May, 2006 - Labelscar: The Retail History Blog

Berlin Mall; Berlin, Vermont

Thanks to the long weekend, I was able to take a day trip up to Vermont to visit a few of those crazy upnorth malls. Now, going to Vermont to see malls is a bit like going to Florida to see penguins, but, hey–even Florida has Sea World!

Vermont is possibly the most rural state in the country, and it’s one of the few places left that barely has any Wal-Marts or Home Depots or things of that sort. Similarly, the state has done a fantastic job of maintaining its quaint, well-preserved downtowns packed with local character. Because of all this, it feels strange that we at Labelscar are cheerleading their malls–I actually think they’ve done an admirable job of keeping them out, thankyouverymuch. Still, I can appreciate all kinds of shopping centers and even downtown shopping districts (as we’ll be discussing in a future post about downtown Burlington), so to us, all retail districts, especially pedestrian-friendly ones, are created equal.

There are but five enclosed malls in the state of Vermont (at least that I know of) and there used to be two others that have been razed.

Berlin Mall is one of my favorite tiny northwoods malls. I love malls that have character, and am famously unimpressed by what I derisively classify as “skylight malls”–the generic, mid-80s-present vintage centers that are nearly identical. And Berlin Mall is most certainly not a “skylight mall,” and it does have character in spades. This is the only mall serving the twin cities of Montpelier and Barre, each of which sport a population of around 10,000 people, which still makes them among the larger cities in the state. Unlike many of these smaller malls, however, Berlin Mall does quite well. It’s well-tenanted, attractive, and both convenient and manageable, and some of the decor (those cool wooden beams!) even retains a bit of the local Vermont character. This small yet bright and optimistic mall is anchored by a Wal-Mart and JCPenney and has about 30 stores total. I do know that the Wal-Mart (one of the few in the state of Vermont) moved into the Berlin Mall in 2000; I’m not sure what was in the space previously. If you know, leave a comment!

I actually think Berlin Mall is a nice model for what small town malls and smaller suburban malls should be like: hassle free, convenient, and attractive. I don’t know why malls of this size can’t succeed in dense suburbia, where it takes a lot of time to drive two or three towns over to visit a super-regional center. It seems centers of this size would be effective community malls, offering stores that sell necessities close to home and without the hassles associated with larger malls.

Bristol Centre Mall; Bristol, Connecticut

Bristol Centre Mall is one of the stranger and more forgotten malls we’ve found in New England. Located in the downtown area of Bristol, Connecticut, an old, sprawling, blue-collar city about 20 minutes southwest of Hartford, it has almost no national chain stores and has very little internet presence–it’s even snubbed by the International Council of Shopping Centers, despite being plenty large enough!

DeadMalls is one of the only places to find historical information on this strangely charming mall. It was very visibly structured in the 1960s, and a visit to the site makes it very obvious that a large swath of the center of their downtown was demolished to make room for this beast. Located very, very far off of major highways and not even located on a state route at all (though it is close to three), this center is so poorly-located that I wouldn’t be surprised if residents of surrounding towns are even unaware it exists.

By and large, it’s a relatively straightforward, small dumbell mall that’s typical of its vintage–complete with blonde brickwork and lime green details on the exterior–but Bristol Centre Mall is interesting for a few reasons. First of all, there are several very, very old local storefronts (including a really groovy looking restaurant) that appear to have been fixtures for decades. Also, the anchor store at the northern end of the Bristol Centre–the former “The Grand,” later Sears Outlet space–has a rather irregular border with the mall, facing it at a jagged diagonal that gives great visibility into the old space.

Another favorite is the tall, glassy access hallway next to this large anchor seen in the picture at the top of this post. While it’s a bit worse for the wear, it symbolizes the kind of optimism and grandiosity that architects used to design into even smaller malls like this one. Newer malls just don’t have the same gravitas. Interestingly, on my first visit in 1999, I can recall that Styx‘ mid-seventies lite-rock abortion “Babe” was blaring through the corridors, and I still associate that relic with this relic. Music, retail, and roadtrips are all intertwined for me, though mercifully not usually in such a dreadful (albeit amusing) manner.

Today, the Grand/Sears Outlet space is vacant, and Bristol Centre’s other anchor–which was a Raphael’s when it was built but later became a Sage-Allen store–is occupied by Ocean State Job Lot, one of New England’s favorite retail cockroaches.

