Today's commercial building facade updates versus the 1950s/1960s

 

A historic corner retail building "improved" with wood accents, like how buildings in the 1950s and 1960s were covered up with panels, NE intersection of 400 East and 2100 South, Salt Lake City.

Corvin Palace Department Store, Budapest, Hungary, with 1950s remodel shown at top, and a return to the classical facade on the bottom.

Store for lease on Kalamazoo Pedestrian Mall in the 1980s, after the JC Penney closed and before.

This building, c. 2005, Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction bar, storefront, carrara glass, 

34 Avenue A, Manhattan, New York City.  

The business closed and the building sold ("Old Mo Pitkin’s Digs Sold for $4 Million," Observer).

The carerra glass redoing of facades actually started in the 1930s as part of the Art Deco period, and often are attractive.  Sometimes they're kept even as part of historic preservation, to demonstrate the "layering of historic styles."

-- How to Work With Storefronts of the Mid-Twentieth Century:

 A Mid-century Storefront Components Guide, 

Illinois Historic Preservation Agency 

Mid-Twentieth Century Preservation webpage, IHPA

Sometimes carrara glass was used only for the business sign, not the entire storefront facade.

Market Avenue Woolworth, McCrory and Kresge Stores, Canton, Ohio. 1950s postcard