Utica, New York is a city along the historic Erie Canal corridor in upstate New York, between Albany and Syracuse. Utica’s population exploded during the Industrial Revolution and the first half of the 20th century as a manufacturing center for Textiles (and later radios) and a shipping center for coal. Like many rust belt cities, Utica went into steep decline in the latter half of the 20th century, seeing its population dwindle from a peak of just over 100,000 in 1960 to an estimated 58,000 today. In the last few decades, many locals have dubbed Utica “The City that God Forgot,” and for a time in the 1980s and early 1990s bumper stickers reading “Last One Out of Utica, Please Turn Out The Lights” became quite popular with local residents. Today Utica is one of the more forlorn of the cities in upstate or western New York, and suffers from a lack of industry, a harsh climate, and a poverty rate of nearly 25%.

In the meantime, many surrounding suburbs of Utica were experiencing population growth even as the population of the region was stagnant and the population of Utica was falling dramatically. During this time, there were two suburban shopping malls developed in the Utica area: On the north side was the now-demolished Riverside Mall (a smaller mall with about 400,000 square feet of space, anchored by Bradlees and Montgomery Ward), and the larger Sangertown Square in suburban New Hartford.

From the 70s through the 90s, the Pyramid Companies developed a string of malls in upstate New York, Massachusetts, and adjacent regions. Many of them bore strong similarities to one another in design and decor, depending on when they were opened. Sangertown Square was one of these malls. The center opened in 1980 and today has around 70 stores and five anchor stores spread across 880,000 square feet, but it still sports a fair amount of its original late ’70s/early ’80s glory.

Sangertown Square is primarily organized in a “+” shape, with anchors at the ends of each hallway. The mall’s center court is probably its most unique feature; designed to mirror the look and feel of a traditional “main street,” the large plaza is designed with fake two-level facades and upper floor windows. Since Pyramid tended to “re-use” their mall designs a few times before moving on, the closest cousin to this “Main Street” configuration is in the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, Massachusetts, which was given the same treatment (and is similarly still intact today).

Sears, JCPenney, Hess’s, and Bradlees were the mall’s original four tenants upon opening in 1980. Hess’s closed in 1994 and their store was demolished to make room for a Kaufmann’s store (which became Macy’s in 2006). Bradlees shut their store with the entire chain in 2001, and that store was also demolished to make room for a new Target store. These four anchors, along with more recent addition Dick’s Sporting Goods, make up the complete anchor roster today.

All the pictures here were taken October 2006. I’ve heard that since my visit, the great fountain and blocky lanterns in front of JCPenney were removed and replaced with significantly blander (though perhaps more contemporary) ornamentation.

It’s been a really long time since we featured a mall in the New York metropolitan area–probably a result of my moving out to the west cost, sorry guys–so let’s go back to Long Island’s Smith Haven Mall, with a set of pictures taken in May 2007.

The Smith Haven Mall is a 1.4 million square foot, hybrid indoor-outdoor enclosed shopping mall located on the north shore of Long Island, about halfway between New York and Orient Point. The mall originally opened in 1969 in a fairly mid-market-skewing portion of Long Island. I’m not 100% sure of the original anchors, but I am assuming that the original anchors were Stern’s, Sears, and A&S (though this could’ve always been a Macy’s).

Newsday actually has a pretty informative article about the growth of enclosed shopping malls on Long Island, which touches briefly on Smith Haven:

In 1968-69, Klotz supervised the building of Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove. The project was made more difficult by Moriches Road, which ran through the proposed mall and had to be relocated.

Opening day also presented challenges. “It was a fiasco,” Klotz said. A water main break early in the morning cut off water to Smith Haven and led town officials to propose cancelling the grand opening because the sprinkler system and toilets wouldn’t work. “I told them, `We can’t cancel it. Thousands of people are going to show up and you don’t have enough police officers to turn them away,”‘ he recalled.

Town leaders agreed, allowing Klotz to invite volunteer fire departments to encircle Smith Haven with pumper trucks in return for allowing them to ask shoppers for donations, and to set up bucket brigades to keep the public toilets filled while a work crew fixed the broken water pipe by mid-afternoon.