EDIT 6/29/2006: In the month since I initially made this post, a lot has gone on at the Bristol Centre Mall (more, frankly, than in the seven years separating my first visit and when I took all these photos). The mall was bought by the city in late 2005, and most of the tenants were forced out. This caused Ocean State Job Lot, who is the mall’s main tenant, to actually sue the city because they did not want to leave. They even registered the domain name at www.bristolcentremall.com, which is already showing up as a Network Solutions dummy page. Check out the Google cache if you want to see what was there. Perhaps most interesting of all is this set of photos, posted by one of our readers (see the comments to this post to see what he had to say). They were all taken on June 15, 2006.

According to this article in the Bristol Press, the mall’s final days are now near, and the Bristol Centre Mall redevelopment is imminent.

All pictures on this page were taken September 2, 2005.

Assembly Square Mall, Disassembled; Somerville, Massachusetts

The redevelopment of the Assembly Square Mall has been long and complicated, but the first chapter has been written after years of delay.

The Assembly Square Mall in Somerville, Massachusetts, opened in 1981 inside of a former Ford Motors Assembly Plant along the banks of the Mystic River. The site had more recently been a distribution center for First National Supermarkets (who were later Finast, later Edward’s, then bought by Stop & Shop). A Jordan Marsh store located in Malden Center relocated to the northern end of the mall, and a Kmart store anchored the southern end of the center. At 340,000 square feet, it was like many smaller “dumbell” style malls of its era, with an anchor at each end of the mall and a straight hallway between, with a food court in the center that was likely added at a later date. At the time it was lauded as a creative reuse of a former industrial property. Sometime later (probably the early 1990s), a big box center with Home Depot and Circuit City was added to the site, with frontage along I-93. You can see a satellite view of the mall property here, with the Home Depot and Circuit City building towards the bottom of the frame at New Road and Mystic Avenue.

By all accounts, Assembly Square did quite well until 1997. In 1996, Macy’s acquired the local Jordan Marsh chain and re-branded their stores as Macy’s. Macy’s and Kmart made for strange bedfellows in this little mall (as did Kmart and Jordan Marsh, frankly), but Macy’s must’ve felt it wasn’t worth keeping this undersized store open, and it closed. I first visited two years later, in 1999, and by that time the mall was hurting severely. It felt as though the mall died very, very quickly as it still had updated storefronts from many recognizable national chains (Gap, CVS, etc.) but they had gone dark. The food court was almost completely empty. Mall management had blocked off the entire half of the mall leading from center court to the former Macy’s, and a Building 19 junk store was preparing to open in the former Macy’s, without mall access. It was surprisingly empty, given that, aesthetically, it was a reasonably nice mall. It was bright, with high ceilings and skylights and planters, and felt thoroughly modern inside. Similarly, parts of the interior were still a reflection of the building’s heritage as a factory, with many exposed beams and architectural elements, especially inside of the Kmart store.

Within six months, the mall would be shuttered, and Kmart would renovate their store, removing these very architectural details. Building 19 occupied the former Macy’s/Jordan Marsh, where it was possible to walk around and see the old jewelry counters and even old carts from inside the mall being used as store displays. Until 2004, it was possible to walk through Building 19 to the mall entrance and look through the glass doors down the vast expanse of empty mall.

These pictures were taken with my camera phone (sorry!) in early (February?) 2005, when construction was just beginning on the Assembly Square Mall. Note the still-quite-clear “Jordan Marsh” labelscar in one of these shots, as well as the boarded up McDonalds, which had a greenhouse seating area adjacent to the food court entrance of the old mall.

May 2005, when the building was completely torn apart:

The redevelopment of Assembly Square has been complicated and politically-loaded, which is part of why it’s already dragged on for seven years. Unlike most dead malls, Assembly Square is located in an area with a shortage of buildable land and high property values, only a couple miles from downtown Boston and near a variety of transportation corridors. There’s been a major tug of war between one small residents group, the Mystic View Task Force, the city of Somerville, and the developers about what should be done with the site. At the root of it was a proposed IKEA store, along with whether *any* big box uses should’ve been permitted at the site. The Assembly Square Mall site is located on the banks of the Mystic River, adjacent to mass transit (though there is not currently a stop), and only a few miles from downtown Boston. It’s often been remarked that Fenway Park is closer to downtown than Assembly Square.

