Retro JCPenney Store

Salem, Oregon - January 2, 1965

Mid sixties JCPenney store sitting in the rain looking very melancholy, in downtown Salem, Oregon. This photo was taken on January 2, 1965, and shows the then newly constructed JCPenney retail store on Liberty Street.

(Study image courtesy of the Salem Public Library)

The Daily Mall Reader: Muzak

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

But It's Good for You

TIME Magazine - Friday, Aug. 30, 1963

(Excerpt) The music darts into the ear, does its subtle job in the subcortex of the brain, then slips out the other ear without saying goodbye. The listener is all but unaware that he has heard anything, but the music has sloshed around inside his head, and, relieved of the humdrum business of thinking, he feels better immediately. His mouth smiles. He likes his work, loves his wife, spends his money. The only thing he has to fear is silence, but thanks to a company called Muzak and its many imitators in the background music business, he has nothing to worry about. Loudspeakers are everywhere.

The total musication of America is by now almost complete. Muzak gets the credit for being the biggest noise maker of all, a feat that brings in $15,000,000 a year from its 30,000 subscribers. The soft comforting sounds that ooze from Muzak's speakers are heard each day by more than 60 million people—in hospitals and mortuaries, elevators and space capsules, prisons and jute mills.

Read the full article here.

Ala Moana Shopping Center

Honolulu, Hawaii - circa 1960s

Yep, here's another different Ala Moana aerial taken from the eastern Sears anchor side--and I still have a few other ones left after this one, believe it or not (remember what I said in that other post?)! At this point, I'm just trying to use 'em all up finally, lol. But then a nice view (and mall) is worth repeating, I guess, right? Right. Anyway, here's some background via Wikipedia:

Ala Moana Center was once the largest shopping center in the United States and currently holds the distinction of being the largest open-air shopping center in the world. Located at 1450 Ala Moana Boulevard in Honolulu, Hawaii, Ala Moana Center is part of the commercial, retail, and residential district of Ala Moana, west of Waikiki and across from Ala Moana Beach Park.

Ala Moana Center is renowned throughout Asia and Western Europe as a major international shopping destination. There are more than 260 shops and restaurants, including boutique stores of leading international fashion designers. Its current anchor tenants are Macy's, Nordstrom (opening 2008), Neiman Marcus and Sears. The Center boasts one of the world's largest food courts, featuring cuisines from around the globe. Over 56 million people visit Ala Moana Center annually. Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange as GGP, owns and operates Ala Moana Center.

Oh, and if you haven't already, be sure and check out the cool virtual mall tour I mentioned in an earlier Ala Moana entry. Pretty neat stuff.

Mall history: 1959 - present
Architect: John Graham Jr.
Current aerial view
Current website: here
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: 1, 2, 3, 4

Sprawl Mall

Hmm, I think this guy might be on to something with his Holiday shopping strategy. Sounds like a plan to me! :)

By Jim Borgman, Cincinnati Enquirer.

MOA Galleria - Santa arrives at Tacoma Mall

Tacoma, Washington - November 26, 1965

Santa's jolly 1965 arrival by helicopter, in the parking lot at Tacoma Mall! Here's the photograph's caption:

"Wet weather did not delay Santa's arrival at the Tacoma Mall Shopping Center on November 26, 1965. He simply donned rubber boots and caught a ride with a Kent-based helicopter. Santa waves a cheery hello to the smiling crowd of old and young. He had circled the mall twice before landing at the Tacoma Mall's main entrance and then marching to his throne at his North Pole mountain in the center of the mall."

Mall history: 1964 - present
Architect: John Graham
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Previous entries: 1, 2, 3

(Study image courtesy and © Tacoma Public Library)

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!"

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.

Mall history: 1964 - present
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: none

Retail Video: Houston Mall

Ill Mall Housto (2006)

Here's another cool dead mall video (Houston Mall) I came across a while back and found interesting and wanted to share here.

This one comes courtesy of YouTuber, wkat950, who shot and edited it himself, and I think he did a nice job--I'd have picked some different music myself, though, since this piece was already used to good effect in one of the Dixie Square Mall teasers I posted a while back.

