Oh yeah, I do this all the time. If I have clients of a certain age, I might give directions like this: “You know that shopping center where the Lechmere used to be (20 years ago)? Go past the Demoulas (called Market Basket for at least 20 years), and take a left.” Somehow it’s more satisfying to refer to the landscape in one’s memory, which has a richer context.
And if they’re too poor to change the building or even the sign:
Ever hear of Red Barn Chicken? A franchise that never quite worked, but had very distinctive roof lines (barn).
The one in the dying little town (thanks, Mr. Simon) from which I escaped still has the building - it is now an oil-change shop. The original sign is still there, but now the chicken is holding a wrench.
Are you saying the Kinks replaced Joni Mitchell? 
She said it in 1970: They paved paradise And put up a parking lot
What’s gone?
The Capitol Theater – the movie theater downtown in my home town. You could walk there. Closed in 1970
Freedomland – The World’s Largest Amusement Park, and it was inside New York City. And it was built by the guy who built Disneyland (Cornelius Vanderbilt Wood).
Palisades Amusement Park – Immortalized in a hit song and a TV jingle. I went there several times. Used to have coupons for rides and admissions in all the DC comics
The Steel Pier in Atlantic City. There is something called “The Steel Pier” in the same place, but it’s not at all the same thing. The original Steel Pier was huge. I knew it in the 1960s and 1970s, which was after its real heyday, but it was still impressive. You paid one admission price and got to see two movies, a live stage show with a famous music star/group, the circus at the end of the pier with the famous Diving Horse, and all the stuff in between. Ripley’s Believe it or not Odditorium! The Diving Bell that would take you to the floor of the Atlantic! The tacky gift shops! The Hall of Performing Animals! The Car Show! and more. On the roof was a giant ad for Coca Cola and for Zaberer’s Seafood Restaurant (with the giant lobster). Now all gone.
Funtime Pier in Seaside Heights, N.J. – the hit from Sandy was bad enough, and did a lot of damage, but then it got hit by the double whammy of a fire as well. Now most of it’s gone. I understand the Sawmill survived, but the last I checked online it hadn’t re-opened.
—and about a zillion Book Stores.
Fortunately Morey’s <sic?> is still there. Our ACE convention is heading for it this summer.
I had to look this one up, because I remember Steeplechase Pier, but nothing called Morey’s.
Morey’s is a set of piers in Wildwood, N.J. (which, I have to say, I don’t remember from my trips to Wildwood, but that was some time ago) Wildwood is a pretty good drive down the NJ coast from A.C. (and even further from Seaside Heights)
edited to add:
Okay – I see there’s a Morey’s in AC now, too.
http://www.stay.com/atlantic-city/entertainment/17247/morey-s-piers-beachfront-waterparks/
That DEFINITELY wasn’t there when I used to go to AC for the Steel Pier.
When we moved here, there was a supermarket called The Dominion a few blocks away and back alley that led to it we called The Dominion Path. The Dominion became a Provigo and we still called the path The Dominion Path. The Provigo and its attached parking lot got torn down and replaced by a 4 storey apartment building. We still the alley The Dominion Path and now call the apartment building The Dominion Arms.
There is another 4-storey apartment across the street that used to be a gas and service station and a municipal parking lot. We call those apartments Spaceballs because it goes on and on and on and … (remember the opening scene of the movie?)
We were at the Spirit Lake NFS campground the day the radio blared that Tricky Dick was going to pack up his boxes and go back to San Clemente. The campground and the road to it are long gone, buried by the top of the mountain that filled the valley. Spirit Lake is still there, but it is still quite the mess.
Well, mrAru and I refer to a specific place as ‘by the ugly green parts store’ though it has not been green or a parts store in 20 years. We have a few ‘bucket points’ like that so if we need to arrange a meeting and do not want to let anybody know where we are all set. pushing 30 years of shared history is good like that =)
When I was a kid, there was a drive-in movie theater near our town that we would go to on special occasions with our family and watch movies from our sleeping bags in the back of our station wagon. That’s where I saw Star Wars for the first time! It closed before I was in high school. For many years it was just an abandoned parking lot, but over time trees sprouted and grew and the old ticket/snack building crumbled. I drove by it a few years ago and it looked like nothing more than a few acres of undeveloped forest.
Yes, I am. I knew they planned to do something with it, nice to know it is still be used for one of its original purposes. Oakland is a really gorgeous town with an unfortunate (though sometimes deserved) reputation.