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!