But to Klotz what made Smith Haven unique were the works of art commissioned from sculpter Alexander Calder, painters Larry Rivers, Peter Max and others. Much later, sculptures were placed outside Roosevelt Field and The Source mall, both commemorating Charles A. Lindbergh’s solo air flight to France in 1927. (The Calder is still in Smith Haven’s food court, but the paintings are gone.)Placing fine art in shopping malls symbolized their growing importance in suburbia. They had become like cities to the surrounding housing developments, said William Severini Kowinski, who toured Long Island and other areas for his 1985 book, “The Malling of America.”

Ironically, the people who fled crowded neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn after World War II for their dream house with a yard in Levittown and other places found that they still needed a central place to meet neighbors, see a movie, shop or simply hang out. By default, he said, the mall became a new Main Street or corner store for these GIs and their families.

Smith Haven Mall was somewhat notable for its incorporation of legitimate public art in the mall’s food court, as mentioned above. The inclusion of artwork of Rivers and Max was a nod to the original Gruen-esque concept for American shopping malls–that they should be a place of civic gathering and multi-purpose spaces not intended purely for commerce.

I’ve personally visited Smith Haven twice–in 2000 and 2007–and much changed between the two visits. In 2000, the center was fairly dated, and still retained traces of its original 1960s glamour. Also, at the time, Sterns still anchored the west end of the mall. Nowadays, the west end of the mall has been turned into a fairly standard “lifestyle village,” anchored by Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cheesecake Factory, Barnes & Noble, and some others, and a 2000s era renovation added modern lighting and softened the interior color palette. When we visited in 2007, there wasn’t much out there, other than Coldwater Creek, which seems positively allergic to enclosed malls.

Architecturally, Smith Haven Mall is a fairly prime example of the types of suburban centers built during the golden age of shopping malls in the late ’60s and early ’70s, with grand, imposing department stores that recalled their urban cousins, and a sprawling, open layout inside that vaguely mimiced the feel of an urban streetscape. The dramatic feel of the malls interior and exterior spaces wasn’t lost in the various renovations, even if the center doesn’t boast the retro glamour of, say, the Bergen Mall.

Big news last week out of New York: the Nanuet Mall in Nanuet, New York will soon be closing to be demolished and replaced with an open-air lifestyle center.

I only visited the Nanuet Mall once–way back in 2000–and I remember being amazed at the time that it seemed to do fairly well given that it exists in the shadows of Nyack’s mammoth Palisades Center Mall, a far newer behemoth that’s one of the largest malls in the tri-state area. Nanuet seemed quieter and more civilized than its cousin down the street; clearly a case of a mall that had (successfully, then) positioned itself as a convenient option for residents living in the immediate area, much in the same way that Paramus Park manages to thrive in the shadows of Garden State Plaza. I guess that times have changed since then, however, and the center needs to dramatically reposition itself to remain viable.

The Nanuet Mall was the largest mall for affluent, suburban Rockland County in the lower Hudson region for 30 years. The mall opened in 1969, with Bamberger’s and Sears as anchor stores. Here’s a vintage photo of the Nanuet Mall from that era; the Bamberger’s signage is plainly visible in the shot. In 1986, Bamberger’s was converted to Macy’s. In the mid-1990s, a new wing was added (creating a “T” shaped layout) with an Abraham & Straus anchor store; this store would later become a Stern’s. When Stern’s and Macy’s merged in 2001, the store was shut and later replaced by a Boscov’s store; one of only four in New York State.

The redevelopment plans call for eliminating the entire center save the Macy’s and Sears stores; Boscov’s is leaving the complex for good. There were rumblings of something like this happening for awhile, with a scare around the holidays about the mall cutting its hours from 10-9 down to 11-6. Instead it looks like they’ll be cut back a whole lot more than that.

Prangeway took all of these photos in 2001, a much better time for the poor old Nanuet Mall.

