So... what crashed in your neighborhood today?

Originally posted by theRiverGoddess
Last fall, Utah lost the LAZY-BOY recliner plant as they up and moved to Mexico.
DHL gave up the ghost by new year.........
NOVELL Laid off allot of people in the latter part of last year but I don't have a number, and the people that are left are nervous.

THE 5 DOLLAR PIZZA SHACK had 4 resteraunts and now only has one.....I have seen 2 different, RENT IT CENTER places go out of biz.
CIRCUIT CITY is no more....
A few coffee shops shut down.
My all time FAVORITE movie theater now sells Turkish rugs and other fancy imported carpets.
A FEW smaller used car lots are now empty and closed.

We had a BIG higher end department store called ZCMI that is no more...

MERVENS bit the dust and there are large empty buildings where they used to be.

I have heard there are some empty spaces for rent in the malls but I never go into malls so I cant say for sure.

dont forget the nearly million square foot kraftmaid plant that closed up 2 days before christmas, and flying j filing for bankruptcy.

i work at a food distribution center and i've see a large increase in the little mom and pop restaurants closing up shop.

Well to let everyone know how Middle Tennessee is doing, things are getting pretty scary. People that have worked their whole life are loosing jobs and health care at a rapid rate. Our unemployment offices are so packed. People are getting frustrated and sometimes violent at the local DHS (Department of Human Services) where we go to get aid. The Health Department here offers low cost or free health care and that clinic is packed (not just with Mexicans anymore) with what used to be called the middle class. When I drive through town I see another business closed or closing, everything from large chains to mom and pops. I mean it's not like starving people are walking the streets in rags (YET) but there is a huge change going on and everyone seems worried about our future. The grocery stores do seem to be busy; I presume people are stalking up or subconsciously comforting them selves. The major department stores are not busy anymore they weren’t busy even at Christmas; I am not sure how long they will hang on. People that are still working are afraid to spend right now. The state is talking about cutting 2,000 jobs in the spring if things do not get better. Um lets see, oh yea my neighborhood has several empty houses and some that the construction has stopped so they are sitting un-finished. Many of my neighbors, I have noticed, are home all day now too, I think maybe they have also lost their jobs. Personally as long as my husband and I can draw our unemployment we will be ok but after that I have no idea what we will do if we still cannot find work. We are preparing the old family farm just in case it gets down to the nitty gritty, we are fixing the well pump and the barn and preparing for a large garden. I have also started buying up things like lamp oil, canned food, dry beans, rice, oil and salt. Thank you everyone for sharing it gives me an idea of how things are all over.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


I'm from Fort Worth. We've had A LOT of the mom and pop stores closing, but were I live, that is almost normal (some of the stores can't stay in business, no matter what it is, if they're in a certain area).

Then there have be the usual Linens and Things, and several furniture stores. A shoe store that was a chain, but I can't think of the name right now. I wouldn't be surprised if a World Market or one of the Office (either Office Depot or Staples) stores closed. I've notice many stores having unbelieviable sales (it would be a great time to buy things if you had the money).

Also many house for sale/rent that nobody seems to be interested in.

One of the things that I haven't heard many people mention (I'm sorry if it was brought up in this thread, I haven't read every post) is about all of the retail space that isn't occupied. I've even seen people still building, even though there won't be a store there any time soon.

Oh and I forgot to mention one of the car delarships that I live by that has been in business for over 20 years just closed too.

[edit on 25-1-2009 by riddle6]

Canmore Alberta here and it seems to be doin ok, I seen lots of buses filled with skiers and I am on a good construction site doin drywall/taping and I have work there til June. 2 sites did stop and seem to be at a standstill but word has it they are waiting until summer before resuming. Stuff is still very expensive here and rent a little high but looking in the paper I see prices dropping. Who knows how we will all be a year from now though?

Well I can not say today but in the last month since December,

Here in southern GA, Albany,

Cooper tires
Goody's retail store
Circuit City

Now right now is "rumors" that big chain store Dillard's is also closing.

No good for our small town.

