Hardware store locks up for the last time

True Value closes its doors, holds auction of merchandise

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The nuts and bolts went out of Baldwin last week.

Pat and Diane Lore, proprietors of the True Value Hardware store at 1850 Grand Ave., closed up shop and auctioned off the remaining inventory and fixtures.

The shop had been in business as a hardware store, under various owners, since 1934. Pat Lore said the store became a True Value outlet in 1987, and he took it over in 1988.

Lore, of Massapequa, said he previously worked at a hardware store, and before that he was in construction.

Both Lores said they were happy to get rid of the store. “Eighteen years ago, this was a beautiful town,” Diane Lore said. Now, she said, the neighborhood has declined.

At the auction last week, potential buyers wandered up and down the aisles, eying the merchandise and considering bids.

A former Baldwin resident, Mark Dinome of Merrick, said he would probably head to Atlantic Hardware in Freeport now that Baldwin doesn’t have a hardware store. Dinome owns Mark’s Firewood, Coal and Propane on Church Street.

A sign on a storefront in the Stop & Shop shopping center on Atlantic Avenue indicates an Ace Hardware store is due to open at that location, but it could not be determined when that would happen.

The True Value building was purchased by Robert Roland of Valley Stream, who said he hoped to find a tenant for site quickly. He said he was looking at franchises, but added that he thought a business such as a plumbing supply house would do well at the site.

He said filling the store would be a tall order, because he wanted to check on the background of any applicants. “If we don’t do something, all the mom and pop businesses will go out of business,” Roland said.