But it does have kind of a lonely, haunting feel to it, much like the aforementioned Dixie Square clips I've featured here in the past (like this one). Here's the uploader's description:

"A video of the Houston Mall in Warner Robins, GA. Houston Mall opened in 1972 and was extremely busy even after Macon Mall opened 3 years later. Its tenants included Sears, Belk-Matthews, WT Grant, and on the strip wing Winn-Dixie. Elmore's discount store and Eckerd Drugs were near the Grant court along with Chick-Fil-A.

In 1994 the Galleria opened down the street and siphoned most tenants out. Today Houston Mall is slowly trying to populate its spaces. Houston Medical Center rents a third of the mall including the old Sears. The rest of the tenants are the Municipal Court, a few medical offices, beauty-related stores, a home decor store, a used office furniture store, and the Air Force Reserve Band.

Despite a stated 85% occupancy (per July newspaper article) the mall is still a 'dead' mall."

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

Cyber Monday, Marketing Myth
Despite a huge amount of hype, the Monday after Thanksgiving is historically only the12th-biggest online shopping day of the year

BusinessWeek.com - November 29, 2005

(Excerpt) Do a Google search on "Cyber Monday," and you get as many as 779,000 results. Not a bad haul for a term that was created just a week and a half ago to describe the jump in online shopping activity following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. While Black Friday is the official kickoff of the traditional retail season, the story goes, online retail really takes off the following Monday.

Just one problem: It's not true, at least for many online retailers. Contrary to what the recent blitz of media coverage implies, Cyber Monday isn't nearly the biggest online shopping or spending day of the year. It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher comScore Networks. It's not even the first big day of the season.

Read the full article here.

Michigan Mall - J.C. Penney

Battle Creek, Michigan - June, 1983

Exterior view of the J.C. Penney Co. store (before it moved to nearby Lakeview Square Mall, where it still resides) along Michigan Mall, an outdoor pedestrian shopping strip area in Battle Creek.

I don't see shots of the old Penney logo in this color and style very often. Thought it was kind of interesting and different. I'd imagine it was simply a holdover design at this point, from a more vintage era.

(Study image courtesy of the Willard Public Library, Battle Creek)

Northland Center Mall

Southfield, Michigan - circa 1950s

Vintage exterior postcard view of Michigan's Victor Gruen beauty, Northland Center, as seen from the parking lot, where you can see the mall's two-level rooftop parking arrangement. In fact, if you look real close in this photo, you can see a couple buses dropping shoppers off (or picking them up, whatever the case may be) on the second level.

See this past entry for another, slightly different view of this same shot, this one for a perspective further left, this one for another angle from the far right side I think, and then see this entry for a closeup look at the parking area itself. Whew! We have it handled from just about every angle here. :)

Here's the card's caption:

"Standing in the center of immense parking facilities, Northland, Detroit's new, great shopping center attracts buyers from a wide area."

Well Northland's definitely got the parking covered, it would appear. And then some.

Mall history: 1954 - present
Architect: Victor Gruen
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

MOA Galleria - Southdale Center Mall

Edina, Minnesota - circa 1956

Caption for the above photo, from Southdale Center mall:

"Southdale provided one of the most unique customer services ever - helicopter service. Customer could fly from Southdale to Dayton's downtown Minneapolis store, the airport or downtown St. Paul. The flying time between locations was 10 minutes. The first passenger was Mr. William Crear, Jr., executive vice president and general manager of Southdale. Mr Crear, seen here with pilot Donald Heyden, traveled to Dayton's rooftop heliport in downtown Minneapolis."

More Southdale Center: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

(Study image courtesy and © Southdale Center)

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

'Cyber Monday' kicks off online holiday shopping

SiliconValley.com - Mon, Nov. 27, 2006

(Excerpt) Now that the dust has settled at the nation's malls from the Black Friday frenzy, it's time for Cyber Monday, the ceremonial kickoff to the online holiday shopping season.

Nearly 61 million consumers plan to shop online from home or at work today -- up from 51.7 million people last year -- in what is expected to be one of the biggest online retail days of the year, according to the Shop.org, the online wing of the National Retail Federation.

"Shoppers who fought the crowds at the mall all weekend will find a welcome reprieve online on Cyber Monday,'' said Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, which conducted the survey over the weekend. "Consumers who couldn't find what they were looking for in the stores will be flooding Web sites on Cyber Monday to shop for holiday gifts, research products and compare prices.''