Queens Center is a large suburban-style mall anchored by Macys and JCPenney in a very urban location, New York City.  Located in the Elmhurst section of the borough of Queens, Queens Center is accessible by multi-modal forms of transportation: Subway, Bus, Car, foot, horse, turtle, whatever; it all converges at this mall.  Despite its name, the mall is not located in the geographic center of the Borough of Queens and actually about 4 miles to the northwest.  Queens Center is, however, located at one of the busiest intersections in the borough, Queens Boulevard and Woodhaven Boulevard, adjacent to the LIE (I-495) which is one of the main arteries carrying traffic from Midtown Manhattan out onto the vast expanse of suburban Long Island. 

Queens Center is unique in that it is only one of a handful of large shopping malls within New York City, which has a population of 8 million.  And in fact, it is the only large enclosed mall within the borough of Queens, with a population of 2.2 million.  As such, the mall is often crowded and numerous sources cite Queens Center as having the highest profit per square foot in the United States for an enclosed mall.  This is largely due to the fact that the millions of residents surrounding the mall would rather shop locally than either make the tedious journey into Manhattan or drive to the large suburban malls farther out on Long Island in the suburbs.

In 2002, Queens Center was about 25 years old.  Not only did Queens Center look a bit worse for wear, it was definitely in need of expansion.  So Macerich, the owner, embarked on a $275 expansion and renovation project which lasted over two years, changing the mall dramatically.  The old small, dirty food court was removed from its circular area upstairs to new basement digs.  A skybridge over 92nd Street connects the new part of the mall with the older, and glass atriums throughout provide ample light, a stark contrast to the dimly lit space of before.  Also, the mall was repainted with brighter colors, light beiges and pastels, to further modernize and brighten the place up a bit.  Gone too are interesting escalators which went down from the mall and literally into the middle of JCPenney a floor below, and all of the courts which were circular were squared off.  But, with the expanded space and brighter look, I think Queens Center is wholly better.  The mix of stores and restaurants has also been upscaled, with trendy features like California Pizza Kitchen and others.  I think flashing girl from Flushing, the Nanny named Fran, would definitely shop here post-renovation.  If only she hadn’t moved into the city…

We visited Queens Center twice, once in 2001 before renovation and once in 2007.  Feel free to leave comments and enjoy the photo sets.

2001:

2007:

The Broadway Mall is one of the largest–and perhaps strangest–malls on Long Island. The mall opened in the 1956 on the site of a former boys’ orphanage as the open-air Mid-Island Plaza. The Hicksville area of Long Island was in the middle of a building and population boom at the time, as residents were flocking to the suburbs in great numbers. Some of the largest strictly suburban areas on the entire east coast are located in the vicinity of the center, including archetypal post-war suburbs like Levittown and Hempstead (which, with over 700,000 people, is the second most populous census-designated place in New York State).

The original Mid-Island Plaza consisted of 10 buildings and 8,000 parking spaces. The center’s main anchor, Gertz, was a local store from downtown Jamaica Queens who opened a major outpost in Hicksville to follow the population trends. Gertz’ 5-story, 300,000 square foot store dominated the center’s original design, and its rumored that this store is the tallest suburban department store ever built. At some point the mall also was home to an EJ Korvette’s store. The mall was even structured with an underground tunnel (still in use today) that allowed deliveries to be made directly to the stores underneath the mall. The Mid-Island Plaza was being enclosed in 1968 (and perhaps renamed at the same time?), then renovated again in 1989 and 1995. Gertz Department Stores parent company, Allied, united the Gertz stores under the Stern’s banner in the 1980s before becoming a Macy’s in 2001. The mall’s website offers a bit of its history.

The Broadway Mall is located only a few miles from Roosevelt Field Mall, the largest mall in all of New York state and one of the largest on the entire eastern seaboard. As a result, it has an interesting feel and has an unusual store roster. The center is shaped like an “H”, with Macy’s at one of the junctions. Its other two anchors are a Target (which had been a JCPenney very briefly from 1999 to 2001 or 2002) and an IKEA, making for one of the stranger rosters of anchor stores of any mall in the northeast. Broadway Mall also boasts Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear, H&M, Old Navy, and a movie theatre as junior anchors. I’m not entirely sure what the IKEA or Target stores were initially, but the mall did boast EJ Korvette’s as one of its original anchors. Korvette’s stores tended to have large footprints, so it’s possible that IKEA took this space after the mall’s major redevelopment in 1995.

