International Malls: Yorkdale Shopping Centre
Toronto, Ontario, Canada - circa 1960s
Yorkdale Shopping Centre postcard. I've had many requests to feature this groovy mall sometime, so here's a start. This popular Canadian mall had such an incredibly colorful and swinging looking interior in its early "vintage" years, there's just no way I can not post photos of it! There will be more down the road.
Unlike the majority of shopping mall websites out there, Yorkdale's is one of the few that actually does make an effort to embrace and remember their past, with a nice little history page on the site. Here's an excerpt from it:
Yorkdale Shopping Centre opened its doors and the old Toronto Telegram marveled: "The 100 stores and shops of Yorkdale are all air-conditioned and if the cooling systems... were making ice cubes, they could produce a single stack 55 miles high every hour on the hour...", "...Just marvelous, say the ladies after a Tely tour!"Mall history: 1964 - present
Yorkdale generated a tremendous amount of excitement. Before Yorkdale, everyone did their major shopping downtown. Yorkdale was at the edge of town, with nothing around it. Its gross leasable area was over a million square feet, by far the biggest in Canada. The shopping centre had 40-foot-wide malls and 27-foot mall ceilings which was, and still is, rare.
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: none
posted by Keith @ 11/29/2006
12 Comments:
I love the cathedral like ceiling in the bottom left picture. Very unusual for a mall and for any modern building in fact, because it is expensive. And is that a Sears logo I spot beneath the cathedral ceiling?
The only Toronto malls I have ever visited are Eaton Center and Square One, both of which are fairly recent.
Oh Yorkdale was definitely a very "groovy" looking mall, especially in the seventies!! Really a sight to behold back then. Glad it's finally represented here on the blog.
Cora, that's the Simpson's logo again like the one that appeared at Sherway Gardens a few months back. I look at the postcard and wish I was living at the time. I was born too late it seems. I agree with the really cool interiors in those images.
The only major Toronto shopping malls I visited were Sherway Gardens, Eaton Centre, Scarborough Town Centre, Square One, and Woodbine Centre. I've been past Yorkdale whenever I was either on the 401 or on the TTC subway.
I sometimes wish I would have been living at the Yorkdale Grand Opening in the mid-1960s.....I was born in Toronto in 1979, so that was before my time. Lovely vintage postcard, though.....reminding one of a simpler time in retail.
Cheers
Yorkdale is old but it's still very popular. Location, location, location.
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This is a great mall because of the organization it has and also the perfect decoration it has, I was there some years ago and I could get all the things I wanted.
I also like the cathedral-like ceiling! It's actually more of a cave ceiling to me. The spot is so relaxing that it can calm anyone's nerves, after walking for hours in this spacious mall. And the fountain place is also good for chillin' when you get tired and you want to have peace of mind for a moment. =)
I remember Yorkdale from the mid sixties . Coming from rural PA.it was exciting. The mall was very noisy because of the high plastered ceilings and the torazzo ( spelling !?)floors. There were even little birds flying around because they were trapped in there during construction ! Near the middle of the mall between Sinpson's and eaton's was a wonderful and blissfully Quiet restaurant called Dianna Sweets. We had lunch in the Dublin Room ( all Italian servers!) In the basement was the London Room and the rest rooms. NO corners were cut when that mall was built. There was even an auto dealership connected to the mall near Simpson's !
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Welcome to the Scala Shopping
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That looks a nice place. Thanks for sharing! Anyway, you should also try to visit Abreeza Mall. I'm sure you'll love it too.
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