MOA Galleria - Sears Store Entrance
Bradenton, Florida - November 22, 1977
Nice artsy looking angled shot of the main entrance to the Sears store at the Desoto Square Mall in 1977.
More Desoto Square Mall: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
(Study image courtesy the Manatee County Public Library Historic Photograph Collection)
posted by Keith @ 1/16/2007
6 Comments:
desoto sq mall was one of the first malls i went to as a young person (the other being tyrone sq in st. pete)
Desoto sq has really gone down in the quality of the stores and the clientele
I can't begin to count how many times in my life up until 1995, where I've seen that particular 'SEARS' logo. I'm not sure how many colors it came in, but there were quite a few.
I say 1995, because it was between then, through 1997, where Sears underwent their huge nation-wide renoveation program, literally eliminating any traces of these once-prominent signs.
The last time I saw this particular logo was in 1996 at Fox River Mall in Appleton WI, before that particular location got remodeled and expanded late that year. There, it was white, but I've also seen it in red, pink and (my favorite), a moody blue color, as was seen at Northridge and Southridge here WI, and Woodfield in IL.
The last time I was over on the east side of Charlotte, the exterior of Eastland Mall sill said "SEARS" in those big block letters on the side visible from Central Avenue. (I.e., the actual entrance to Sears is on the back side of the property, but nobody can see that from the road. So they put a big sign on the roof you could see from the road.) The interior and other exterior signage is the newer logo. Steven Swain, can you back me up on this? Or Pat?
I also remember that Cumberland Mall in Atlanta held on for quite a while with their block letters, both interior and exterior, which were red if my memory serves me. If you happen to pull up the bird's eye view of the store (http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=33.879261~-84.469231&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=918105)
you can see the design of the store has a recessed box for each of the block letters in SEARS. However, the newer logo didn't quite work out with that arrangement, and you'll see they plastered (for lack of a better term) over the recessed boxes to have one new Sears logo.
If you take a waltz over to livemalls.com, you'll see pictures of the former SouthPark Mall store in Charlotte, which had a similar exterior as far as the recessed areas for letters goes. However, when the new Sears logo was placed on the building, they put a letter in each area, which just looks downright strange to me.
Anyways, I've rambled on plenty about this...although I must say I love the 50s signage at Gwinnett Place!
Matt
Just curious, how come every picture of Desoto Square Mall posted are all in black and white?
Ooooh, I just thought of something else which kinda parallels what's happening today with Sears (at least according to an entry on labelscar.com which had a whopping 26 replies!):
When Sears was using the logo pictured here at DeSoto, I can remember them using the same typeface, except in lowercase letters (except for the first "S," of course), as a logo on lots of things -- tags, shoes, and if I recall correctly, their credit card.
Which pretty much follows what's happening with the new Sears logo we see today. So my question is this: back in the pre-1984 logo days, was there an official rule for use of the all caps SEARS versus the other Sears logo? I can't think of a single exterior which used lowercase letters, but I can't think of any items once inside the store which used all caps.
Anybody have any ideas?
It's only a shame the nearest Sears in my vicinity isn't a mall tennant to have an entrance like that!
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