There have been a variety of plans to develop the property, and they’ve changed dramatically over the years. Most involve incorporating some big box with denser, pedestrian friendly development organized around a gridwork of streets and facing towards the river. I doubt this is the last time Labelscar will be posting about this mall, because it’s a major redevelopment story here in the Northeast, and the battle is far from over.

Map of proposed Assembly Square Mall development
As it stands today, the original mall building has been transformed into a relatively attractive big box center, complete with the very snazzy pylon (shown at the top of this post) facing route 28. The former Jordan Marsh/Macy’s has been converted to a Christmas Tree Shop and Staples, and the remainder of the mall has been carved into A.C. Moore, The Sports Authority, Bed Bath and Beyond, and TJMaxx ‘N More.

Note the former Jordan Marsh (Macy’s, Building 19, etc.) in early 2005, versus today:

Other photos of the center today, including the outbuildings:

Prangeway: Here are some photos I took of then-shuttered Assembly Square Mall on August 24, 2001. Notice the inside of Building 19. It’s apparent they never did anything to renovate or alter in any form the former Jordan Marsh/Macys space; they simply just put out their junk for sale and that was that. Also note the several pictures into the then-shuttered mall: one is looking from the Building 19 anchor into the mall, and the others are looking inside doors which were open that day due to construction work on the mall. We were very curious about the work and conjectured that possible activity such as demolition or even re-operning of the property was imminent. However, nothing happened – the mall remained closed and sat quietly until it was demolished in 2005.

Skokie Turn/Style

Someone on the Remembering_Retail list brought this great photo to our attention recently. I love vintage shots of strip roadways, and my dining room wall is even adorned with a large photo of Route 66 in Albequerque, New Mexico in 1969, purchased from IKEA (of all places!)

What’s worth noting here is the large Turn/Style (or is just Turnstyle?) store in the upper right hand corner of this photo. Turn/Style is a long-forgotten chain of discount department stores from the Chicagoland area. They never had many locations, and the most notorious one was the large (something like 100,000 square feet) outlet at the Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, which Prangeway blogged about a few days ago. Someone on Remembering_Retail hinted that their downfall may have been their locations–many of which were in areas that began to go into decline during the 1960s and 1970s–though we don’t know how true this is. Turn/Style was eventually sold to Venture, then the discount department store division of the May Co., before Venture themselves went through other owners and tanked completely in 1998.

When I arrived for my brief tenure in the midwest in late 1998, Venture had only just recently departed and I was really fascinated by their large, angular, zebra-striped storefronts and their modern (if basic) Impact logo. It’s too bad I never got to see one from the inside!

EDIT 6/1/2006: Prangeway had this to add: “This appears to be looking north along Skokie Blvd (US 41). The intersecting diagonal street in the foreground is Gross Point Rd. The next intersection with Turn Style is Emerson St.”

Woodmar Mall; Hammond, Indiana

Nestled on the south shore of Lake Michigan, within a stone’s throw from Chicago, is the prominent industrial region of Northwest Indiana. Hammond, the second largest city in this region, lies directly between Gary and Chicago and had a 2000 population of 83,000. Hammond was also home to one of Northwest Indiana’s enclosed shopping centers, Woodmar Mall. As of press time the mall is about to be destroyed in favor of redevelopment. The following is a chronological synopsis of important events in Woodmar’s history, ultimately culminating in its demise. More information can be found at John Lowe’s Woodmar Mall page.