MallsofAmerica has some really cool photos of the Broadway Mall during its Mid-Island Plaza days, and our photos were all taken in May of 2007. I’ve been to this mall many times since 1999 (until 2004, this IKEA was the closest one to Boston) and it hasn’t changed much in that time, beyond when Target replaced JCPenney at the rear anchor. The imposing, humungous Macy’s store is certainly a highlight here, as is the cavernous center court and the strange way the food court is cantilevered onto a second level. But really, Broadway Mall is most interesting as an example of how a second-tier mall that would normally be crowded out by larger siblings is able to hang on with some less-than-traditional anchor stores and make out just fine.

Longtime readers of Labelscar (or any other mall/retail history website, frankly) will notice we hold a distinct bias against a lot of the most successful shopping malls. Of course the obvious question is “Why?”–if these malls do well, and we like malls, why don’t we cheer for them as much as the others?

It’s not that we derive any thrill out of the death or decay of a shopping mall, but rather because we feel that the shopping malls of the ’60s, ’70s, and first half of the ’80s exuded a certain cool; rather than today’s centers which are practically-floored to maximize sales per square foot, they were often designed by architects who were trying to make grandly palatial, modern, contemporary gathering spaces. And unfortunately, the only malls left that still look like this tend to be the ones that have been neglected over the past two decades. The rest of them had their personality beaten out of them, usually with the walls painted white, the planters and fountains ripped out, and useless kiosks stuffed into every available space in the main concourse.

Long Island’s Walt Whitman Mall, at Walt Whitman Road and Jericho Turnpike, is no exception. But because it is one of these neat old malls by design, it does retain some vestiges of its past, and is at least somewhat interesting (if only architecturally, at this point), especially for a mall that is very upscale–its four anchor stores today are Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, and Lord & Taylor.

First of all, no discussion of the Walt Whitman Mall would be complete without addressing the center’s amusingly awkward name. Walt Whitman was originally from Huntington, and there’s a historic site at the house he was born located relatively close to the mall. However, the notion of a mall named for Walt Whitman is more than a bit silly. There’s a site that’s dedicated to the sheer ridiculousness of it, and they speak about this at length:

Is there any American writer whose work has less to do with shopping than Walt Whitman? He was an unwashed iconoclast, a rebel who loved to offend polite society, and an in-your-face sensualist homosexual back when nobody had the nerve to come out in public. He was so offensive, even Ralph Waldo Emerson balked at inviting him over for dinner, and it was Ralph Waldo Emerson whose endorsement of Leaves of Grass made Whitman a famous poet.

It’s hard to disagree, honestly, and the silliness only continues. In a somewhat misguided homage, the exterior of the mall contains quotes from Leaves of Grass etched into the stone facade, the stanzas organized in the shape of leaves. Sheesh!

Unfortunately, I don’t know a ton about the history of the Walt Whitman Mall, beyond that the modern-day Macy’s was once an Abraham & Straus store and that there used to be a McCrory’s here. The mall opened in 1962 as the first fully-enclosed shopping mall on Long Island, although at least three of Long Island’s malls (Roosevelt Field Mall, Green Acres Mall, and Broadway Mall) are actually older because they began life as outdoor shopping centers. What makes it sort of cool–apart from today’s upscale anchor roster–is the swooping ceiling lines, which change height at random and create several airy, spacious courts, especially in front of the Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s stores. These things are easy to miss, but a mall connoisseur can notice the unmistakeable bones of an old mall. For a comparison to see this place’s former glory, check out our friends at MallsofAmerica, who have a great shot of the court in front of the old A&S (modern-day Macy’s) and another shot in front of the old Macy’s (possibly the current Bloomingdale’s?), both of which are unmistakeably the same place, even if it is a bit duller now.

A year ago, there were some rumors that owner Simon was interested in adding a second-level expansion to the 1,034,747-square-foot mall, increasing its square footage by 200,000 square feet and adding a food court, although there are no signs presently that this will be moving forward.