Reno, NV

Circuit City gone
Gambling device maker IGT, layoffs, and 46 percent down in revenues.
All Domino's Pizza places closed last week.
Local paper had two rounds of layoffs, now remaining folks are asked to take a 1 week furlough.
Local governments laying off.
School system facing job cuts or salary cuts, HOWEVER, sports programs get a BOOST in funding.
Emergency services getting scrutinized for overtime abuses. There will be cuts.

List of retail business that have closed or are closing as of the end of 2008 from this website:

Edit to add the 99 cent stores in Texas.

Circuit City – 155 stores , up to 7,300 jobs

Ann Taylor – 117 stores

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherine’s – 150 stores

Eddie Bauer – 27 stores and more after January

La Cache – 20 to 23 stores

Talbots – 78 specialty stores

J. Jill/Talbots Women’s store – all stores

Gap – the Forth & Towne chain- owns Old Navy and Banana Republic- closing 85 total stores
retail.freedomblogging.com...

Mervyn’s – all stores (149)

Limited Too – Converting to lower priced Justice – closing 26 Limited Too

Geoffrey Beene – 100 stores

Footlocker – 250 stores

Wicks Furniture – all stores

Levitz- all remaining stores (76)

Bombay- all US stores (420)

Zales – 23 in 2008, 105 by July 31

Whitehall – 37 remaining stores

Disney – 100 or the remain 220 stores

Home Depot – 15 stores

Macy’s – 9 store

Linens & Things – 371 stores

Movie Gallery - 400 more stores – announced 520 previously

Pacific Sunwear – 154 stores

Pep Boys – 33 stores, 860 jobs

Sprint/Nextel – 125 stores, 4000 jobs

JCPenney – 75 stores, 4,900 jobs

Ethan Allen – 12 store

Wilsons the Leather Experts – 160 stores, 1000 jobs

Shaper Image – remaining 86 store

K B Toys – 156 stores

Dillard’s – 4 stores

[edit on 25-1-2009 by riddle6]

reply to post by riddle6


Thank you riddle6 for the information. I do not think anyone mentioned the empty commercial realastate in this thread but I do think that is the next bubble that will burst. Commercial real estate will experience a collapse this year from what I am reading.

I live below Dallas in a county with a booming business and everyone that lives here works in one of our 7 gigantic factories well so far as of 2009 5 have closed down, and everyone is out of a job and applying for the local mcdonalds so its not good right now. Hope theres a better city i'm planning on moving.

Mervyns. Now a small chain restaurant. A beautifully built, smaller professional office complex has sat empty since built last year. Parents will need to pay for an extra week of childcare, if schools cut back one week.

For a rural town this size, we really don't have what you might expect for retail, so Mervyns was a BIG deal. A lot of the shoppers drive 30+ miles to do some serious shopping.

Small businesses are off this year. Painters and roofers had less business. A small mom and pop store did $10,000 less business.

Families are finding relatives moving in, as layoffs/cutbacks happen here and there. One family had 10 in their small 3 bedroom house, but that was parents plus three of their kids and spouses and children (one set lived in the living room).

In the last three weeks, my mother, brother, son, aunt, and numerous friends have all lost their jobs......I am afraid our small town is dying...

Well yesterday the ASX had some big increases

The All Ords were up $98.00 AUD,

A Mervyn's and Circuit City closed up shop. Lots of smaller stores and offices are closed. There are more "For Lease" signs than "Open" signs. The agriculture retail store I was working out closed it's doors for good.

My best friend, his wife, his mother, my cousin and her husband, my uncle, my wife and myself have all lost our jobs this month alone. There are no jobs to be had. I've applied for every job listing I've seen and haven't even received one return call.

My sister works for a large insurance company (not going to say which) and she said things are not looking very good for her job or the companies future. My brother-in-law works for a small HVAC company and has had his hours cut. My father was planning on retiring this year but since he lost almost $200k in his 401k, he won't be able to.

2009 is, so far, very bleak.

reply to post by Melissa101


Hi.

I am still reeling over the closure of our local "Woolworths"!
As this story was developing,i saw various interviews with members of the public,usually from London,or other big cities,and the general consensus was, "oh well! It is not really a store that we visit very much any way"!

Now,this is all well and good if you do happen to live in a "big city",and plenty of other stores to choose from! But for the small towns,the closure of "Woolies" was a devastating blow for the rest of the stores in our high street!

