Harvey, Illinois
Haunting (and rather spooky) promotional video with lots of footage of the long-abandoned (and quite decrepit and scary looking) Dixie Square Mall. I'm really looking forward to this upcoming documentary from Paw Filmworks. Below is the information they included with the video:
"Promotional video put together by the Paw Filmworks "Dixie Square" documentary crew back in November 2005. Some never-before-seen footage of 'The Deadest Mall In America' set to the music of Parliament Funkadelic's haunting 'Maggot Brain' instrumental."Mall history: 1966 - 1978
Architect: Hornbach & Steenwyk
Fan website: here
Current aerial view
Info from Wikipedia
Previous entries: 1, 2, 3
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This video gives me goosebumps. That mall probably has rats and snakes it in big enough to eat small barnyard animals.
ReplyDeleteCora, in the previous post, it's full of images of the mall along with Golden Era videos of the town.
ReplyDeleteWow! It's amazing (in a bad way) how a pretty wealthy suburb of Chicago can turn into a place with high crime (though recent years show decreasing crime) and poverty. There's even projects built on the parking lot!
The Death of Dixie Square Mall was mainly due to how the area we in Chicago call the "south suburbs" has changed. In the 60's towns like Harvey were doing well, but as the industry left, Harvey started to decline along with the other south suburbs. Another factor was the develpoment of other larger malls in neigboring suburbs that were safer and more appealing. Orland Square Mall in Orland Park and Lincoln Mall in Matteson were both located in up and comming new suburbs, and when Harvey started to decline, this is where many of those Harvey residents moved to. This is sort of whats called a suburb to suburb shift here in Chicago which is very common in the south suburbs especially Harvey in the 70's. The town of Harvey stuggles to attract businesses as well as new development, but the south suburbs of Chicago are all but nearly forgotton by large developers. Other neraby towns such as Matteson and Homewood have redevloped or are in the process of redevloping their retail bases, yet Harvey still struggles. The old Dixie Mall site is supposed to be converted into a "BIG BOX" center, but as the decay and crime in Harvey continue the future may once again repeat and the "BIG BOX " center suffers the same fate as the Dixie Mall.
ReplyDeleteI have also recently driven by the Dixie Square Mall and they have begun to tear it down. The Old Wards is down and it look like the rest will be gone soon as well.
ReplyDeletedont count on the mall being leveled any time soon . the developer seems to have skiped town leaving every one unpaid , so they left also . the place looks worse now than it did befor john deneen ever came on the sceen .
ReplyDeleteSo the DIxie square saga contiues, Harvey and the South Suburbs get left behind again! Maybe we can at least hope for a Flea MArket there! Dixie Square hangs on for now!
ReplyDeleteHello
ReplyDeleteNice video! I don't know why I have such an appreciation for a morbid, nostalgic look at America's commercial history.
I saw piles of polyethelene-covered material from an apparent demolition attempt. Where did these come from?
Finally if I were Harvey's mayor I'd give the National Guard a task to perform on the facility (with their heavy equipment)once the hazardous materials were gone. The city has a right to condemn property that is an eyesore and a detriment- even if of such fascination.
KAT
Anonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThis video gives me goosebumps. That mall probably has rats and snakes it in big enough to eat small barnyard animals.
Fri Jul 28, 06:07:00 PM
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I don't think rats stay where there's no food, and snakes just don't get that big in the Midwest.