Automart!

Littleton_IMG_6560

You have seen these all over town and wondered what they were, they were
Automart Grocery Stores from the 1950s.

I like this one on South Broadway best. it has the intact diamond panels and the now faint checkerboard faccia trim.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 10:21 am and is filed under International Style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Automart!”

Matt March 12th, 2010 at 8:02 pm

Well, that explains it. There’s a building like this is the neighborhood I grew up in that I can only remember being a series of hair salons, aside from a distinct memory of it being something other than a hair salon at first, but what that was I can’t remember. Maybe it was one of those Automarts-or whatever convenience store followed in its wake.

Here’s how Google sees it (loads the map and then zooms to street view):

http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=wheat+ridge&fb=1&gl=us&ei=R–aS-WTHom0MLer8bMD&ved=0CBgQpQY&hl=en&view=map&geocode=FVLIXgIdKqa8-Q&split=0&hq=&hnear=Wheat+Ridge,+Jefferson,+Colorado&ll=39.76936,-105.051272&spn=0.001575,0.003272&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=39.769354,-105.05117&panoid=QkUgct4gpL3w10dkndNscA&cbp=12,357.03,,0,5

Brian Hudson April 2nd, 2010 at 12:40 am

I was born and raised in Denver and I think I’ve found another of these international style circular buildings… I remember as a child looking at this building, 5801 Leetsdale Drive (which I believe was a ice cream establishment). If you look from above on google earth it has the the same roof lines but appears to have a false fascia to make it look more conventional.The is also one on 1st Avenue in Cherry Creek (near Cook Street that remains intact.

I live in Perth Western Australia now and your sight makes me miss the unique architecture of my old home town Denver

Tom Lundin April 2nd, 2010 at 8:39 am

Thanks I hadn’t mapped out that Leetsdale location, though I must have found about 15 of these buildings so far. They are all somewhat unique, no two seem exactly alike.

Leave a Reply