Was Arlan's Store in the Packard Plant?

[night-timer]

Sorry, naive question...

There is a guy who calls himself DEMCAD who posts videos on Youtube. He is from Flint, Michigan. His videos are filmed in Detroit, where he NEVER gets out of his car.

In this clip he is driving through the Packard Plant on the Eastside of Detroit. He asks what the location is and the passenger says "Arlan's Department Store".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTPhp7doMkY

Were these people clueless or simply lost?

I don't know Arlan's or its history, so I'm just asking. I don't think Arlan's is the same place as the Packard. Was Arlan's ever in the Packard factory? I can't imagine it.

[Zacha341]

There was one off Warren and Lonyo area in Detroit near Dearborn Border, I think. Here's one of their circular ads:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...lans3-1970.jpg

[Cincinnati_Kid]

There was one off Warren and Lonyo area in Detroit near Dearborn Border, I think. Here's one of their circular ads:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...lans3-1970.jpg

There also was one where you make the right turn on 8 Mile and Telegraph in Southfield in the mid to late 60's. Looks like some type of industrial firm is on the location now, but I still see remnants of the old store.

[Hermod]

There was one up near 8-mile and Schoenherr in 1961. They made have had their distribution warehouse in the Packard plant.

Arlans, Zayre, Ames, Woolco, WT Grant, JM Fields, Caldor, etc. They are all gone now. Only Walmart and K-mart [[barely) are still standing from that economic model.

[Farwell]

I absolutely remember going to an Arlan's located in a portion of the Packard Plant. Early 60's. I remember my father mentioning to me that this where his dad used to work. Displays looked more like a clearance/overstock warehouse rather than like a Walmart. Really cheap looking merchandise. Don't remember how long it lasted.

[Stinger4me]

YES it was. There from the early 60's. It was a good sized store, my father purchased a Zebco Mod. 33 there for a couple of dollars. I still have the reel and it still works very well.

[Dan Wesson]

Yes indeed. Spent much time in there. I would walk or ride my bike there. The front door was under the south end of that overpass across the Blvd.

They had all the latest 45 rpm records...

Arlans is almost spelled like my name.

[Margarite]

Yes, echoing Stinger and Farwell. My friends and I still laugh about the bins of underwear that were on display. We just knew that someone had switched out their old underwear for new right there and dropped them back in the bin. Needless to say it wasn't an upscale department store.

[Honky Tonk]

There was one off Warren and Lonyo area in Detroit near Dearborn Border, I think. Here's one of their circular ads:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5...lans3-1970.jpg

You're correct, the "big" store was @ Lonyo and Warren, they also had a store @ the Southfield & Dix mall location, directly behind Sears. There might have been others I'm not aware of. The building is still @ the Lonyo\Warren location, but it's a logistics company. There was a small tile store for years in the Lonyo\Warren corner of the building that said "Arlans Tile" on their canopy.

[EastsideAl]

I remember that store very well. It was in the plant building that was on the south side of the Blvd. It was a surreal place to shop because it had no ceiling, and, overhead, much of the assembly line machinery was still in place. I remember being in there and having my father show me how the line, which he worked on there during and just after WWII, operated [[his mother and grandfather also worked there at various times).

The store itself was full of some pretty cheapo merchandise, much of it a little too cheaply made even for my hyper-thrifty mom. And I believe there was another Arlan's store too, over on Conner between Warren and Mack, that was more in the path of her usual travels. But dad liked going to the Packard one for nostalgia reasons, and for a while in the '70s the manager of that store was someone my folks sort of knew.

After it was an Arlan's, I believe that store operated as a Shopper's World and a Kingsway into the late '80s and maybe as late as when the complex was emptied of its tenants by the city in the '90s. If you look closely at the front of that building in Google streetview you can till see the shadow of the "Kingsway" sign.

[EastsideAl]

Here is a picture of the store while it was in operation [[and the parking lot of the A&P that once stood next door). From the cars it looks like the late '50s or very early '60s, so not too long after the plant itself closed.




