Mayfield Mall
Mountain View, California - circa 1966
This groovy photo speaks for itself! The quintessential looking swinging sixties mall, complete with funky flower pattern hangings, and wall-to-wall carpeting (which this mall had). I only wish this shot was in color! (image courtesy of the Mountain View Preservation Alliance)
According to the MVPA:
"The Mall was shut down in 1984 after owners felt it could not compete with newer or expanding malls like Vallco and San Antonio Center. The building was converted into an HP office building. HP is vacating the building in the near future, and the future development of the property has yet to be determined."Obviously there's no official website for Mayfield Mall (Northern California's first fully enclosed, climate-controlled mall) since it's long gone, but a quick search found some good background info on this cool page, among a few others, if you're interested.
History: 1960s - 1984 (dead)
Previous entries: none
posted by Keith @ 7/28/2006
33 Comments:
Mountain View used to have three malls, all in a row. Mayfield, The Old Mill, and San Antonio Center. The only place left to shop, and not a mall anymore, is San Antonio.
Mayfair had JC Penney and cool roof-top parking. Penney's eventually moved to Sunnyvale Town Center and the owner of the mall thought it wouldn't survive (it was really small). Probably a wise decision. They closed it and sold the building to HP. Little has changed of the outside. You can drive around the parking lot and imagine what it was like. Now, though, high-density housing will be built on the site and there were be no indication a mall ever existed.
Check out the aerial at here
Wall-to-wall carpet in a mall? I bet that was hard to keep clean! I can see the Orange Julius stains now...
What a small mall. Jesus. It was about the size of The Quad in Whittier (which closed after the 1994 Northridge quake - only the hinshaws store was left).
Jeff you said Hinshaw's! I loved that store because it was so dang old fashioned. In the 80's it was my idea of a 60's store because it never seemed to have been updated. They had another location in Santa Anita near the Santa Anita Mall (but not in it)
Thanks for posting this - I was having mysterious "Mayfield Mall Flashbacks" but couldn't remember the name. Matt is correct about the escalator up going to only the roof-top parking. It was an oddly layed out place, but quite as organic as its neighbor, The Old Mill.
In 1966, a carpeted indoor mall was really a new concept. Mayfield Mall was especially cool because you could park on the roof and enter from the top by escalator. I believe that was the only indoor mall in the Santa Clara Valley, until Eastridge Mall came along in 1971.
-Mike Carroll
Wow, what memories. I remember running though this place as a kid, jumping the upholstered vinyl benches as if they were hurdles. The fun ended when I landed on a big ceramic sand-filled ashtray...crack!
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the shops also incudes a pet store that had Aligators , and a arcade next to cost plus. Our Model airplane club held a indoor display with flying in the parking lot before it closed .I too remember the giant wood doors . and the candy shop in the middle of the floor , My mom worked as a waitress in woolworth .
My dad was one of the Architects who designed the Mayfield Mall. He was given one of the Iron Butterflies from the huge sculpture that hung from the ceiling. I still have it! I loved going there as a kid. :-)
My dad was one of the Architects who designed the Mayfield Mall. He was given one of the Iron Butterflies from the huge sculpture that hung from the ceiling. I still have it! I loved going there as a kid. :-)
Man, I used to LOVE going to this mall as a kid. We always got our new shoes there and would test them out running down the carpet stripes or trying to jump across them.
I went there all the time when I was a kid. There was Foxmoors, Joseph Magnin, Leeds Shoe store, and I remember they use to have live model manequins standing in the stores, and we would stare at them, to see when they would blink, they just stood still not moving. It was actually kind of weird, but very cool. I miss it alot.
I remember this mall. My folks used to take me there for shoes because there was this one sales person in the Penny's shoe department that mom and dad thought was some kind of shoe expert for kids. And the parking on the roof and you took the escalator down through the roof into the mall. Wow, that was a long time ago.
I moved to Mt View in 1970, lived on California Street, my wife and I would walk to the mall.
