Eastfield Mall
Springfield, Massachusetts - 1970
Great kitcshy, vintage shot of the "Gazebo Court" at Eastfield Mall, that looks like it was shot in Technicolor! Here's another new mall for the archive here that I hadn't yet blogged (there are actually still many of them left)!
Mall history: 1969 - present
Current website: here
[original image courtesy of Joe's Wilbraham Photo History Page]
posted by Keith @ 5/25/2006
13 Comments:
Do you think the photographer told those people to gaze adoringly at the fountain?
Scott
I love gazebos. This one is pretty elegant.
Nothing says "'70s mall" like those marquee lights that are all over the place.
BTW, if anyone knows where to get those fancy marquee light bulbs, PLEASE let me know. I've been looking for them forever!
I've only seen them at a theatre in Walnut Creek CA, and a old mall in San Jose CA.
Scott
Marquee bulbs: If you mean simply the conical bulbs with the rounded end that usually have a circular "C" shape filament, they are called sign or 's' bulbs and are usually rated at 11 watts. Some hardware and lighting stores carry them. If you mean the round bulbs that have five or so tiny lights inside each bulb, these are called Tivoli bulbs. Bulbman dot com should be able to get them. Beware: "Tivoli Lights" are the strips of tiny individual bulbs, and are not the same thing. Tivoli lights are like the plain marquee bulb strips but with miniate bulbs, like Christmas lights mounted in a metal channel.
I remember this pagoda well and sat on santas lap many times--the fountains were full of change, and the mall has not recovered since its' demise
Don't even try to snap photos of this mall today. The security is dead set adament on an anti-camera policy for whatever silly reason. It's sad really. This very shot of the center court is skeletal, and dead (but have some groovy throwback fan-style drapes on the ceiling). This mall which has not evolved well.
The exterior is also pretty vintage not having received too much upgrade over the years - the Sears here still dons "Sears Roebuck Co" on the glass doors! If I didn't know better, I'd also say this is one of the oldest looking in-and-out Sears stores in the greater (including CT) area.
Those old brown brick floors are also still there...
I remember shopping at this mall in the 1970's when I was in my teens. Thanks for the picture and the great memory!
Many fond memories of this mall with my parents, circa 1974. We used to eat at a dark quiet sit down steakhouse in the mall, with huge leather menus: "The Flaming Pit"
Back then no food courts!
I remember as a kid, running up and down the wooden ramps of the gazebo. Then we would go talk to the birds that were in the big black iron cages. I remember stores like, The Lodge, Viking Haus, Hickory Farms, McCrory's, Foxmoor's, This End Up, the Tie Shop, The Flaming Pit, Anderson Little, Peerless, Orange Julius. Many memories. So sad that the area is not what it used to be.
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I loved that mall. That picture is so accurate. Everyone's recollections are right on the money. Eating in Friendly's was the best.
Just like Linda, I remember this mall well. 1975 was like yesterday for me with The dream machine, the cinemas across from it playing "JAWS"- Orange Julius, Midland Records and no one can forget the candy aisle at McCrorys! Unfortunately, the placid institution and wholesome innocent Saturdays at the mall are now replaced by Millennial thugged out gangsters and selfie taken indigents in all shapes and colors. Springfield is a war-zone now straight out of a John Carpenter movie. The last "stable" memory I have of Eastfield Mall was circa 1983 (?) I noticed year by year it disintegrating from there on. I have since moved to Los Angeles 2001. I think I went back viewed the mall briefly in like 2002. It was unrecognizable and a complete shell of it's former self. Because of the wretched youth of society today - This will all be just fond memories to our generation and can NEVER be recapped.
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