Wisconsin Mystery

Dave Schwarz asks:

Do you know anything about the history of Colony Camera in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin? The Colony Camera at North Ave and 88th St. has been out of business seemingly forever...maybe 20 years now? But up until just a couple of years ago the Colony sign (with the Minolta logo) remained standing at the corner, and from what I could see as I drove past the store still had furnishings inside. In the past couple of years the sign was removed and the interior cleared out, and sometime last year a 'For Rent' sign appeared in the window of the store. But there it sits, unoccupied still. I can't imagine why the owner let the store sit, seemingly untouched, for at least a decade...probably closer to two.

Does anyone know the story?

Something similar happened just down the road from me. A very old building, from the 1880s, sat derelict and decaying on a prime piece of lakefront property. Not long after I moved here, a local landlord who owns a handful of rental houses on the shore started work transforming it into a modern house (and he did a great job—my friend Dave, who you met in these pages, did the chimney). But I've always been curious about the circumstances that allowed the property to sit vacant for what had obviously been decades.

So many stories lie shrouded and obscured, from family secrets to corporate ones.

Mike
(Thanks to Dave)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "Idle properties are nearly always the result of title/ownership or tax issues. Perhaps the owner has died and the property gets tied up, perhaps the owner has fled back taxes and title reverts to a lender, perhaps it’s discovered to be atop a toxic landfill (OK, unlikely here). Etc. There’s a former rather ritzy Italian restaurant space a block from my home that’s been inexplicably vacant for 20 years. It must be worth millions. Anyway, back to the camera store, I found this in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal from 2016."

Comments

[Jim Arthur]

It took just a few minutes to find this 2016 Wauwatosa Historical Society PDF that mentions Colony Camera and shows the store front as it once was.

8807 W. North Ave.: The former Colony Camera shop was built in the 1930s and continued pumping Standard gas into the early 1980s. A Standard station built in 1938 at 8807 W. North Ave. became the home to Colony Camera in 1983 but has been vacant in recent years. The store owner died in 2006. The new owner has said he hasn’t decided whether to repair the building or redevelop the site.

[James Bullard]

It happens and not just with old buildings. At least 5-6 years ago on my travels in the Adirondacks it saw a new building go up that had a porch and windows on the front but no door. I was told it was going to be an ice cream shop. It is still sitting there empty. It never opened. I ahve no idea why.

[Eamon Hickey]

Funny that Ken mentioned toxic landfills. When I was selling for Nikon, I had a dealer who had that exact experience. He bought a nice new lot on which he constructed a made-to-order, long dreamed-of building for his camera store, which had hitherto existed in a cramped old generic storefront. The new building really was nice, as camera stores go (or went, in the 90s).

Then the county discovered severe toxic contamination on the site. It had been a small-scale electronics factory two decades earlier and several owners back, and its operators had a free-spirited attitude towards dumping chemicals any ol' place that seemed convenient.

So my dealer was on the hook for the cleanup and, of course, the land was worthless until decontaminated. He had been tied up in lawsuits against layers of previous owners for several years by the time I met him, but the original polluters had long since dissolved their corporation (no personal liability, remember) and scattered to the four winds. I don't know how the saga ended, but I doubt it was good.

[Paul Mc Cann]

in Ireland abandoned houses in rural areas are common. What happens is the family grow up and emigrate leaving their parents alone. When the parents die their children have no interest in returning to what might be a poverty line existence so the house and small area of land is left to rot

[Ken Ford]

A good friend has an abandoned modernish suburban home across the street, the result of a lottery win, a resulting death and family squabbles. It's been vacant at least 15 years.