I still miss that mall years later, and my Mom now 86 speaks of it a lot.
It was a workable size and had some great shops. My wife and I shopped there for years even after we moved away from Mt View.
It was just a nice place to be.
I remember the layout of JC Penney. The bottom floor, where you entered from the main side, going clockwise was sporting goods, toys, hardware/paint, appliances, home electronics, package pick up/customer service, furniture and lighting, linens, draperies, houseware items.
The second level as you enter from the upper parking lot clockwise, mens suits/formal wear, boys apperal, infant clothing and nursery furntiure, the elevator, girls and womans apperal, cosmetics and perfume, mens and womans shoes. Now in the central isle is where they sold photographic equipment and I think records and tapes.
I remember eating in the JC Penney diner which was next to a beauty shop. You could always hear booming organ music coming from the piano/organ shop three shops down. I always hated the sound of those organs.
I remember as a very young child a psychedelic shop that was upsatirs (the first shop on the left after you exited Penney's) I believe called Steve's. There were blacklight lit posters, revolving psychedelic lamps, etc, and to a four year old it was intriguing to look at the wild colors.
I also remember Kelly's which was a nice place to eat. I remember it being next door to Smith's mens wear.
Anyone remember Kinney's Shoe store with the big revolving turn table out front with all of the latest shoe styles displayed?
And Woolworth's had those giant dark brown NCR cash registers with multiple drawers. I was so facinated with those machines.
There was also a candy stand on the second floor called Century Candy.
I remember the unusual, large, plexi glass bubble shaped windows on the front of the Singer sewing machine store.
There was another shop called Hearts. I don't remember what they sold though.
There was also a record shop/music store that sold guitars hanging from the ceiling. I always thought that it looked so strange (to a childs eye) to see all of those guitars hanging from racks on the ceiling.
So sad to have seen this great center close down.
I would come here a lot to hang out with friends...We would go to Musicland and Steve's. We would eat at Woolworths. I remember popcorn and cotton candy being served there as well. It was a great place for kids to roam around...
Cost Plus was a window to another world!!!
The date on the photo is a mistake - Mayfield Mall opened in the Fall of 1967; they featured hot air balloon rides on opening day. The site of the mall and the housing tracts just to the southeast of it were up until about 1956, broccoli and cauliflower fields.
As a child of the '60's and '70's I grew up in this mall. My mom worked at Penny's while getting her nursing degree at DeAnza college in the late 70's I fondly remember every year or so going to "the boottery" to get those awful heavy shoes because a quack pediatrician convinced my mom that I'd never be able to wear normal shoes. I used to love going to the exhibitions that the mall hosted every so often. Across the Cal-train tracks was "the old mill" a rather interesting mall that housed a multi screen theater and a radio station(KPEN) I got my first 35mm camera at the "crick" in the Old Mill as my high school graduation gift from my parents. Those were many good years in the area before the tech industry ruined the place with their sprawl. My father was a long time employee of Lockheed Missiles & Space Company until his death in '89. Yes those were good years people.
My Name is Steve Markovits. Steven's Toys was named in my special honor. I am the son of Stan and Jeanne Markovits, who owned the store on the main level of the Mayfield Mall, just next door to JC Penny. I actually managed the store after my parents built a home in Guadalajara, Mexico, where they retired and lived for about 20 years. Steven's later changed it's retail format, from toys to anything and everything for your walls…Burl Clocks, hanging signs, prints, framed photography, posters, backlights, paraphernalia , mobiles, mirrors, decorative items. The Mayfield Mall unfortunately was just too small…We didn't have any large pull from a major retailer…JC Penny was the biggest store. You couldn't hope to compete with Stanford Shopping Center, Eastridge Mall, and Vallco Mall, which all later, became part of the equation. I'm now retired after spending most of my retail experience in retail management. I now live on the Central Coast. If you have any interest in saying hello, or perhaps remember me, from years past, please feel free to drop a note. My Email: sjaymarko@charter.net Please indicate in Subject: MAYFIELD MALL What a kick finding this site. November 28, 2015
I have tremendously fond memories of Mayfield Mall. My parents purchased a brand new Gulbransen organ from the merchant who sold pianos and organs on the first floor nextdoor to the pet shop. I can remember how the sound of pianos and organs would reverberate throughout the entire first floor of the mall. Wow, that was so cool! My parents and their beloved organ are long gone but the memories will last as long as I do!