1954 – Woodmar Mall opens as a U-shaped open air center, anchored by Chicago department store chain Carson Pirie Scott. National supermarket, Walgreens, and J.J. Newberry variety store are among the major names in the mall’s roster of stores.
1966 – Following a national trend, Woodmar Mall is enclosed. The mall continues to thrive.
1975 – J.J. Newberry closes their Woodmar location, and the store’s space on the north end is converted to twelve mall stores with a square mallway. This newly created court is called the “Court of Lions”.
1978 – Following the closure of the National supermarket chain, that store’s space on the south end of the mall is converted to ten mall stores ending in a fountain with ceramic turtles, called the “Court of Turtles”; seriously, I couldn’t make this up if I tried. So-Fro fabrics was a major tenant at this end of the mall.
1978 – The same year the Court of Turtles appeared, plans were drawn up for a major expansion that would have tripled the size of the mall, and would have added two anchor stores. However, a recession and high interest rates killed this project.
1984 – In its last hurrah, Woodmar is given its last major renovation as Walgreen’s restaurant is converted to a food court. Schoop’s hamburgers and Pizza Pizzazz were two tenants in the food court.
1984-2000s – Things went steadily downhill for Woodmar Mall. Wal-Mart and a Food-4-Less store opened adjacent to the mall, providing not only competition to the mall but completely ignoring it (they could have opened in the mall?). At the same time, Hammond lost significant population and a lack of investment, while suburbs to the south like Dyer, Munster, Schererville, and Merrillville received significant economic boosts.
2003 – Woodmar was purchased in a bankruptcy sale by David Fesko, head of some investment group which promised to renovate the mall. Ideas flew around about converting the mall to a discount-themed mall, such as Dixie Outlet Mall in suburban Toronto. These ideas never materialized.
2003-04 – In a small glimmer of hope, a new mexican restaurant opened in the food court, which hadn’t seen a tenant in several years. It lasted less than six months before closing due to lack of business.
2004 – According to an article by Andrea Holecek on NWTimes.com, management was not taking care of the mall, as there were leaky roofs and sewage problems. Also, the dozen or so tenants left expressed concerns that they were left in the dark regarding even the immediate future of the mall.
Feb. 2005 – In his article, Hammond Times reporter Steve Zabroski outlined the city of Hammond’s plan to redevelop the mall as a unified shopping district for the city of Hammond. It was announced that Praedium Development Corp. would spearhead the redevelopment.
Feb. 2006 – It was announced in the Times Online that the mall would be demolished in stages, beginning with the south mall structure/Court of Turtles. In addition, it was announced that the redevelopment of the mall would center around Carson Pirie Scott. However, Carson’s would be relocated from its current space to a brand new store in the former south mall area. The existing 1954-era Carson’s would be demolished once the new store is ready.
May 12 2006 – In her NWTimes.com article, Andrea Holecek writes that the existing plan for redevelopment may be stalled, due to Carson Pirie Scott being purchased by Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. A Bon-Ton spokeswoman is quoted to say that they honestly don’t know what they’re going to do about the Woodmar location.
May 17 2006 – In his NWTimes.com article, Steve Zabroski reports that Bon-Ton has indeed stuck with the original decision to remain at Woodmar (as Carson Pirie Scott) through redevelopment. Their current 1954-era store will remain while the rest of the mall is demolished. Then, they will move to a new 100,000 square-foot store on the southwest edge of the property. The mall’s demolition will begin in June.

I first visited Woodmar in 1999, as part of my plan to see all the malls in the Chicagoland area. Coming from Wisconsin, Northwest Indiana was the least accessible and therefore the last part of this mission. When I finally saw Woodmar, I knew the meaning to the phrase “saved the best for last” – I truly did. This mall was by far the most remarkable that I saw in the Chicago area, with so many notable and fascinating design features. The first visible attribute upon entering the site-the mall’s anchor, Carson Pirie Scott, is an amazingly huge behemoth – a reliced dinosaur in terms of the size of anchors built onto malls today. Inside the mall, the throwbacks to the past continue. Immediately upon entering from one of two Carson’s entrances to Center Court, my sense of smell overtook me – people were smoking in the mall. Lots of people. I haven’t seen smoking allowed in a mall since I was a kid – probably 15 years ago now, and there were numerous Carson’s employees as well as customers sitting around smoking. Throughout the mall, there were numerous people loitering, just smoking on benches. What an odd sight. Also at center court, the mall’s name is inscribed in red cursive writing along the top of the ceiling, simply reading “woodmarwoodmarwoodmar” – over and over.

To the north of the mall’s center court, the Court of Lions beckoned visitors. To do what, I’m not exactly sure. Certainly not to shop. Not in the times I visited, which numbered about half a dozen since 1999. The Court of Lions was created from the former J.J. Newberry anchor store in 1975, and had not been touched since. Well, since the stores all closed at least. There wasn’t one open, aside from the ones on the mall’s main hallway that did not extend back into the square-shaped court. Along the main hallway in that court, Fannie May, as well as some urban wear stores operated until about 2001. In fact, during one of my visits in 2002, a young man caujght me snapping pictures in the mall and immediately became curious as to what I was doing. He asked me if I was from the ‘newspaper’ and I lied and said I was, for lack of a better excuse. Without hesitation, he told me to take a picture of his new store, some urban wear store. I did. When I came back a year or so later, the store was ghostly vacant, as if nothing ever operated there for years.

