Lakewood Center Mall
Lakewood, California - circa 1950s
The proud and majestic May Company store at the Lakewood Center shopping mall. And some pretty nice cars in the parking lot, too. Looks like a scene right out of Pleasantville, don't it? :)
Mall history: 1952 - present
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Previous entries: 1,2
posted by Keith @ 9/01/2006
8 Comments:
Ahh, once again, I'll commment. The May Co building you see in the front is still there! It was remodeled in the 90's and has a less than flattering exterior, all the display windows were covered and the hanging plants removed and covered as well. This mall's Montgomery Ward (seen in the distance) is now a 2-level Target. The Sav-on store next to it is where a large baby store is now. This mall also included a JCPenney (on the south end of the mall - MW was on the north). It was enclosed in the 70's and expanded in the 80's with a new center wing. This wing featured a Mervyn's store. Two freestanding department stores off the main mall were closed in the 80's (A Buffum's store thats still standing as a movie theatre, and a Bullocks, torn down for the Home Depot). This mall was then expanded again by 2000 which included the first Macy's built store in Southern California (all previous stores were Bullocks or Broadway locations for the most part). When this expansion was done, Mervyns built a new single level store on the west side of thier old store and the old Mervyns upper level became the food court while the lower level more shops. In 2006, the Macy's store closed and took over the former May Co store, which has 4 levels of shopping to this day.
I wish they had left the facade alone. That was a slick store
I remember my Grandmother taking me to the coffee shop at Woolworths(?) and what a treat it was for our family to dine at Cliftons. What fun to glance back at our lazy Sunday strolls through the mall window shopping...
Lakewood Center was the PLACE to go for all of Lakewood High School in the early 60's. Does anyone remember Baker's Shoes?
One of my earliest memories is taking a trip from Compton to Lakewood Center Mall and I have the memory of the big M on the top of the May Co. sadly it looks like the painted that top part and removed the M when it became a Macy's, seems like they coulda put it back.
Jeff....don't know if you will ever read this or not, but the store at the far end of the mall would later become Montgomery Ward, but at that time it was BUTLER BROTHERS. JC PENNEY would come in during the mid 60's, at the far south end, which at this time had nothing but a dirt lot. A circus would come every summer and set up in the future PENNEY's property.
And for CLIFTON'S fans.....I remember their jingle:
LET'S ALL EAT AT CLIFTON'S
CLIFTON'S IS THE ONE
CLIFTON'S HAS THE TREASURE TRAY
CLIFTON'S SURE IS FUN.
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Does anyone remember Desmonds, Buffums, Bullocks? Do you recall the name of the store that had all the funky imported goods near Desmonds?
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