Most of our retail “fall from glory” tales are variations on the same theme. Larger, more modern competition swoops in and leaves behind a swath of older retail in the dust. Literally. This particular story is no exception; however, it’s a lot more complicated (and interesting) than that, at least from a retail history standpoint. Apparently if you [...]
Bueller!! Many will recall John Hughes’ 1986 hit movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and hardcore fans even know the locations, mostly around the Chicago area, where different scenes of the movie were filmed. One of these locations was in north suburban Northbrook, where Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South high schools were used to represent the ficticious high school featured in [...]
As mentioned previously in our North Park Mall posting, the Chicagoland area was spotted with small, enclosed neighborhood malls built during the late 1970s and early 1980s during a trend in this type of retailing. In around 1979 or 1980, St. Charles Mall opened on the west side of St. Charles near the intersection of IL [...]
In January 2006 the Goodwin Williams Group of Chicago released a document outlining the current and future development environment in Villa Park, Illinois. In their findings, they noted Villa Park is a mature suburb 18 miles west of downtown Chicago, with a population of 22,000 and an income level near that of adjacent suburbs like [...]
With a population of 112,000 and a metro statistical area population of 350,000, Peoria typifies working-class middle America. In fact, Peoria was often a test market for many national media products. The saying “That won’t play in Peoria” referred to this testing, and how Peoria was commonly used as a benchmark for media standards in music, movies, and television intended [...]
Everyone carries pieces of nostalgia with them from childhood. They’re personal memories we can look back and reflect upon, and they generally make us feel warm inside and even give us a sense of pride. They evoke feelings of ‘way back when’ when things were indeed simpler for us. We didn’t have to worry about paying bills [...]
This is it. In addition to being the largest mall in the Chicagoland area and one of the largest malls in the world, Woodfield Mall is the focal point of Chicago’s expansive northwest suburbs and has been an impetus for growth in the region since it opened 35 years ago in 1971. It is the [...]
Located in a middle class northwest suburb of Chicago called Mt. Prospect, Illinois, Randhurst Mall opened in 1962 to great fanfare. It had a major significance in the Chicagoland area in that it was the very first major enclosed suburban shopping mall in the region whereas today there are well over 30 suburban enclosed malls in the Chicago area. Its original [...]
North Towne Mall was a hybrid enclosed-strip mall located at the corner of W. Riverside Blvd. and N Main St. on the north side of Rockford, Illinois. It opened in 1956 and at some point either a portion or the entire center was enclosed. Its main anchor was the Rockford-based department store Charles V. Weise and Company, which most people called [...]
This is one that started it all for us. During 1998 and 1999, Caldor and I took road trips on many weekends throughout the upper midwest. It started out by exploring various cities, often driving around aimlessly. Eventually we wanted to get out and stretch our legs, so we’d look for public places we could [...]
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