How Many Closed Businesses Can You Spot in This Picture?

It's like the "Guess My Age" thing at the carnival but with closed businesses...

This is the corner of Robins and Saginaw on the West side of Lansing. In the 70s and 80s, this was one of the most thriving areas of Lansing. Now, it more closely resembles a post-apocalyptic/zombie scene from a movie like "The Road" or "28 Days Later"....The kind of place where people just picked up and left town, and everyone vanished.

What's even sadder is that if I turned around I could see another closed business and if I took about 10 steps to the right I could see another closed business, that was in the site of a closed high school.

There are 6 closed businesses in the above picture. They are:

1. Fifth Third Bank. This was many different banks over the years. Most recently I'm pretty sure it was a Fifth Third.

Fifth Third? Maybe a few others....

2. Ponderosa. It was a real loss to the community when Pondo shuttered it's doors on Saginaw. Luckily there is still one on the South Side for the all you can eat buffet steak house crowd.

Ponderosa "Steak House"

3. Jr. Roosters. This was a Turkeyman. Before that it was a Blimpies.

Jr. Roosters

4. Major League Sports Cards.

Major League Sports Cards.

5. New York Carpet World. This was turned into an American Eagle after the New York Carpet World closed. No, not the American Eagle that all you cool high school mall kids are thinking of....The trashy Lansing American Eagle that was basically a sleazy, redneck version of The Dollar Store where they sold fireworks, slime, beer cozies, french ticklers, etc. You can still see the remnants of both stores....

New York Carpet World/American Eagle

6. Fortune House. This was a few different restaurants over the years. I think it was a Pizza Hut at one point. The Taco Bell next to it used to be a Friendly's and more recently was Lansing's favorite drunken gut bomb maker....THEO'S!!!

Fortune House

And all of this was just within one picture....Now like I said if you just turn around, or move a few steps over, you're bound to see even more closed businesses. Here are a couple of examples.

O'Rafferty High School/Michigan National Bank

This is the old O'Rafferty High School building on West Saginaw (directly across the street from the closed Fortune House, and right next to the closed Fifth Third Bank). After it was a high school, it became a Michigan National Bank office building for a few years. Now it's another empty building in this area.

Home of the Whopper!

The telltale barn/hutch roof architecture gives it away....This was a Burger King. The best part of this story is that this Burger King has sat abandoned for literally 15 years. Nothing has gone into the space, nothing has been torn down, I bet you could go inside and still get a BK crown and a couple of Burger Buddies!

Luckily, the Quality Dairy in this area lives on!

Holy Cross Church

Nothing much to see here, just an entire city block boarded up.

Holy Cross Church opened on September 21, 1924. It was located at 1611 W. Oakland Ave. in Lansing. It occupied the entire block between Saginaw and Oakland, and between Jenison and Comfort. For those familiar with the area, they know that this is very close to the previously posted about Lansing Craft Center and Lansing Metal Center.


Holy Cross was more than just a church. The campus also included a school which taught grades K-8, and a rectory. All of this is now boarded up.


It's worth noting that this church served many different communities. There was a substantial Vietnamese community present, as well as White and Latino. Of all of the Catholic churches in Lansing, it probably had the biggest gaps in household income.


A woman came by during Christmas and decorated her former church with wreaths, because she was sad to see it boarded up and looking like nobody cared for it anymore. No news yet on who will take the wreaths down.


I attended church there many times over the years, and I can say from experience that the attendance was far lower than that of most churches. It was not a big church, and it certainly wasn't flashy. It was probably a throwback to what a Catholic church and service were like in the 50s and 60s.

I also played against their basketball team in junior high. Their gym was more of a basketball museum than a gym. Dr. Naismith probably could have stepped into it and felt right at home. It did have it's charms though....

More pics below.