Thursday, June 30, 2005

Lloyd Center Mall


Portland, Oregon. 1950's

The Lloyd Center is still around today--ice rink and all. Visit their current site here.

21 comments:

  1. After Tonya Harding's big scandal (the first one, not the 873 other ones), when she couldn't train at any of the other professional facilities, she would sometimes still skate at the rink in this mall.

    For some reason, Newport Mall in Jersey City really reminds me of this place. They have similar layouts, although Newport has no ice skating.

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  2. Thanks for the comments, Jon! I didn't know Lloyd Center was that famous. :)

    I'll have to look into those other two malls you mentioned and try to compare them.

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  3. I have a few postcards of the Lloyd center. Don't they have George Nelson lights hanging up, a lot of them?

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  4. I have terrific memories of the old Lloyd Center. There is one very small outdoor portion of the east end of the mall (between Sears and Marshall's) that wasn't included in the remodel. It's practically like a time capsule. Also, My mother told me that she remembers Louis Armstrong performing at the mall's grand opening in the 60's.

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  5. what would you change about the mall if you could?

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  6. I remember going to Lloyd Center a lot in the mid 60, They moved the JC Penny’s from the Hollywood district of Portland to Lloyd Center. JC Penny’s is where we always went to get our Back–to–School Clothes.

    Anyway I loved going up and down the staircase by the orange tiled fountain, If remember correctly the Woolworth was right across from Penny’s, The main level had various stores including a J K Gills, a Toyland, Sandys Camera, Van Dynns candy and a great donut shop tucked next to Meier & Franks. The lower lever was almost all parking and the upper story was all professional offices. Meier & Frank had 5 levels with access to the Aladdin Restaurant on the 4 floor and a great place to get Ice Cream Sundaes called the ’fifty-niner.

    In the Early seventies they did an addition to the westside and added a Lipmans, a Hickory Farms and couple of other stores.

    I one thing I remember about the Lloyd enter is it had a number of fountains. There was one that the spiral staircase wound around, the one shown in the picture (its off to the right) and a third was down where the built the addition for Lipmans.

    The other thing that always intrigued me was the M&F sign on top of Meier & Frank’s. It was very long mast with a triangle with the M&F logo in neon. I always wondered how big that sign actually was. The other day (January of 2007) I wanted to see if Macy’s retained the sign, but along with Meier & Frank the sign is gone.

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  7. My favorite memory of Lloyd center was the candy shop across the end of the bridge from Meier & Frank. It had fresh made carmel apples, and sometimes you could see a guy heating the carmel in a huge copper bowl in the window. They were tremendous, and the candy store had a heavenly scent. I would beg my Dad every time to buy me one, and he would. :) I kind of miss what it was before, when it was open to the elements, but I can see why it needed to change. I am headed there today in fact to buy some clothes, which is why I happened onto this website.

    Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

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  8. Ah, the candy shop you mentioned was Morrow's Nut House. Great candy, caramel apples, dipped ice cream cones (which had long before been dipped and frozen LOL).

    I loved the donut shop. There were other great eateries too:

    Aladin;
    Mannings;
    Goldbergs Deli;
    The Pancake Corner;
    Mrs. C's;
    a cafeteria style restaurant inside Meir & Frank (they made great Western Joes!;
    Newberries and Woolworths both had restaurants too.

    Ah, memories!

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  9. I work at Lloyd Center and remember (vaguely) coming here with my mom when it was still an open-air mall. You don't think that rainy Portland would be the best place for that! They've added a roof, as well as a 3rd floor of offices. The outdoor section near Sears and Marshalls is still there, plus one of the old stairwells was retained indoors at that end of the mall. Joe Brown's Karmel Korn is still in the same location they've been in at least since the 1970s and they've got a photo timeline of that particular store inside.

    Unfortunately, the fountains are gone. It really is too bad they capped the mall off and took away most of its charm...

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  10. I grew up in NE Portland and spent a good amount of time in the old Lloyd Center. Some things have changed for the better, but most have changed for the worst.

    You notice how all of the patrons are nice and dressed up in the postcard? Now the mall attracts a fair share of gang bangers and such. There have been shootings and armed robberies lately.