Read the full article here.

Old Mill Shopping Center

Mountain View, California - January, 26, 1977

The impressive sixteen foot high water wheel that made up part of the miniature indoor "mill" that sat over a lush tree lined, landscaped creek, winding its way through the courtyard of the Old Mill Shopping Center. The setup reminds me of a similar one I blogged about before that once existed at the Golf Mill Shopping Center--only this one at Old Mill was inside the mall! Pretty cool, huh?

Here's a little history from the Mountain View Preservation Alliance:

The Old Mill opened in 1976 as a boutique shopping center, the "Ghiradelli Square of Mountain View" as it was known. Stores and restaurants surrounded a two story atrium that contained a creek, old wooden mill, and large living trees and luxurious landscaping. Fargo's was a popular teen hang out, La Posada a popular Mexican-American restaurant. The mall fell on hard times in the 1980s, and after a failed conversion into a "public market" (without the creek and trees), it closed in 1989. The site is now home to the landmark New Urbanist "Crossings" neighborhood.

Mall history: 1976 - 1989
Current website: n/a
Previous entries: none

(Study image courtesy and © the Palo Alto Historical Association)

MOA Galleria - Kahala Mall

Honolulu, Hawaii - December 12, 1971

What better way to celebrate the Holiday season in 1971 Honolulu, than to head over to Kahala Mall for Stag Nite! Yes, this was really taking place at a mall (though it was protested by a local women's lib group). Hmm, sorry, but I have to admit, that ad would be mighty hard to resist. :)

This vintage ad is via Ian Lind's "Old Kine" Pictures page, where you can also check out several photos of the actual protest outside Kahala Mall that night, as well as read more about the event and what took place.

Crossroads Shopping Center

Waterloo, Iowa - circa early '70s

Quality isn't great on this vintage postcard image of the Crossroads Shopping Center, but I'm going to use it anyway because this is a mall I haven't covered here yet (though I did cover a Crossroads Shopping Center in Omaha before), so I want to at least get it represented in the archives finally. Meantime, I'll look for a better version for future use.

The JCPenney anchor is visible in this photo, as well as a Sears, and Osco Drug. According to the Wikipedia entry, Crossroads is:

"...the dominant shopping center in northeast Iowa with a trade area that extends more than 50 miles. Its anchor stores include Dillard's, JCPenney, Sears and Younkers. The key retailers in the mall include Scheels All Sports, Old Navy, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, The Buckle, PacSun, Maurices, Chistopher & Banks, Journeys and Finish Line. The mall is located in the heart of a retail hub that includes a new 12 screen theater, Best Buy, Super Target, Super Wal-Mart, Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond and many other national tenants."

Mall history: 1970 - present
Current website: here
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: none

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

Swinging Dayton's

TIME Magazine - Friday, Aug. 30, 1968

(Excerpt) When Twiggy made her 1967 U.S. tour, she deigned to put in a personal appearance at only one department store. The same store was one of the first in the U.S. to introduce men's Carnaby Street fashions. It has also brought in Simon & Garfunkel, Dionne Warwick, and Spanky and Our Gang to entertain shoppers. Among art fanciers, it is known and respected for its Gallery 12, which sells Tom Wesselmann nudes as well as $8,000 Marisol wood sculptures.

The store is Dayton's of Minneapolis, which has exhibited a flair for showmanship that has been emulated by some of the biggest names in U.S. retailing. Still, the showcase downtown store is only one part of the fast-growing Dayton Corp., which by the end of 1968 will include ten other department stores, eleven discount outlets and a chain of 27 bookshops.

Read the full article here.

Brookdale Shopping Center

Brooklyn Center, Minnesota - 1967

Dayton's anchor store and interior court area views, inside the Brookdale Shopping Center in the late sixties. I've always dug that stylish Dayton's script logo, and it just seems to go so well with this rather swinging looking shopping mall!

Appears we might have another monofilament line "rain fountain" here, too, like the ones in Topanga Plaza and South Coast Plaza, among others. Here's some history from Wikipedia:

Brookdale Center is a large shopping mall in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. It is anchored by Macy's (formerly Dayton's, then Marshall Field's) and Sears.