Woolies was the first store that i visited,when going shopping on our high street,as i was more or less certain to find whatever it was that i was looking for,there.

Now it has gone,all i have on my local high street is a couple of pharmacies,and more than a couple of charity shops!

It seems that Woolworths should have done away with the big city branches sooner,judging from the level of indifference from the general public,towards these stores,and perhaps tried to keep a chain of more viable small stores open,as i know for a fact,that our local store was banking £80,000 A WEEK!

reply to post by Melissa101


Hi live in Port Elizabeth South Africa the town is supported by General Motors an Volks Wagen. GM is retrenching (the H3 line is shuting down) VW has already retrenched and i work for Corning and we retrenching 13% in the next two weeks actualy we we haveing a emegency meeting in about a 1/2 HR time. I hope i still have a Job.

I got a Q: What is going on with the investigations into the Bankers responcible?
Why has noone been hung yet?

It is so hard right now to stay CIVIL!

I happened to be in one of those "big box" home improvement stores last night. The parking lot had only a few cars, I only ran into 3 other customers in that cavernous place (eerie), and only one of the check outs was open in the long row of them (looked dead...in fact, they reminded me of a row of tombstones).

Of course, it was the end of the month, but that never seemed to bother people before. Now, people are not so quick to whip out the plastic when they don't have the cash.

Also, a family of three had only a bag of rice, some cans of vegetables, and a package of meat in the freezer, to last a week. The child was glad to spend the night at a friend's house, to be able to eat there.

Originally posted by Daniel666
reply to post by Melissa101

 

I got a Q: What is going on with the investigations into the Bankers responcible?
Why has noone been hung yet?

Well in my opinion the federal reserves in which owns America and her banks have no intentions of revealing what happened to the money they were given by our gorvernment which we borrowed from other countries. I have a thread on ATS that you should look at and watch. The series will explain to you why nothing has been done nor will ever be done. The money simply vanished into thin air and no one can account for it. The money did not simply disappear the "powers that be have it" and will use it to form the NWO. This is just my theory, after you view the links on my other thread (The ultimate conspiracy to end all conspiracies) let me know what you think.
Melissa

I am just across the state line from Memphis (south in Mississippi).

Months ago when I heard that things were getting bad around the country, it really still had not "hit" here. But in the last three months we have lost two local restaurants, one of which had been here 20 years. All of our Quizno's closed.

A Goody's clothing store that had been here less than a year is having a going out of business sale. Of course the others have mentioned Linen's & Things, Circuit City..etc.

We just lost a Roadhouse Grill, & a Lone Star.

Houses are popping up for sale all around me and mine will probably be next. We run an asphalt maintenance business and rely on capital money...which no one is spending right now. We lost $100,000 worth of work the latter part of the year and are in foreclosure. Once the house is released by the courts back to the mortgage lender...there is really no money to work out a loan mod even. After 200 job aps, my husband finally found work repairing laptops for pitiful wages but it doesn't come anywhere near paying the bills. I started selling hand made soap just to keep the lights on and have had a great amount of support from the Ron Paul groups that I am part of but unless it becomes steady, it's not enough. We checked on a rental today, but fitting a family of 7 into a rental house is difficult and the ones that are of a decent size they want $1500 a month for.

It's looking bleak for everyone. I wish you all the best of luck. I don't have a lot of money, but if there's anything I can do for any of you, let me know.

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
I'm a Plummer and I've got jobs lined up for the next 3 months , so money is ok.

Then shouldn't you be working now instead of on ATS? And by the way you might be doing OK but are your customers.....have you heard of Bad Debts

I'm sorry EyesWideShut if my response is rude but I just got annoyed because your post appeared so inconsiderate towards all those people doing it tough at the moment. I really hope things stay well for you.

Edited to apologize

[edit on 1/29/2009 by MyXlog]

In the Green Bay, WI, area both Circuit City and Cub Foods are closing their doors. Also, a few locally owned places and Ma & Pa stores are either closing or loosing business.

Also, being hired somewhere is tough. I'm 16 and have applied at quite a few places (gotta get gas money somehow ) yet I haven't heard back from anyone yet. The most recent app. I put in was about a month ago...