had the chance to go back in time and visit any store again, this is definitely the one I'd pick.

Funny thing. I hadn't realized this until now, but this year is the tenth anniversary of Ames' demise. On August 14, it will have been 10 years since the announcement that every remaining Ames would close. Isn't that something else?

Here's a commercial Ames played to advertise their going-out-of-business sales. I only wish I'd had more money to take even better advantage of the liquidation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Yr8fhtM4lk

And here's what Wikipedia has to say about Ames:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ames_Department_Stores_Inc.