Awhile back in our roundup of Albany Malls I never got around to discussing the main event, the Crossgates Mall in Guilderland. Part of this is because despite its size, Crossgates is relatively typical of a Pyramid Cos.-developed mall of its vintage. (For an example, look no further than the Silver City Galleria in Taunton, Massachusetts, another Pyramid-developed mall that opened in 1992 and shares almost the exact same interior decor theme as Crossgates). Really, this is just a long-winded way for me to say that it’s kind of boring. And it’s cramped, too, but it is big, and it is the beast that’s responsible for the decline of most other malls within an hour radius of Guilderland.

Crossgates Mall opened in 1984 as a significantly smaller mall than it is today, anchored by Caldor, Jordan Marsh, Filene’s, and JCPenney. The original section of the mall stretches from the JCPenney (which is the only anchor still located in its original location) to the present day Best Buy/H&M anchor. Crossgates was then substantially expanded in size in October 1994 to approximately 1.7 million square feet, with room for 250 stores and restaurants–effectively doubling the size of the mall. During this expansion, Lord & Taylor, Regal Cinemas, and a new Filene’s store opened as anchors, and the old Filene’s space was partially filled by Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Obviously, there were many changes in this roster over the years, with Macy’s replacing Jordan Marsh in 1996 when the entire Jordan Marsh name was retired, and similarly Macy’s replacing Filene’s in 2006 when the same occurred again. Today, the former Jordan Marsh (and original Macy’s) space is vacant while Macy’s occupies the last home of Filene’s in the mall. Similarly, Caldor went out of business in 1999, and their space was carved between Best Buy on the second level and H&M on the first. Interestingly, this anchor has a third level located above it, and this space was until 2005 home of a second movie theatre within the mall, and which shut due to declining popularity. You can still trek up to the third floor, however, since the restrooms and security office are there, and it’s worth the trip simply because it seems to be the only part of the mall that has retained its original 1984 decor. Unfortunately, because the security office is RIGHT THERE and Pyramid tends to be big on rule enforcement, it’s pretty tough to get any good pictures up there.

Lord & Taylor closed their store here (along with so many others) in 2005. There were also other chains that came and went during the mall’s existence, ranging from ones that are long gone (Nobody Beats the Wiz, Klein’s All Sports) to ones that just shuffled around or closed these particular locations (DSW Shoe Warehouse, TJMaxx).

Cohoes Fashions also relocated their store from its historic location in downtown Cohoes, NY to the mall in 1999, but in 2007 their parent company, Burlington Coat Factory, closed many of the Cohoes locations and renamed most of the rest Burlington Coat Factory, including this one. I got these pictures just in time, apparently, but it’s sort of sad to see Cohoes go since they were one of the last small regional department stores in the New York and New England area.

Ithaca, New York is a small college city located in upstate/western New York, about an hour and a half southwest of Syracuse. With a permanent population of only about 30,000 residents, Ithaca itself is relatively small, but the presence of two large universities–Cornell University and Ithaca College–means that there’s a constant parade of new residents in town, and causes Ithaca to act as something of an island quite different from its surrounding environs in the Fingerlakes region of New York. As the bumper stickers say, “Ithaca is Gorges!”

Ithaca also has a unique mall landscape. The city is home to no less than four enclosed malls of some shape or form, although only one of them is a traditional enclosed mall. Near downtown are two centers that we don’t have photos of: the small yet worthwhile (and, at this point, a bit shabby) Center Mall, located just off the downtown pedestrian mall, which is tenanted with a variety of small and mostly local shops, and the DeWitt Mall, a tiny center in a converted high school that is filled entirely with funky local merchants.

On the city’s north side, however, are a pair of more suburban malls that we’re going to cover here in a single post: The Shops at Ithaca Mall (known until 2009 as the Pyramid Mall) and the Triphammer Mall, located just about a block apart along Triphammer Road at the junction of route 13.

