Winrock Shopping Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico - circa 1960s?
The Mall at Winrock Center. I'm not sure of the date on this one but I'm guessing the '60s or thereabouts. Unfortunately this is another of my low quality "placeholder" mall images, but seeing as how I've been unable to ever find or buy the actual postcard for myself, I'm sharing it today because it's still a really cool shot and I don't want to wait anymore on it! When I get a nicer version I'll surely re-post this one. Hope you still enjoy this funky lowres one in the meantime. :)
Winrock Shopping Center sure looked like a swanky place back in the day, didn't it?
Mall history: 1961 - present
Current website: n/a
Current aerial view
Resource articles: 1, 2. 3. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Previous entries: 1, 2
posted by Keith @ 1/16/2007
14 Comments:
I just wept a little bit. It's cool '60s images like this that really hit that old nostalgic spot.
I've said this before about shots like this, Keith, but I can find no other words for it. Simply put, it has that classic 'mall' look I like seeing the most.
Wow! Niiiiiice man....
The mid-century modern patio cover is awesome! I have to say, it doesn't look at all what I expected from the previous posts. I first thought this was an open-air center with just some sun protection.
So, does anyone know what this place is like now?
Scott
I love those colorful lamps (?) hanging from the ceiling. Funky yet classy.
It is basically a dead mall. Only Dillards, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Sports Authority remain. Mall owners announced they were going to let all leases lapse....so they coule remodel into an open air shopping center( whats funny is that Winrock WAS an open air- they put a roof on it back in the 80's). While waiting for tenants to leave, a brand new open air shopping center (ABQ Uptown was built- Pottery Barn, Apply Store, etc.). Now it appears that the owners have decided to sell Winrock instead of redevelop. A shame really.
Winrock Center was designed by Victor Gruen and Associates. Mr. Gruen includes the mall in his book "The Heart Of Our Cities" (Simon and Schuster. New York, 1964). The book includes photographs and a site plan. In the book, Mr. Gruen contrasts the mall with open air malls such as Northland and enclosed malls such as Southdale. He states that the climate in Albuquerque is generally mild but that shoppers need protection from the direct rays of the sun. The original roof over the mall was higher than the surrounding one story mall shops and the space between the mall and shop roofs was fitted with an open grillwork to allow air circulation.
Northgate in Seattle was retrofitted with a similar mall roof in the mid 1960s. The mall owners called this roof the Sky Shield. The thought was probably that Seattle did not experience the extremes of climate that justified an enclosed mall like Southdale but that the roof would keep rain off the mall shoppers. Northgate was finally totally enclosed in the 1970s after other enclosed malls in the Puget Sound area including Tacoma Mall and South Center had opened for business.
Used to love going to the "old" Winrock. Toys by Roy, Fool's Paradise, Record Rendezvous(later Musicland), Ben Franklin's and the book store. Great memories with old friends. Thanks for the pic.
Used to love going to the "old" Winrock. Toys by Roy, Fool's Paradise, Record Rendezvous(later Musicland), Ben Franklin's and the book store. Great memories with old friends. Thanks for the pic.
Indeed, Winrock was a very nice mall in the 60's...I was there in this mall. I remember it being lively and inviting...calming. It bespoke of a much fuller time when life was much better. Winrock lost something when it was modified in the early 90s, and now, we see the results of it. An areal pic of it in the early 60's is shown at
cardcow.com (search for Winrock).
I grew up shopping in this mall [winrock] back in the 1980s.I remember the Japanese sreakhouse on the west end courtyard which was replaced by an indoor addition later.The food court and Musicland were some of the most memorable spots for me.Now the interior of the mall looks desertsed and creepy,what happened?I live in Seattle,Wa now and both Northgate and southcenter malls have been renovated and expanded with more buisnesses and winrock is almost to extinction.
Wow! I have tears welling up in my eyes as I recall going here with my grandparents in the late 70's and early 80's. They are long gone now, but this brings back so many memories. Toys by Roy, Paris Shoe Store, Shoe Circus, Japaneses Kitchen, Hickory Farms, Fool's Paradise, Sbarro, Montgomery Wards, and the TILT! Arcade.
Speaking of which... does anyone here know what the name of that cafe inside Winrock was called (Wyatt's)? It was, IIRC, towards the west side entrance to the mall. We used to eat there all the time.
Also, was there not a small pizza joint outside of Japanese Kitchen that was located inside one of the tall columns? I hope this place gets reborn, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, to become better than ever before.
2021: Several years ago Winrock was purchased and a renovation began. They knocked down the Winrock Theatre and replaced it with a Dave & Busters and built a new Regal multiplex on the far east side of the mall. They added in a huge new area to the south with an underground parking garages. All the new businesses wrapped around the west, south and east sides of this addition. The indoor part of the mall was gutted and opened up. They’re in the last phases of construction on the new open area. I explored Winrock several times after the inside mall closed for good. For a long time after the last indoor tenants left there was still access to it through Dillard’s department store. I found the service stairs and checked out everything on the upper levels, which had been closed for at least a decade. Most of the storefronts were locked but a few were open. They were filled mostly with old furniture and fixtures. I really got to go through the bowels of the place.
Before the Japanese steakhouse, it was Diamond Jims, with Walgreens, Ben Franklins, H Cook sporting goods, Strombergs, Musicland, Montgomery Wards, Hickory Farms…(a later addition), plus the White Winrock motor hotel, ANB (Abq Nat bank) as it was the mall to go to. Coronado was very limited when it first opened, which was a store called Rhodes, and most notably Sears.
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