To the south of center court, the mall continued for quite a ways. However, there were only stores on one side, as when they enclosed the mall in 1966 they only put a roof over the mall’s main walkway. Yet, at the end of the mall’s southerly extent, the mall took an abrupt turn to the right and continued down a significant distance to the Court of Turtles (once again, I am not making this up). The mall originally ended at this turn; but, with the demise of original tenant National supermarket, the mall took over this space and created the Court of Turtles. Along the way to the Turtles was the food court, Cafe Woodmar, which was the last addition or renovation whatsoever to Woodmar Mall in 1984, carved from Walgreen’s restaurant. During my first visit in 1999, I had a cheeseburger and fries at the Schoop’s Hamburgers located here. I think there were one or two other Cafe Woodmar establishments at the time; none of them were there on subsequent visits. According to a friend, a mexican place opened up here in 2003 and even advertised, but it was closed by my next visit several months later. Too bad. Also interesting at Cafe Woodmar was the huge 1980s-era lighted sign indicating the tenants of the food court – most of which were long gone by the time I got there. I felt like a paleontologist unearthing the strata of time.

Just past the food court and at the Court of Turtles, the mall abruptly dead-ended, another unique feature to this schizophrenic mall. At the dead-end was a small fenced-in fountain which was presided over by three ceramic turtles. I only ever saw it on once, during my first visit in 1999. During subsequent visits, the lonely turtles were without their aquatic existence as the water was shut off. On one visit in 2005, an elderly latina janitor came by as I was snapping photos. “Sure is sad,” she said wistfully to me as she continued cleaning. And it was.

Woodmar Mall represents more than the end of a retail era, or even the sentimentality associated with it. Certainly such things are important, but the bigger picture eludes to problems on a broader scale. What can Woodmar Mall teach us about urban sprawl, using space efficiently, and even environmental sustainability? Land ecology and urban planning aside, what implications does this have on our throwaway society and the ‘American way’? Some may say that this indicates merely a natural economic cycle, and that it’s fine. They wash their hands at the notion that blight and urban sprawl are more than socioeconomic problems, but environmental ones as well. Others say that these are legitimate problems, that will eventually catch up with us and by washing our hands of these problems, we’ll never get them clean.

Update 12/18/06: Sadly, Woodmar is a memory. During Summer 2006, most of the structure of the mall came down; however, the massive Carson Pirie Scott anchor remains and will continue to serve customers as their new store is built where the south part of the mall used to be. Eventually, the entire development will be shiny and new and hopefully punch some energy into the economy.

Pictures taken February, 2005

Gursky and Wolf: Beauty in Repetition

A huge part of the mission of Labelscar is to catalog artistry in everyday things. In particular, we feel that most contemporary commercial architecture, especially suburban retail development of the late 20th century, is undervalued and underappreciated, and likely won't attract the attention it deserves until too late.

This whole championing-an-obscure-cause thing means that I know how to spot a kindred spirit when I see one, and photographer Andreas Gursky is one of my favorites. By and large, his photography isn't exactly retail-oriented, though his famous piece "99 Cent"–pictured above–certainly is. Most of what Gursky does tries to capture the beauty in modern (or post-modern) repetition, and in a scene like the one above captures it pretty marvelously.

I also enjoy Michael Wolf, a peer of Gursky's, who's taken this set of striking photos from Hong Kong, though something about Wolf's photography seems to push the envelope to a point where I wonder if Photoshop was somehow involved. The image below is actually my desktop wallpaper at work–Do you think my coworkers find me strange? Nah…

White Woods Mall; Amherstburg, Ontario

Bridge to Canada

It’s no secret that things are a little different in Canada. Not surprisingly, so is their retail scene. There are no JCPenneys, Targets, or Kohls; however, they hold their own with chains like Zellers, Hudson’s Bay Company, and Winners. Also, there seem to be a lot more enclosed malls in Canada. What would, in the United States, be a strip mall with outside entrances manifests itself in Canada as an enclosed mall anchored by a discount retailer such as Zellers or Winners, and a grocery store like A&P. These little Canadian malls have always intrigued me because they thrive, whereas the trend for smaller enclosed shopping centers in the United States is bleak. We in the U.S. have been shuttering our enclosed neighborhood centers in favor of open-air strip malls for well over a decade now. Why is this happening? Do people want immediate access to their favorite store without having to walk through a mall? Regardless, it may just be a bit too cold in Canada for them to give up their traditions and open up the mall. Ontario Welcome Center, Windsor
One of these small Canadian malls is the White Woods Mall in Amherstburg, Ontario. Located just a few miles south of Windsor, Amherstburg has a population of 20,000. Windsor, with a metropolitan population of 300,000, is an important border crossing with Detroit, Michigan. Interestingly enough, it is the only place where people go north to cross from Canada into the U.S. Also, Windsor and its environs are closer to downtown Detroit than most of Detroit’s own suburbs. So Although the Windsor area is not officially enumerated as part of Metro Detroit by either the Canadian or American governments, for practical purposes it is. All of these considerations are important when determining where people shop. Clearly many Canadians cross into the Detroit area to take advantage of the dozens of malls and chain stores there and while they have to pay the bridge and tunnel toll, they are exempt from tax in doing so. Nevertheless, there are four enclosed shopping malls on the Canadian side and White Woods Mall is one of them.

