Buffalo Spree Magazine

Losing a strip mall, gaining a supercenter

By Christopher Schobert

Recently, WalMart announced that a “supercenter” (how daunting) will open at the ancient Brierwood Plaza in Hamburg. This got me thinking about the many old, disused plazas and strip malls like the Brierwood that are littered throughout Western New York. It also forced me to ponder my innate aversion to WalMart.

Photos by Chris Schobert.

This is going to make me sound like I have a Giambra-sized ego, but every time I visit the store, I feel a little better about myself. From the fossilized greeters to the often-frightening shoppers, I feel like I’ve stepped into another dimension where I’m the only normal person in the room. And downright hip, too. Heck, at WalMart, suddenly I feel like Johnny Depp, as opposed to Napoleon Dynamite. This is not to say all WalMart patrons are odd—the store is so popular that this would be a foolish generalization—but in my experience, there is always at least one shopper muttering to himself, one walking with the herky-jerky movements of an extra from Night of the Living Dead, one who appears to have emerged seconds earlier from a muddy puddle in Woodstock, and many, many barking parents and their braying offspring. For these reasons, I don’t stop by WalMart much, and I also shake my head a bit each time a new store opening is announced in Western New York. Obviously, I’m not alone, as evidenced by local and national news stories of protest and outrage.

However, the Brierwood news was greeted with a collective “hallelujah” from virtually all corners. Almost every news article to come out following the announcement referred to the former strip mall as an eyesore, one whose main tenant, a Hens and Kelly store, shuttered its doors long, long ago. It housed a K-Mart and a Carvel ice cream shop not too long ago, and a carpet store and a gym were still open in early June. Puttering around the premises on a rainy afternoon a few weeks back, I was struck by how sad the location looked, but also how interesting. I have no memory of Hens and Kelly (I’m sure many readers do), which, according to the factually questionable Wikipedia was a Buffalo-based department store known for its “green stamp” coupons. This seems to be one of those Western New York institutions, like Twin Fair, that my parents might mention in a wistful tone: “Ah, Hens and Kelly …”

Half of the store’s sign has stayed up all these years—the “Kelly” part—which lends the building the air of a crime scene, or a leftover set from a post-nuclear fallout episode of The Twilight Zone. It also makes me wonder if leaving this up was intentional, or just the result of some lazy repo men. Either way, it’s depressing, like driving by an old Ames, Hills, or Gold Circle that never reopened as anything else. Yes, these are eyesores, but what does that make the WalMart supercenter? A concrete oasis? A suburban Taj Mahal? Please. There’s something wonderfully decayed and artfully dated about the “Kelly” sign that’s far more visually pleasing than yet another chain store. It lends the ol’ blemish, dare I say it, a certain charm. Sure it ain’t pretty, but it’s certainly fascinating. What makes the Brierwood choice seem so idiotic to me, at least, is that just a few blocks away at the corner of Big Tree Road and Southwestern Boulevard is another mammoth WalMart that will probably shut its doors for good. (This is the infamous “Seven Corners,” or, as I think of it, the Southtowns’ Intersection of Doom.)

Most aged strip malls seem headed in the Brierwood direction (Hamburg has its share of these), although there are a few, like Southgate Plaza in West Seneca, that still bustle with people and traffic. However, this seems to be one of the few exceptions. Many are grotesquely ugly, with loud signage and confusing parking lots. Yet, to me, there is something endearing about them, especially the Brierwood Plaza. It reminds me how many other stores have closed in Western New York and remain shuttered. Media Play was one of the most recent, leaving large, unsightly boxes of grey and red to stare with envy at passing cars. The red “Media Play” signs still light up each night, as if to dare some weary shopper to take a gander through the front doors and see if any bargain CDs are now marked down to ninety-nine percent off. What a waste of electricity.

Mind you, I’m not dissing the box stores. I was a red-shirt-and-khaki-pant-clad Target employee for what seemed like a decade, but was actually about three years, while attending college. And it was a fine place to work as a young man, minus the day after Thanksgiving, my own personal Vietnam. (To quote Bill Murray in the great Rushmore, “Yeah, I was in the s---.”) Target seems to escape the wrath of many box store critics, probably because it seems much less abrasive and immeasurably cooler. No, it’s WalMart’s logo that’s tacked to the center of the dartboard. It could have something to do with this increased insistence on “super” stores. Surely there are oodles of folks who cannot wait to buy baked goods and deli products at the same site where one can buy Underoos and Crock Pots, but the whole concept just seems utterly unnecessary. I love convenience as much as anyone, but trading one “eyesore” for another just doesn’t seem that bright. However, every Southtowner I’ve spoken to is thrilled to see the Brierwood disappear, so perhaps I should just hit up the ATM and grab a shopping cart.

The real tragedy? The Carvel store is gone. Now that’s a shame. Maybe the supercenter will sell ice cream cakes.

Christopher Schobert can never again wear a red polo shirt without day-after-
Thanksgiving flashbacks.

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