It is part of the four "Dale" shopping centers circling the Twin Cities, originally developed by The Dayton Co. The others are Southdale Center, Rosedale Center, and Ridgedale Center.

Mall history: 1964(?) - present
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: none

(Study images courtesy and © the Minnesota Historical Society)

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

Fortunes on the Mall

TIME Magazine - Friday, Mar. 1, 1968

(Excerpt) Oklahoma-born Gerri Von Frellick reached Denver 16 years ago with a $2 bill and $643,000 in debts, the wreckage of his overextended Texas construction company. Since then, Von Frellick, 51, has amassed a multimillion-dollar fortune by becoming one of the nation's more venturesome developers of shopping centers (two in Denver, one each in Dallas, San Antonio, Amarillo, Texas, and Boulder, Colo.).

Last week, in the Denver suburb of Englewood, more than 5,000 workmen labored in three shifts around the clock to finish his latest and largest creation, 75-acre, $50 million Englewood-Cinderella City, in time for its scheduled March 7 opening. On the other side of town, Perl-Mack Construction Co., Denver's largest builder of tract homes, was putting the final touches on 73-acre, $20 million Northglenn Mall, due to open a week later.

Read the full article here.

MOA Galleria - Hillsdale Shopping Center

San Mateo, California - March 18, 1962

The striking "Red Cat" sculpture at Hillsdale Shopping Center, created by California-based Italian American sculptor, Benny Bufano. Some of his other works at Hillsdale can be seen in the Shopping Can Be Fun video I shared a while back.

I also noticed that there are some circus cages in the background, so I'm assuming the shopping center was hosting some wild animals at the time. Besides the shoppers.

More Hillsdale Shopping Center: 1, 2, 3

(Study image courtesy of the PBase gallery of Chris Utter)

Santa's Coming... to Midway Mall!

Elyria, Ohio - 1974

Sant'a arrival is heralded at Midway Mall, in this vintage newspaper ad. There will be free Santa rings, polaroids ($1.50 back then), and kiddie rides near Santa's House, in the new-look Midwayland! Plus, see the ever popular "Talking Christmas Tree"--all at Midway Mall, Ohio's showplace enclosed shopping center!

And, since today officially kicks off the Holiday season, this post is also a good time to wish everyone out there a very happy, safe, and above all, yummy Thanksgiving!

Among many other things, I myself, am thankful for all the great people who hang out with me here at Malls of America. You guys make it a fun and worthwhile endeavor, and the blog is definitely better for all your regular visits and comments throughout the year. Thanks everyone! :)

More Midway Mall: 1, 2

International Malls: Southland Shopping Centre

Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia - 1968

The Centre Court fountain, at the Southland Shopping Centre in Australia (also known as Westfield Southland, according to Westfield). This mall opened in 1968 so this photograph was probably taken right around the opening for promotional purposes. And though not in the U.S., hey, a groovy mall is a groovy mall! :)

Here's Southland's Wikipedia entry, for anyone who's interested in reading more about it.

(Study image courtesy of the Kingston Historical Website)

MOA Galleria - Retro Shopping Center

Shopping Center - Circa 1962

Vintage retail illustration art of a shopping center, from a 1962 Butler Building company catalog. I just thought this looked so incredibly swanky, groovy, retrolicious--all those things!--that I wanted to hang it here, in the Galleria.

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

In All Seasons, Toys Are Us

Playthings that embody the myths of childhood

TIME Magazine - Monday, Dec. 22, 1986

(Excerpt) A brother and sister leave home to wander through a place where exotic figures have the power to enchant and destroy. But the siblings are protected by an even greater force: goodness. At the end of a winding and hazardous journey, the wicked are vanquished and the children are redeemed.

This Christmas the pair may be called He-Man and She-Ra, and their blond manes and mesomorphic torsos beckon from shelves in nearly every toy store in the nation. In other times the wandering children have been differently named and more modestly dressed.

Read the full article here.