    While it did have it's fair share of problems pre-remodel (I seem to remember a upper level bathroom that seemed to be a pickup place for perverted middle-aged men), the mall has no redeeming qualities now besides maybe the ice rink.

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  11. It's nice to see others with fond memories of Lloyd Center. Like a previous poster, I used to hang out on the stairs by the fountain until my mom pulled me away. As odd as it sounds, my favorite thing was going to Manning's cafeteria and picking out a little cellophane-covered bowl of Jello with lunch. I also vaguely recall a display (& petting zoo?) behind Manning's that Alpenrose Dairy sponsored at Christmastime.

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  12. My family lived a few blocks from Lloyd Center in the early sixties, and I do remember Louie Armstrong playing in the parking lot, and I also remember Jayne Mansfield visiting the mall and signing autographs. Morrows nut house was a favorite as well as the Aladdin Restaurant. Another memory that sticks in my mind is the Fire truck that parked on the mall street, and was ringing its bell raising money for the new born Packy the Elephant. Does anybody remember the Chicken place called Wil-O-Dels, it was across the street from Wells Fargo(The old Bank of California).

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  13. In Lloyd Center there was an audio salon in the mid-70's. I was a amateur audiophile on a tight teenage budget. It was the first time I ever saw or listened to an audio CD. The salesman asked me if I wanted a demo and I didn't want to hear it because I knew it would blow me away...but he played it anyway on equipment i could never afford even if I sold my parents.

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  14. Morrow's Nut House is still alive, in a sense. I ran into the grandaugther of the original owner and the family is bringing back the cashews and CARAMEL APPLES to specialty stores. They're even using the old logo on little paper bags. Bought cashews--superb! She said they will sell in stores like City Market. Trying to locate the web site, which she said is under construction. Trying to track them down again.

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  15. I definitely remember Louis Armstrong playing in the second floor parking ramp in 1965 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Lloyd Center's opening.

    It was packed. Some of us wondered if it was strong enough to support the crowd!

    One of my favorite stores on my weekly visit during high school years was "Kodak at Sandy's." Finally saved enough money for my first SLR and bought it there.

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  16. Tonya Harding didn't train at the Lloyd Center skating rink. There were two malls in Portland that featured skating rinks, if you can believe it, at the time of Harding's scandal. She trained at the rink inside Clackamas Town Center, which gave way to a display of miniature carousels, among other things.

    If you really want to get into it, Lloyd Center is in the heavily gentrified northeast part of Portland, compared to Clackamas Town Center's rather simpler, bucolic, farmland-is-a-stone's-throw-away southeast part of town. Now, Tonya Harding was never really thought of being the epitome of class, so when faced with the dilemma of which Portland area mall skating rink to practice at, she chose the decidedly more blue collar one at Clackamas Town Center. It's either ridiculous or a badge of honor to know that Portland had two mall skating rinks operating at the same time.

    Lloyd Center still has its skating rink in 2010.

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  17. I, too, grew up near Lloyd Center in Irvington & spent a lot of hours there. I remember seeing Jayne Mansfield but, unfortunately, missed the great Louis Armstrong. The donut shop! I completely forgot about that place. We could watch them making the donuts in the window.

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  18. I took ice skating lessons at the Lloyd Center rink in the early
    60's. Still have my blue ribbon for taking the class. My grandmother lived in the Lloyd Apartments nearby and would take us to the mall to Xmas shop. Amazing all we could buy at Woolworths for a dollar back in those days. She would buy us a sandwich at the counter there and I remember the waitresses were always so nice. She also knew the owner of Morrow's Nut shop so we'd always go in and get a free sample. Having Summer Girls or Winter Girl sundaes at the 59'er room in Meier and Franks was also a treat. And watching them make donuts at the Donut Shop. And the cool fireplaces at Gordon's.
    I am surprised and sad that the mall wasn't preserved in it's orignal state as it was the largest shopping mall of it's kind in 1960.

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  19. my first memories of Lloyd center go back to 1969 when I was a kid,i learned to ice skate there,i got my first carmel apple from morrows nut house,and would go to the five and dime store woolworths,growing up through the years Lloyd center has been a part of my life,some of my most fond memories are from Lloyd center,its fun to go back to the good old days,down memory lane

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