1911-2008The Williamson Store originally stood at the southeast corner of Lancaster Avenue and Ardmore Avenue, and was completed sometime before 1908. The block housed four storefronts and was one of the first brick structures to be built on Lancaster Avenue, heralding a wave a commercial development that would quickly transform the then residential avenue into a fully built-out town center within two decades. Unfortunately, the stores and estates on downtown's edges were the hardest hit by the pressures of auto-centric development after WWII. Today, Lancaster Avenue any west of here quickly disintegrates into a world of surface parking, strip malls, and car dealerships. Not pictured behind Bryn Mawr Trust's prefab fortress is its always spacious parking lot (how much parking does a bank need anyways?)
Source: "Properties on the Main Line Pennsylvania Railroad from Overbrook to Paoli."Atlas. Philadelphia: A.H. Mueller, 1908.
Original Image: "Williamson Store, Ardmore." 1911. Lower Merion Historical Society Archives. Lowermerionhistory.org. Lower Merion Historical Society. 8 Nov. 2008.
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