I also remember going to an Arlan's at Schoenherr and 8 Mile, where the speedway used to be.

[gumby]

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3779...eaNQ!2e0?hl=en

Pretty much the same view. You can still make out the Arlen's sign on the Packard plant.

[jcole]

8 and Schoenherr too; it was a large chain in it's day. Shopper's Fair was open at the same time. Both wanna be Kmarts

[jcole]

Here's one from SE Michigan featuring their tasty clothes.

[Dan Wesson]

Some links...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlan's

http://www.newbedfordguide.com/arlans-department-store/2013/11/26

[EastsideAl]

And here is a 1981 TV ad for the luxurious Kingsway chain, which at that point seems to have consisted of 2 old Federal's stores on Grand River and the old Packard Arlan's.

[msamslex]

We live about 5 minutes drive from Lonyo & Warren and my parents used to go to Arlan's when I was little back in the 60's. Arlan's ran a newspaper ad promo where they were giving kids a free goldfish. I asked [[probably begged) my mom and she took me to the store to get my goldfish. Don't remember if it was a one day or weekend promo. All I knew is that I got my free goldfish! Talk about happy!

[MikeM]

1961 White Pages

[MikeM]

1967 Yellow Pages

[Onthe405]

Not sure why it's not listed in the 1967 phone book, but there was also an Arlans on the SE corner of Gratiot & Frazho in Roseville, where the Kmart [[up until recently Super Kmart) is today. There's an outside chance it was Shopper's Fair, and not Arlans, but I'm almost positive it was the latter.

EastsideAl, maybe you have some more insight?

Across Frazho, on the NE corner, was Federal Eastgate Center [[leveled and rebuilt as Kmart, then converted to Kroger when Kmart moved across the street).

[MikeM]

The Yellow Pages only covered Wayne County east of Telegraph and north of Ecorse despite occasional listings outside of that range. Not sure what it took to get your business listed [[$) outside the area.

The only Shopper's Fairs listed:

[MikeM]

Since you mentioned Federal:

[hybridy]

Not sure why it's not listed in the 1967 phone book, but there was also an Arlans on the SE corner of Gratiot & Frazho in Roseville, where the Kmart [[up until recently Super Kmart) is today. There's an outside chance it was Shopper's Fair, and not Arlans, but I'm almost positive it was the latter.

EastsideAl, maybe you have some more insight?

Across Frazho, on the NE corner, was Federal Eastgate Center [[leveled and rebuilt as Kmart, then converted to Kroger when Kmart moved across the street).

my mother in law says it was a shopper's fair and it was mostly grocery. carries mostly off label stuff.

[EastsideAl]

The phonebook listings posted by Mike M, along with Hybridy's post above, jogged my memory and I had to take a minute or two to check it out.

The store I remembered as an Arlan's on Connor between Mack and Warren was, in fact, part of the very similar Spartan-Atlantic chain. Like the Packard Arlan's, it was in an old factory [[part of a former Briggs plant, that, ironically, built bodies for Packards). Similar to the Packard Arlan's it also still had a lot of assembly line machinery visible, which was of course fascinating to me as a kid. Oddly, there was another, more raggedy, Spartan-Atlantic store a few blocks away in the old Bohn Metals plant on Hart just south of Mack [[don't bother going looking for this address, the entire street has disappeared under the Chrysler complex).

I believe that the Arlan's that hybridy remembered as being at Gratiot and Frazho was also actually a Spartan-Atlantic store.

Strangely, the main supporting evidence for this enhanced memory came from a Martha Reeves poster I found on a site about the famous Ann Arbor Free John Sinclair concert. The poster lists all of the lovely Detroit-area Spartan-Atlantic stores where you could have picked up Martha's post-Motown 1974 solo album [[an underrated record imo) for just $3.99
http://freeingjohnsinclair.aadl.org/node/197953

[jcole]

There was a Shopper's Fair on 8 Mile and Gratiot, NE corner.