Woodland Mall
Grand Rapids, Michigan - 1970's
There's a Sears anchor down there at the end, and a glorious Kresge store just to the right. Quite a humble little fountain there, yes, and not a lot of frills to be seen in this interior, but I still like this photo a lot!
Aw heck, I'll admit it, I'm biased! This baby's out here in my own neck of the woods (Michigan), so I always have a special fondness for those malls. MY malls. :) Here's Woodland Mall's current website.
posted by Keith @ 9/08/2005
9 Comments:
This is the mall in which I first became a teen mall rat. Thanks for the blast from the past.
Does anyone have any photos of the old Muskegon mall (MI.) I spend many saturday afternoons hanging out there.
You need a pic of the center of the mall looking North. They had a bigger fountain with strings that mineral oil ran down. It was the largest such display I have ever heard of.
This fountain was really the least memorable as it was between the center of the mall and Sears, alternately between the Center of the mall and JCPenny's was a huge bird cage (read: Loud squaking birds) suspended above another fountain pool. Then as you moved closer to the center of the mall there was a "conversation pit" these were filled in during the 80's as people would walk into them and fall down if they weren't watching where they were going. The center of the mall contained a large white marble platform of now major use (santa arrived there as did the easter bunny in later years). And yes there was a very cool oil/wire scupture from the high ceiling into another fountain pool - where the oil slowly dripped down the fishing line into a drip pan (the real fountain was surrounding this device) the best store of course as Spencer Gifts (black light posters in the back) HotSam's pretzels, Mr. Fables Burgers, Just Pants and Just Jeans (each early versions of the GAP) and that's about all 14 year old boys cared about in 1977. When Hudson's opened with a really big black cheerio suspended above another fountain - modern art had arrived in Grand Rapids - very groovey! Does anyone else remember that the mall originally had a large tower in the very center of the mall - I remember hearing that it fell down in a wind storm in the early 70's never to be rebuilt...
This reminds me of the old Long Ridge Mall in Greece, NY.
That big black Cheerio was memorable--I recall it was actually split at the top and the two halves never met. It had a plaque on the side of the fountain with the name (for some reason, "Split Ring" comes to mind). We used to sit in that little pit area waiting for the parents to come back--conveniently located outside a record store.
And to this day I would kill for some of Fables' onion rings...
Woodland is still kicking these days, with Barnes and Noble, Apple Store, Abercrombie/Hollister, and other big stores. Everyone figured that Rivertown Crossings in Grandville would kill it, but nope.
Fables' onion rings and burgers can be had at the Filling Station Grille on Alpine. VERY close to the real thing...
I think that that cheerio is still there. Exept it used to have a "waterfall" fountain under it where the water was in a big pool that spilled over the sides into another pool of water. I miss those fountains. As a child, they were my favorite part about going to the mall!
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