Plaza Pasadena Mall

Pasadena, California - circa 1981

I give early thanks today to, Scott, the big mallrat behind BIGMallrat's Blog, the great site devoted to the shopping malls of Northern California (he also maintains BIGMallrat.com), for submitting this sweet interior shot of the Plaza Pasadena. :) He included these notes:

"I found some pics in my collection of the since demolished Plaza Pasadena in Pasadena California. It was replaced by Paseo Colorado in the late Nineties. Nevertheless, the mall's architect was Charles Kober Associates and original owner Ernest W. Hahn, Inc. It was 750,000 [sq ft] and anchors were The Broadway, May Company, and JC Penney. It opened in 1980 or 1981 (I'm not exactly sure).

Since my blog only covers northern California, I thought it would be cool to send the photos to you for the Malls of America blog."

Indeed it's very cool, Scott, thanks again! I especially love the beautiful ceiling/wall mural paintings in this photo. Certainly gives this mall an open, airy feel. As always, the resource links below tell the complete tale.

Mall history: 1980 - 1999 (dead/redeveloped)
Architect: Charles Kober Associates
Current website: n/a
Current aerial view (redeveloped Paseo Colorado)
Info from Wikipedia
Resource links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Previous entries: none

Grocery Store Wars

Grocery Store Wars (2005)

Not a shopping mall here (more into supermarket territory), but I thought this was a cute little short film that's close enough, so I'm posting it.

Besides, I'm sure many of us are seeing the insides of the gorcery store much more than we even care to right about now, lol, so maybe this will help to put a more light-hearted spin on things for us. If nothing else, it's kind of fun (and silly) anyway.

This is a parody commercial sponsored by the Organic Trade Association, using vegetables in place of the usual Star Wars characters, and it all takes place inside a supermarket. Yes, you read that right. Happy shopping!

Pontiac Mall (now Summit Place)

Waterford, Michigan - circa 1960s

Pontiac Mall (renamed, Summit Place, around 1989), also dubbed "The Mall" in its early years (as seen in a previous entry), is seen here (postmark is late sixties) in this fantastic retro interior postcard view! A plethora of stores are visible: Singer, Zuibach's Suburban (have no idea what that was), an HHS clothing store, and a florist way down at the end, among others. Lots of neat sculptures and other decor flourishes in evidence, too, with a fountain in the court and also what appears to be an aquarium (clearer when magnified) in the center of the image--the aqua colored thing. Maybe it was just a display case, though, I'm not sure.

This is another instance where I wish I could go back in time and walk around inside this scene just one froogin' time! Love to be there, at that time.

Alas, according to most sites, Summit Place is now considered to be a "dead mall". To me it really sounds more like it's in the slow process of dying, though, since a truly dead mall, to my way of thinking, is one that's actually shuttered and/or gone. This one appears to be still hanging on, with lots of redevelopment plans in the works or underway. Check out the resource links below for more on that, as well as lots more history.

I definitely suggest also taking another gander at this other post I did on Pontiac Mall last year, to see this interior from what appears to be the opposite end of this court. It's pretty nice, too!

Mall history: 1963 - present
Current website: n/a
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Resource links: 1, 2, 3, 4
Previous entries: 1, 2, 3

The Daily Mall Reader

A daily dose of mall-related reading...

'Tis the Season to Be Wary

Retailers fear that the recession may mean a blue Christmas

TIME Magazine - Monday, Dec. 7, 1981

(Excerpt) Despite gyrations of the U.S. economy, retailers have traditionally counted on, and in most years enjoyed, enough business at Christmas to make being an American storekeeper worthwhile. But merchants this year are concerned that the 1981 Christmas selling season may turn into one of the worst ever. Recession, unemployment and high interest rates could deal a Scrooge-like blow to the holiday spirit of U.S. consumers.

Stores anxiously waited last week to see the first indications of Christmas buying when the season officially started the day after Thanksgiving. Crowds jammed New York's Fifth Avenue, but there were more window-shoppers and browsers than buyers.

Read the full article here.

Swanky Sears in Phoenix

Phoenix, Arizona - circa 1960s

Pretty groovy looking desert-styled Sears store somewhere in the Phoenix area in the sixties (I did a little cleanup and color/contrast adjusting to the original image).

I found this shot at the great vintage Phoenix site, acmeron.com, but all the caption says is "Sears Camelback", so I'm not sure which shopping center or plaza this was actually located in. But it's such a nice exterior I wanted to feature it.

If anyone out there can help to positively identify where this was (which shopping center), it'd really be cool and junk. I'll update this entry when/if we can sort it out.