History of Home Depot location

I loved how in the Lost Picture Show the seats went UP similarly to the Thalia in NYC

The guy who started Valley Fair blames the debt taken on to purchase a number of Great Eastern locations as the reason his company wound up going bankrupt.

I moved to Maplewood in August 1997 and the HD was under construction then or about to go under construction.

Funny coincidence--a number of years later I worked for a small real estate developer whose sister used to own the Union Market/Flea Market.  She was a piece of work, for sure.  

The Flea Market Portal shows that the Union Flea Market is STILL THERE!

http://www.fleaportal.com/Flea_Markets/Fleamarkets/Vauxhall/Union

mfpark said:

The Flea Market Portal shows that the Union Flea Market is STILL THERE!

http://www.fleaportal.com/Flea_Markets/Fleamarkets/Vauxhall/Union

That's a relief.  I need to pick up some plastic flowers and cheap picture frames.

And I'm going to play pinball and eat zeppoles.

Yes, I agree, the Valley Fair came after the Great Eastern., now that I think of it

I did loved the Union Market place, especially the sock store in there, socks for whole family, one stop, also liked the linen booth, and the little Mexacan place that sold tacos, and the cheesecake store. Wish it we're still there.

And the food court had the BEST samosas. Big and full of either potato or ground beef with a phenomenal white sauce for like a buck a piece. YUM!!

emmie said:

Before the Great Easten, it was a Valley Fair back in the mid 70s.

 it must have been Valley Fair after Great Eastern.  It was Great Eastern in the late 60s/early 70s

Descriptions and dates, please:

Union Market

Valley Fair

Great Eastern

Lost Picture Show

Cow Pasture

jeffhandy said:

And to merge this thread with another, I hear that you can go to HD and find out the real price of nice nails.

 ROTFL (the appropriate emoticon would be placed here)!

shoshannah said:

Descriptions and dates, please:

Union Market

Valley Fair

Great Eastern

Lost Picture Show

Cow Pasture

 it's hard to describe some of those old '60s and 70s discount stores like Great Eastern and Two Guys.  They were massively large -- the Great Eastern had the same footprint as the Home Depot, garden center, and the Home Decorators.  And it sold just about everything you could think of.  If your shopping list included shoes, notebooks, a tennis racket, a wrench, cantaloupes, a TV and tires, you could get it all in the same building.

I remember when Two Guys from Harrison opened up in the Preakness Shopping Center up by Wayne - everyone went there for whatever they needed! Probably didn't help the stores in Pompton Lakes all that much, though (my grandparents lived up that way and we'd always driven into Pompton Lakes to shop before Two Guys and the shopping center came into being). I still remember the little 5&10 where my grandmother would buy her crochet thread.  Lots of memories in lots of small towns going back a good while.

Great Eastern had a crappy food court and kiddie rides and the largest bras I have to this day ever seen. We would put them over our heads. We were little a-holes.

I don't really remember going to Valley Fair but I do remember it being there.

Union Market was the best of every vendor you've ever seen in NYC, but think 70s/80s style, pinks and turquoise, slouchy socks, zebra stripes, shoulder pads and dolman sleeves, lace and leather, cassette tapes, fer chrissake! God I loved that place... (eta: they even had a photo booth.)

Yes giants really did roam the earth in the old days. The average Two Guys was larger than the average Walmart Super Store (the kind with full supermarkets that we do not have in our area).

I would love to find a picture of the Union Marketplace. @marylago and I used to go there almost every weekend in the early '80s. I do have this picture from an ad for Great Eastern, but unfortunately, not the store itself. I wish i had a picture of the store, because Mommy used to take us there all the time. I remember many cool things that I got there, but the best was my birthday present from Mommy. I think it was 1968 (I was 8). She bought me a Spring/Summer wardrobe from Great Eastern. It was just she and I shopping (we had 10 kids in our family, so this was a real feat), and I loved the time with her as much as getting new clothes. I remember she wasn't too happy though, because I was extremely picky when it came to shopping, and kind of drove her batty. ;-) Still, Great Eastern and the Union Marketplace both hold great memories for me, and thank you for this thread to bring a smile to my face this morning!

I DO have a Two Guys (and a Korvettes) picture! (ETA: @ml1, JUST saw your posts. Too, too cool! Thank you so much for sharing!)

ramzzoinksus said:

Yes giants really did roam the earth in the old days. The average Two Guys was larger than the average Walmart Super Store (the kind with full supermarkets that we do not have in our area).

Looking at the Historic Aerials website (don't go there, you WILL lose countless hours of your life).  For those who don't mind wasting way too much time looking at before and after pictures of aerial photos, the site is http://www.historicaerials.com/

In 1954 the area was part woods and part open land.  

In 1966 it is hard to make out, but it looks like trees and open land again.  No building yet.  

1969 has both the buildings, the Great Eastern/Valley Fair/Union Market building and the Lost Picture show building.  The jug handle for turning from Springfield Ave onto Valley St also first appears in this picture, so it was built somewhere between '66 and '69.

No noticeable changes from 1969 to 1970.  No surprise there since it was only one year difference.

1979 shows the addition of the car wash at the far end of the lot.  

1979 to 1987, no changes.

1987 to 1995, no changes.

1995 shows the Union Market and car wash both replaced by the Home Depot.

No further changes through 2013.

There used to be a Union Market fan page on Facebook that had interior shots, but it seems to be gone. I loved going there as a child and I can picture the doll house shop so clearly in my mind.  

The Two Guys in East Hanover covered the area that is now the Home Depot AND the area that is now the mall with Dicks, etc. in several buildings. Vornado Realty Trust, the huge real estate company that owns lots of locations including One Penn Plaza in NY and other Manhattan real estate was the corporate name for Two Guys (for a while they had some more upscale stores under that name). As Two Guys as a retail venture became not viable Vornado built its fortune by repurposing all the real estate it had where its stores were located.