Built as the Fort Malden Mall, they changed the name within recent years to White Woods Mall. We mall connoisseurs know that when a mall’s name changes, it often gets renovated. In this case, that did not happen. I visited the small White Woods Mall (aka sMall) in January, 2004, and it had many dated and closed storefronts. It was anchored by A&P Supermarket on the north end and Saan, a Canadian discount chain, on the south end. In the mall, which had a square racetrack layout, were as of 1/04: Royal Bank, PharmaPlus Drug Mart, Bank of Montreal, the Amherstburg Walk-In Clinic, Reitmans, Lee J Nails, Pet Valu, Radio Shack, H&R Block, A Buck Or Two!, For 1 Optical, and the Tender Tootsies Shoe Warehouse. Since I visited this struggling mall in 2004, changes have been afoot. It is rumored that Wal-Mart is looking to make an entrance into Amherstburg, and would like to tear down at least half the mall to build a store. A story published in the Amherstburg Echo in February, 2006 indicates redevelopment of the site is imminent.

River Roads Mall; Jennings, Missouri

I’m not really sure I knew of the “dead mall” phenomenon until 1998 or 1999, which seems to be when the first generation of these retail elephants started to drop. That was also around the time that I lived in the midwest, and my blogging pal Prangeway and I would troll around a seven-state area looking at all kinds of malls and shopping centers. At the time, we were technically more interested in finding the good malls–you know, the ones with 5 anchors and 200 stores and all the “cool” places to shop. We found something entirely different than what we’d expected, and those trips really opened our eyes to the phenomenon of dying malls, making us realize that many of these centers (and perhaps the enclosed mall in general) is in the twilight of its life. It was a far more dramatic revelation than any Abercrombie-kid packed malls could offer.

As a result of a ridiculously wrong turn, we found this gem, tucked away in the suburbs north of St. Louis. Somewhat hilariously, we parked outside of a wig store that had occupied one of the store shells at the time, hoping to cut through the wig store (seen here, in much worse shape than in 1999) into the then-long-dead River Roads Mall. I can’t believe we actually expected it to be open–it pretty much looked like this when we were there seven years ago.

1988 photo of Woolworth’s store inside of River Roads Mall:

I guess River Roads Mall bit it sometime in the mid-1990s, and has long been scheduled to be redeveloped into a mixed-use complex with a heavy residential component. If it ever gets off the ground, it’ll hopefully help the area a bit. It seemed like it had fallen into pretty severe decline (at least in 1999…). Apparently demolition began very recently, and this blog has some great River Roads Mall demolition photos up from just this past week.

I didn’t carry a camera back then, but I found these dramatic photos of River Roads Mall online. They’re really cool because it’s quite a rarity to find interior shots of a mall that’s been closed up for so long. They were taken in 2004 by Michael Allen for his website, Ecology of Absence, which chronicles all kinds of structural dead things (including tons of non-retail stuff) and is well worth checking out if you’re curious about urban decay, especially in the St. Louis area. Also check out Toby Weiss’ fantastic site, which includes a lot of great, black and white, artsy shots of forlorn retail establishments, and really captures the sadness in the buildings. There are also more pictures where these came from. And as usual, for more history from people who have some familiarity with the place, check out dead malls.

Despite the sadly advanced state of decay that’s evident in these shots, it seemed that one point in time this mall might’ve had some really snazzy mid-60s decor: check out that blue-tiled wall just barely visible at the left side of the photo above, or the groovy, greenish blue exterior of that one anchor store (the former Stix Bar & Fuller.)

