In honor of my recent cross-country move, I figured we should offer up a slice of Americana with a lesser-known Route 66 landmark: the Barstow Mall.

Barstow is a notoriously isolated city located in the Mojave Desert, near where I-15, I-40, and CA-58 all converge. It’s also a spot along historic route 66, and as a result the main drag through town is packed with vintage neon hotels, many of which long ago ceased operations.

Like many spots along Route 66, Barstow’s looking a little rough around the edges today. Historically a major transportation hub, Barstow is the home of a large rail classification yard and is known as a freeway crossroads where many trucks pass through, bringing goods to Los Angeles. Its desert climate is somewhat merciless with days in the summer regularly pushing the mercury above 100°F. Barstow’s geographic isolation and unfavorable climate are probably two reasons why it is today one of the ten poorest cities in California.

Barstow may be the home to many notable Route 66 landmarks, but the Barstow Mall is one you won’t normally hear about. A joyless concrete behemoth left over from the 1970s, this unloveable structure has been almost compeltely forgotten, with practically no stores or businesses left operating inside. Fairly typical of “dumbell-style” two-anchor 1970s malls, Barstow Mall is notable because it has retained many of its original details in the form of planters, odd light fixtures, and a whooole lot of concrete. The mall’s two anchors, Sears and Kmart, left long ago.
It’s a frankly spooky place. When I was there it was almost completely empty except for a bunch of teenaged girls with tiaras taking a group photo (?). Barstow in general was kind of a dramatically creepy place, with so many sad vestiges of the glory days of Route 66 and the area’s general lack of vegetation. Given the Barstow Mall’s proximity to major transportation corridors, however, and the fact that it’s such a ghost town, it’s well worth seeing on a swing through town.

The mailbag arrived the other day, stuffed with a bunch of (very touching, I assure you) notes expressing some grave concern about my whereabouts. I figured that I might as well come clean.

Many of you noticed that I haven’t been around as much, and that poor ol’ Labelscar just hasn’t had quite as much content as it used to. In a nutshell, the reason is a very big personal and professional change for me that I’m very slowly adjusting to. A very exciting career opportunity presented itself, and this exciting opportunity actually whisked me 3,200 miles across the country to the San Francisco Bay Area. That’s right, good ol’ Caldor is a New England boi no more–at least not for the moment.

While this has–quite understandably–taken up much of my time, I also see this as an opportunity to develop even more content. Labelscar has leaned heavily on the midwest and northeast largely because that’s where its authors reside. I have quite a bit in the can from the northeast (though, sadly, I do not have photos of *every* mall or antiquated retailer, which I would like) but now that I’m here in a brand new area, I can begin to bag some stuff from a whole new region of the United States that had been previously underserved. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that all the logistics involved with my recent switcheroo don’t completely bury me in other concerns.

One of the more interesting bits of this shift is that I’m staying–temporarily–with a friend who lives in Mountain View, California. In addition to being the home of Google (which is not where I work, in case you were wondering) and a part of Silicon Valley, Mountain View is also home to a total of three ghost malls! Sadly, all three of these were redeveloped over a decade ago, and very few remnants of any of them exist. But thankfully a local citizen who created a very comprehensive guide to this pretty South Bay suburb managed to document these three malls in great detail (along with photos of each), and I strongly encourage you to check it out!

I live right in the neighborhood where these three malls are located, and I was completely unaware of two of them. The Mayfield Mall building (just north of Central Expressway, east of San Antonio Road) even still exists, but it was converted to an office building (which itself has been abandoned) so long ago that it’s unrecognizable. The Old Mill Mall was demolished long before I arrived and no trace of it remains–today it is the condo complex that runs along Pacchetti Way. The San Antonio Center, which was the largest of the three, has the largest amount of artifacts, mainly in the intact Sears and Mervyn’s stores, as well as small pieces of the original outdoor mall. That crazy old pylon remains too, thank goodness. Unfortunately the rest of the center today is a pretty graceless big box center; a large patch of concrete with a few dozen box stores, strip malls, and restaurant pads scattered willy-nilly around its patch of land.

Read about the missing malls of mountain view–you won’t be sorry!

Santa Monica Place is one of the latest enclosed malls to meet with the grim reaper: the place is scheduled to close up shop at the end of this month! Socal Labelscarrers: act fast if you want a chance to say goodbye!

Santa Monica Place is a three-level, 570,000 square foot shopping mall located in the heart of downtown Santa Monica, California, just a few blocks from the beach and the infamous Santa Monica Pier. The mall, which opened in 1980, sits at the southernmost end of Santa Monica’s bustling third street shopping district, which is a lively and vibrant downtown pedestrian mall (and one of the best pedestrian-friendly areas in all of Los Angeles, really). Somewhat surprisingly, the mall was designed by renown architect Frank Gehry with Victor Gruen Associates, giving it a more stunning architectural pedigree than most centers. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the interior architecture at the 120-store mall is considerably blander than the names of those starchitects might suggest. The mall has two anchors: a large Macy’s and a former Robinsons-May which closed in 2006 and was partially replaced by a new Steve & Barry’s store in 2007. Santa Monica Place is most famous for cameos in movies and television; most notably appearing in Beverly Hills: 90210, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and also as the exterior of the “Ridgemont Mall” in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (the interiors were at the now-deceased Sherman Oaks Galleria).