In the 7 th grade i lived behind mayfield mall and i used to walk to it i remember pennys and the escalators. I guess my mom shopped there too
I frequented this mall a lot as a kid. Probably from 1974 until it closed in 1984.
It was sad to see it close. I used to love Christmas season when they would decorate the main floor with Santa Claus in the middle. No mall would devote that much floor space to something like that these days.
At the very end of its days they tried expanding with a new downstairs section but it never actually opened. I was really hoping that would work. The new mall across the street was just too cool. The Old Mill met a similar fate not long after though.
Small malls like Mayfield, the Old Mill, and Town Center just can't compete with the big malls.
It was sold to HP who occupied it for a while then they sold it to Google who remodeled it and are in it right now. (Feb 2018).
Loved this mall...Really weird to get into though...Also loved & miss The Old Mill which was down the street!
https://www.cafepress.com/vintagemountainview -- Check out this site for Mayfield Mall items and other vintage Mountain View memorabilia! https://www.cafepress.com/vintagemountainview
My brother &I used to see Santa at top of escalator. One yr Santa was a she &had a blue nose!lol!I recall the time mom took me to the JC Penny's for back to school clothes &they forgot about us being in the dressing rooms&closed the store!I got really scared but a clerk was still around apologised&let us out.
Oh my gosh!You went to the children's bootery too for those straight last shoes?I recall growing out of my last pair of them in 1978.Yes good years before the cultural shock of the tech industry ruining everything.I grew up in Sunnyvale but my family started out in Mtn Vw.so wed go back San Antonio shopping center for Menu tree where I always wanted to sit upstairs with a view of all those giant colorful bird statues&the 4 sided 2 story Cuckoo clock.Id always get the spaghetti with garlic bread,Sears(with that super sparkling side walk outside)&that hobby store with the intricate model train town in its windows! &Mayfield Mall was Jc Pennys,Woolworths,Cost Plus &The yearly visit with Santa.The Old Mill was really peaceful with the lake &water wheel.There was a La Pasada Mexican restraunt where you could sit on a waterside patio&there was that book store that served coffee The Upstart Crow.My friend &I saw "Clan Of The Cave Bear" at the theater there& I recall in later years they had an international marketplace.
Hi Steve The memory of your store in Mayfield mall is a little vague to my memory but what you&others mention all the cool merchandise I think that is where I saw a lot of those colour changing fiber optic flower things usually encased as if they were terrariums in wood with glass.I saw one again in 1985 out at a shop I worked at in Vallco.That store went out of business Jan 1986&,My boss sold me that last fiber optic sculpture.
I moved to Palo Alto in 1981 right after college and would ride my bike all the way down to Mayfield Mall to get some chocolate chip cookies at “Grandma’s Cookies” store (I think that was the name). They were the best! The mall was on the way out by then, but still oh-so-cool…like something kind of hidden away and stuck in a time warp. I miss it!
Hi I am writing a book about Mayfield Mall. I saw Steve's email on this thread from the toy store. Does anyone know the name of any of the owners? I am also looking for the owner of House of Blue Jeans.
Hello, it is cool that I came across this site. My name is Stan Johnson and I was the owner of Gramma Johnson's Cookies. I opened it at 19. We won first place in a couple of cookie contests of the day. It was a lot of fun. We closed in December 1983 just before the mall closed in January 1984.
The Menu Tree was by far the best food court, EVER! And the bakery there has the best cookies! The mid century modern Birds and clock decor!
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