Here’s what happens when you do a little cleaning over the weekend. Now that my storage area in my garage is nearly complete – and another step closer to user friendly – I began sifting through some of the boxes that have been migrating in from other regions of the Northeast. In other words, my father delivered more spare parts for his Buicks. That’s a good thing, actually, because we seem to have lost track of what we had actually acquired over the years, including the two 1961 Buick Owners Almanacs pictured above. To be honest, I even forget where we found them (for the moment), but they are a brief, yet interesting read nonetheless. This includes the dealerships listed on each cover.
Which got me to thinking – when I should have been putting up some more siding – “I wonder if they still exist?” The results were not unexpected. Starting with Logan Square Buick Company, “Chicago’s oldest Buick dealer” appears to be no more, thanks to Google Map’s street view of 2470-2472 Milwaukee Avenue; a search online did result in 12 Buick dealers within a 25 mile radius of the address, but nothing on their websites indicated that any of them are related to the old Steve J. Barrett run dealership.
It’s more or less the same deal with Circle Buick, which used to be located at 527 W. 57th Street in New York City between 10th and 11th Avenue; or at least their service department. What’s interesting here is that according to the current Buick dealer network, Potakin Cadillac-Buick-Chevrolet-Pontiac-GMC-Saab is located at 706 11th Avenue, though there’s no mention of any related history on their website.
Curious to see if any other copies of the almanacs could be obtained on the Internet, I ran across a second copy of each, the first of which was stamped with the location of Crest Buick at or near 402 Park Avenue in Plainfield, New Jersey. You guessed it – Street View provides a building and a parking lot, but that’s about it.
Lastly, there was a stamping from Siller Motor Company located at roughly 612 Quincy Street in Hancock, Michigan. It’s still a dealership today, although not by the same name; nor is there any hint as to whether or not one led to the other via buy-out. When the pictures were taken via the link, it was Bruno’s Motors dealing in Buick-GMC-Pontiac.
So here’s the $20,000 question: Do any of you know what happened to the four vintage dealerships listed?