Altamonte Mall Interior
Altamonte Springs, Florida - circa 1970s
Do not adjust your computer monitor... but do enjoy Altamonte Mall's funky '70s color design, which includes blood-red carpeting, hickory paneling, and yellow and red colored fountain lights (the red one's a groovy dandelion fountain, too), which probably changed to other colors as well! Spectacular, I say.
This is a view from the mall's center court area, and I actually featured this same photo before, however that version was black and white, and also reversed!--which I (and no one else), ever noticed back then. Whoops. Well it's fixed now with this entry, and in Living Color to boot! :) A reader reminisces about Altamonte Mall as a kid:
"The center court was filled with fountains (one more is to the right and there was another fountain underneath the stairs just off center court)... the large fountain to the left, along with the other fountains, were lit with multi-colored lights and there were plenty of seating areas around the fountains. At that time, it seemed like the only 2 level mall in the Orlando area. Today, this mall is quite sterile the center court area is totally different."Mall history: 1974 - present
Current website: here
Current aerial view
Previous entries: 1
Labels: '70s, 1970s, Altamonte Mall, Altamonte Springs, Florida
posted by Keith @ 7/15/2007
18 Comments:
I was here in 2001 and don't remember it looking a 16th this cool. Wasn't entirely into mall architecture so I didn't pay a lot of attention but I never recall it being too memorable. Amazing image. I cannot imagine who would want to decimate this brilliant spaceship '70s interior without preserving some of it - looks like space probes are suppose to come out of those ceiling "hatches" and the grid-lit ceilings shoot frickin' laser beams.
So groovey
This photo captures all that used to be inviting, fun, and interesting about so many malls. When I see a photo like this, I grieve that more and more mall owners and developers started throwing creativity out the window in favor of dull, safe, and easy.
Love this picture! An excellent example of a mall in its heyday.
Boy, what were we thinking when it came to red carpet? Pools of blood? The Red Sea? Ha ha!
Scott
Lol! I hear ya, Scott.
J: Well said. I wholeheartedly agree--this shot sums up the term "vintage mall" in my book. And all that was cool about them. So groovy, like Kangoon said.
Nicholas: you're right about the ceiling! :D In fact, this photo could almost be a shot from some sci-fi flick like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Solaris.
Thanks for the great comments guys!
Wow! When you posted this in black and white, I wanted so badly to see what this would look like in color and now that I got my wish, hmm, my reaction isn't what i expected. Lots of red. Man oh man!
This really takes all the design elements from the 1970s and mashes them all into one great scene there.
It really 'does' look kinda spacy. Maybe there's a mall out there beyond the stars in another galaxy, on another planet that looks like this.
Great pic.
awesome
The interior of Altamonte Mall back in the 80s was classic...and those fountains were awesome. Changes took place in the late 80s-early 90s and re-vamped the center court area. A fountain still exists, but not as cool as the previous four that were there. A couple of modern Altamonte Mall pics can be found here and here, but the new cannot compare to the old and the interior of the Mall at Millenia is more impressive than the new interior of the Altamonte Mall.
Awesome pic. I wish all malls still looked like this...oh well. :sigh:
I visited Altamonte Mall in 2001. Didn't pay too much attention to the architecture...I was very young at the time, and was mostly interested in the now-deceased Station Altamonte (Trainland). It was renovated in 2003, where they redid the food court, the main mall, and added Barnes & Noble.
Everyone:
Sorry for the lack of posts from me the past few days, but I just did a massive (aka "pain-in-the-rump!") computer overhaul/repair job (unexpected, of course), which left me off the internet and unable to blog.
But I'm finally almost done getting everything back up and running (and I'll now be better able to serve you!), so groovy new mall pix will resume later. Thanks for your patience! :)
How high a resolution do you have these things in? I was thinking of sending a bunch of the coolest photos to iPhoto in book form to have my ultimate "Old Malls" photo album...
I was there in 1978, and it looked exactly like the postcard! As a kid from Rochester NY visiting with my aunt & uncle, a trip to what was then one of Florida's largest malls was so exciting. They had four anchors-Burdines, Sears, Jordan Marsh, and Robinson's. I even might have a few family pictures that we took at Center court! Altamonte Mall rocked!
Looks like something out of the movie Logan's Run!
I remember when they remodeled this mall (very early 90's, I think). They destroyed the center by literally digging the whole thing out with bull dozers inside the building, and one could watch through windows in the temporary walls around the court. This mall now has about as much architectural significance as a telephone pole. The company that owns it filed for chapter 11 last year.
I've gone to this mall my entire life, and I remember when they renovated it too. It would have been around 1988/1989 when they closed off the center court. I was 5, and my Nana took me there often. I used to throw pennies into that fountain. I remember how upset I got when they closed this off... My Nana passed before they finished renovating it, and the next time I visited I couldn't recognize the place.
There IS a mall nearby (if it's still open) that has some character, though. The Oviedo Mall still has large glass ceilings and large oak trees right inside the building--it's unique among malls here, anyway. Definitely a dying if not dead mall, though.
In the early 80s, does anyone remember a resturaunt place immediately to the right of one of the anchor stores. It was some Italian sub place and had a mannequinn outside with a tray and a sign with the specials. He had brown curly hair..... ring a bell?
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