The mall, which was less than 50% occupied by 2007, apparently never turned a profit. The Macerich Companies purchased the ailing center in 1999 and first floated a redevelopment plan in 2004 that would’ve replaced it with a large complex of offices, condominiums, and retail. The plan was met with opposition and scrapped. In 2007, Macerich proposed a more modest redevelopment plan that would tear the roof off the current center and convert it into an outdoor mall to anchor the southern end of the Third Street Mall. This plan is now moving forward and the mall was in the process of clearing out most of the tenants when these photos were taken in November 2007.

Santa Monica Place’s prime location is probably a big part of the reason this place is going to come down. Given the lively streetscape and near-perfect weather, it seems silly to force people inside to shop, when a superblock component to the existing downtown streetscape would probably be more successful. Plus, California has many fully outdoor “malls,” and it seems the plan is to turn good ol’ Santa Monica Place into one of them.

There’s another retail oddity just behind Santa Monica Place. This 1945 vintage Sears store is not part of the mall itself, but I thought it epitomized classic Art Deco California cool, and how Sears utilized some ancient logos (or simply just kept them up?) Either way, a neat find.

I was in California last month, and I had a few hours to kill one afternoon when I was in the East Bay area so I swung by the Eastmont Mall in Oakland California. I didn’t do any research beforehand, I just saw it marked on my Rand McNally map so I toodled by.

It was worth it.

Now, let me step back a bit. Had I done some research beforehand, I might’ve heard some of the horror stories about how this is a pretty dangerous place, and a pretty tough part of Oakland. I could tell it wasn’t exactly the best part of town when I visited but it seemed OK to me–even kind of cheery–and I wasn’t even remotely scared to be prowling around. Of course, then I come home to write this article about the place and I find heartwarming stuff like a YouTube video of a drive-by shooting while it is occurring in 2006.

The Eastmont Mall–or Eastmont Town Center as it seems to be referred to nowadays–is a pretty strange mall. Built in 1970, the large two-level mall served the vast southeast side of the city of Oakland. The mall’s floorplan is relatively typical, with a “T” shape and two large anchor stores, but is a bit unusual because a long strip mall flanks the mall’s southwestern edge facing Bancroft St., and one wing of the mall protrudes through the center of the strip mall and exits to that side of the parking lot. Originally, the mall’s primary anchors were JCPenney and Mervyn’s, and a Safeway Supermarket and Woolworth were amongst the more junior tenants.

The mall fell into steep decline in the early 1990s when JCPenney and Mervyn’s left, and the reputation of the declining neighborhood kept most suburban shoppers away. Over the 90s, the mall was gradually converted into county offices, including a health clinic, police station, and other services (somewhat famously, there’s also a Planned Parenthood). The strip mall portion continues to house retailers, and there are a few isolated stores or cafes within the mall itself, but only a few.

Because Eastmont Mall hasn’t functioned as a true “mall” for a good 15 years, it’s retained much of its vintage early 1970s decor. This isn’t to say it’s terribly pretty–in fact, it’s a pretty plain and ugly mall. But it is stuck in a time warp, and for that reason alone it’s kind of interesting. Also, it’s available as a location to film your next movie. What’s not to love?

All malls which bear the name Galleria are modeled, in theory at least, on the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, a four-story glass-enclosed mall in Milan, Italy.  South Bay Galleria is no exception.  Opened in 1985, South Bay Galleria appended a 3-level modern mall to an existing Robinson’s-May location which had operated as a department store in some capacity for three decades prior.  The other anchors at South Bay Galleria are Mervyn’s and Nordstrom, and the mall is located in Southern California’s South Bay area at Hawthorne and Artesia, very near the 405 freeway and about 15 minutes south of LAX airport.  At some point the mall was called Galleria at South Bay, but that changed somewhat recently.     

South Bay Galleria is most unique for offering a bit of everything to everyone.  While most malls trend toward value, mid-tier, or upscale, they often don’t break that character and South Bay Galleria does.  From Ann Taylor and Banana Republic to stores like Bling It, even the anchor stores have variety.  Mervyn’s is a discounter much like Kohl’s, while Nordstrom is decidedly upscale.  In 2006, Robinsons-May became Macy’s following Macy’s buyout of all May company stores.   

As for its decor, South Bay Galleria is much like the Milanese shopping mall from which it bears its name.  It’s full of natural light, glassy, and modern.  In fact, during 2004 it was given a major refurbish to rid itself of most of the 1980s decor; however, a neon sign or two still hangs despite the re-do.  

In addition, South Bay Galleria has been a popular film location through the years.  Portions of movies such as Fat Albert and scenes from popular television shows like Disney’s Even Stevens have been filmed here recently.   

We visited South Bay Galleria in March 2005 and took the pictures featured here.  Let us know more about the history of the center or post your own experiences.