Former Stix Bar & Fuller, in October 1988:

2004 Michael Allen photos:

Echelon Mall: Not in the Upper Echelon; Voorhees, New Jersey

Echelon Mall Sign/Pylon

When malls first became big, one of their major selling points was that they offered shopping in a “climate-controlled” environment. Strangely, as they now pass out of favor, we’re confused by how often they’re replaced by centers that do the exact opposite, turning the common areas back to the elements and (often quite literally) ripping the roof right off the building. I guess it’s all that “new authenticity” we keep hearing about, but I’ll take the air conditioning, thanks.

While this makes sense in nicer climates, I’ve never really understood why developers want to try this in places like the Northeast. While we have our nice days, we have plenty of a) snow b) cold c) rain or d) humidity that, on most days when I want to be shopping, it’s probably due in part to the fact that one of the above describes the weather. I mean, geez, just look at the clouds in the above picture! Who wants to strut around in capri pants, swinging a Chico’s bag in that? Still, when done right, I much prefer these lifestyle centers to big box centers because they at least attempt to create dense, pedestrian-friendly development that fosters a sense of community, albeit a somewhat sterile, pre-fabricated community. Whether or not they become the band-aid-du-jour (much like neon accent lighting in the Saved By the Bell era) for retail centers of the mid-auts remains to be seen.
Needless to say, the somewhat unfortunately-named Echelon Mall, which sits buried deep in the Jersey-side suburbs of Philadelphia, is slated to be one of the next malls in the northeast to have its skin peeled back to expose it to the elements. The plan is actually to keep about half of this large, flagging mall–everything in the two level space between Boscov’s and the Strawbridge’s (now Macy’s) featured in these pictures–while tearing down the long wing at the other end of the building that extends to defunct Sears and JCPenney spaces. That area will be replaced by an outdoor, Main Street-styled promenade with shops, restaurants, and housing. Could be cool, I suppose, especially since they’re (somewhat improbably) saving about half of the mall. Here’s what they’re going to do to it (Note the presence of half of the existing mall, towards the far side of this view):

I visited Echelon Mall in October of 2005, and could definitely note some signs of a struggle. While it may be a stretch to call it a dead mall, Echelon seems to be losing its battle against larger nearby competitors like the Cherry Hill, Deptford, and Moorestown Malls. For one, the location is horrendous. It’s located miles off of major highways, tucked away on Somerdale Road, near the intersection of Camden County highways 673 and 561. Despite being the second largest mall in the Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia–trailing only the gargantuan, impressive Cherry Hill–it is suffering from a swath of vacancies. This large, two level mall appears to have been built at two drastically different times. The southwestern, more successful end of the mall (between Boscov’s and Strawbridge’s) sports a distinctly 70s/early 80s decor with that era’s ubiquitous track-lightbulb fixtures. While that end is is reasonably well-tenanted, the long, northeastern end of the mall (which is full of filtered sunlight thanks to a skylight, and has palms and other flora that date this expansion to the later 80s to mid 90s) is a veritable ghost town, with very few tenants and almost no foot traffic. Despite being the newer and nicer end of the mall, it’s little wonder the plans call for it to be demolished. Per usual (and I’m already tired of saying it, but…) Dead Malls has some good historic info up.

The Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT) Website includes some cool information, including a site plan that gives a good idea of the layout, but doesn’t mention much about the planned redevelopment. We also found a cool picture of the mall at sunset, and this neat painting of the mall’s escalators by artist William Mammarella, who must share our appreciation of the artistry inherent in such spaces. Lastly, SaveVoorhees.org includes a huge cache of articles about the mall’s redevelopment plans.

Dixie Square Mall; Harvey, Illinois

When you look at a city, you’re viewing a kind of publication – a publication written on the landscape in the form of buildings, roadways, parks, and much more. Although these publications in the landscape are not like the ones you can experience in books or newspapers, they can still be read. In their reading, they disclose a product of the set of dreams, visions, aspirations, accidents, and mistakes of people who by various means left a legacy of “text” on the landscape. I’ve always been fascinated by reading this textual fabric and how people have used the built environment to publish their lives and legacies.

A large component of the built environment consists of retail and shopping centers. Since I was very little I was intrigued by retail chains, malls, and the like. Over the years it has become a dedicated interest, and I’ve toured retail landscapes from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine and everything in between. A common misconception is that this hobby is married with that of ’shopping’ – it is not. I have little to no interest in shopping or any sort of excess, but merely in seeing how these retail landscapes transform over time and publish a legacy, for better or worse, relating to the places where they are.

My first post will discuss the former Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois. Dixie Square Mall was located at the intersection of 151st St and Dixie Highway in south suburban Chicago. I feel it’s an appropriate place for me to start, because it not only represents the most extreme example of what can go wrong in retailing, but it is also one of the first exposures to this genre of downtrodden retail I had in 1999 (The first of which being River Roads Mall in Jennings, MO). Because Dixie Square Mall is possibly the most publicized ‘dead mall’ and there are more complete articles on wikipedia, and even a film documentary currently being made about the mall, I’ll instead focus on my own personal experiences with the mall and the implications the mall has on the urban millieu of Harvey and that part of Chicagoland

I first wrote about Dixie Square Mall almost exactly five years ago in 2001 on deadmalls, following earlier trips in 1999 and 2000. In fact, it was somewhat of an accident that I discovered Dixie Square Mall in the first place. Caldor and I were driving around Chicagoland in 1998-99, when he noticed Dixie Square Mall labelled on my map. I quickly discounted it as ‘nothing’ and we kept on going. I was so sure I had at least heard of most of the malls in the Chicago area that a mall called Dixie Square, being in Harvey of all places, was simply preposterous to me. Then, a few months later, I investigated further and shockingly discovered that not only was Dixie Square a mall, it was a huge mall. Whoops! Furthermore, the reason I hadn’t heard of it is because it was only successful for a few years in the 1960s. Throughout much of the 1970s the mall was a failure, and everything in it had closed permanently by 1979, several years before I was even born. Even more amazing, I learned the mall had been sitting abandoned ever since.

I’ve been back several times since I first published about it on dead malls dot com almost five years ago. I’ve also learned a lot about the Dixie Square Mall, most notably that the mall was used during the chase scene in the original Blues Brothers movie in 1979, and that a young woman was raped and murdered in the abandoned JCPenney store in 1993. Wow.

But back to what I wrote about at the very beginning of this article. How does Dixie Square Mall function as a text of the landscape of Harvey, or on a greater scale? More succinctly, why did this mall fail? Much of the resources online are dedicated to ‘what happened’ but few delve into ‘why’ – I think an understanding of the events that caused Dixie Square’s failure is as interesting as the downfall of the mall itself. Probably more important than anything else is urban sprawl, which both created and destroyed Dixie Square as well as Harvey as viable places to live and shop. In the post-World War II economic boom, suburbs sprouted up very fast around Chicago as well as many of the nation’s industrial centers. As a result, suburbs such as Harvey grew from zero population to tens of thousands in a matter of less than 20 years. The problems with Harvey, and with all urban sprawl, are twofold. First, there’s nothing dynamic or unique about these suburbs to distinguish them from any other suburb. They don’t contain functional centers where people work, because all the people are commuting into the city. In fact, most 1950s-1970s suburbs look much the same no matter where you go in the entire country. Second, urban sprawl doesn’t stop – it just keeps going (like the Energizer bunny!) Before Harvey was 20 years old, development began to move farther and farther out to places like Orland Park and the exurbs in the Land of Beyond. At the same time we have people both moving out to ‘better’ newer places, we have Harvey, with nothing unique to retain people’s interest. Sounds like trouble to me!

So what’s driving urban sprawl? It has to be more than just the economy. And it is. There are also other considerations, such as the notion of white flight. The issues of who is moving where also drives what happens with urban spaces. As urban sprawl pushed development farther and farther out, the land value in places like Harvey plummeted. As this happened, the (predominantly) African-Americans living in poor conditions (caused by urban sprawl) on the south side of Chicago moved into Harvey and surrounding areas. Because of this, the remaining whites in Harvey also left. Land values plummeted even more, crime rates rose, and more people left. People began to shop at newer, bigger malls in newer suburbs like Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, or Orland Square in Orland Park. This feedback negative cycle makes places like Harvey worse and worse, while constantly investing in things that are shiny-and-new. No one wins except for greedy developers and the brand new suburb-du-jour, and places like Dixie Square become the retail equivalent of a fossil record, indicating poor decisions in urban planning.

As for the future of the mall, your guess is as good as mine. Since 2002, several companies have expressed interest in the site. According to one source, the mall began coming down in February 2006. However, I drove past more recent than that and it was still standing.

I took the following pictures in July, 2001.