The Shops at Ithaca Mall is a classic example of one of the malls developed by the Syracuse-based Pyramid Companies. Opening in 1976, the mall was relatively typical for what Pyramid was building at the time, which is an ever-so-slightly “v” shaped, one level, 600,000 square foot mall (very similar to the Hampshire Mall in Hadley, Massachusetts, or the Aviation Mall in Queensbury, NY). There were a few details to set the Shops at Ithaca Mall apart from other malls developed by the Pyramid Cos., however, and the most notable is the very unusual second-floor balcony area in the center court, on top of the food court. The food court–named the Cafe Square–was originally built with several sit down restaurants on the second level above the main court area, although this was converted to additional seating for the food court restaurants in the mid-1980s, and is almost always closed today (I’ve visited the mall twice, in 2000 and 2006, and it was chained off both times).

The Pyramid Mall’s original anchors were JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, JW Rhodes, and Hill’s, although all four of those anchors are gone today. The mall was sold by Pyramid in 2007 or 2008 and renamed The Shops at Ithaca Mall by its new owners.

• JW Rhodes > Became The Bon-Ton, now located in an odd space accessed by several side hallways leading to the parking lot (check the directory to see what I mean).
• JCPenney > Shut in 2001 during a round of closings when they were in trouble, the space has been converted to a trio of big box stores: Dick’s Sporting Goods, Borders Books and Music, and Best Buy.
• Montgomery Ward > In 2002, the former Wards space was carved up and expanded, to house new stores for AC Moore, Old Navy, and Target. It actually appears that the mall blasts straight through the old Ward’s space, with AC Moore and Old Navy each taking half of the old Wards and Target occupying an entirely new building on the outside of the former Ward’s store. I’ve seen this done before only once, at the Mid-Hudson Mall in Kingston, NY.
• Hills > Acquired by Ames in 1999 and vacant since 2002, the space is rumored to be the future home of an expanded and relocated Regal Cinemas.

The Triphammer Mall, just south of route 13, is much more of a rarity. While it’s not a traditional mall in the classic sense, it is enclosed (although not climate-controlled). The glass-encased plaza contains a curious mixture of local and national merchants, and was chilly and eerily quiet upon our visit in October of 2006.

Rotterdam Square is a relatively typical mid-sized, mid-tier shopping mall, although I’ve always felt it was pretty neat. Like most of the malls around Albany, it has a massive (nearly Olympic-sized!) swimming pool, it has retained lots of in-mall planters, and it has a Sears with a red logo–a true rarity.

The 900,000 sqft Rotterdam Square is owned by the Macerich Company, the same management firm responsible for Wilton Mall, and sports Sears, TJMaxx, Sony-Loew’s Cinemas, Macy’s, and Kmart as anchors. From what I’ve been able to glean, this roster has been mostly static since the mall’s opening (at a date I can’t quite pin down, but I would estimate at the early to mid 1980s), with one notable exception. The current Macy’s space had been a Filene’s until the May-Federated merger, and prior to 1995 was a Hess’s department store.

Like Wilton Mall, Rotterdam Square seems to mostly get by due to its relative isolation from the region’s two powerhouse malls: Crossgates Mall and Colonie Center.

To finish out the northern stretch of Albany malls, I offer to you the Wilton Mall at Saratoga (commonly referred to simply as the Wilton Mall), the largest and newest of the malls stretching along the Northway from Albany.

Of course, as you’ll see from these photos, I encountered the worst enemy of every mall photographer: an RV show. As a result, my pictures completely stink. At least you can see the fountains.

Of course, Wilton Mall isn’t terribly entertaining, due to its recent vintage. Wilton Mall opened in 1990 on route 50, off I-87, with Addis & Dey’s, JCPenney, and Sears as anchors, and Steinbach would join not long thereafter. Today’s roster includes JCPenney and Sears, but The Bon-Ton has replaced Addis & Dey’s and Steinbach was replaced by Dick’s Sporting Goods. The mall is a large, bright, sprawling one-level center, highlighted by a large fountain in the center court–a relatively unique feature for a mall built as late as this one. Original plans for the mall originally called for a fifth anchor, rumored to be Montgomery Ward, who had an existing store at the adjacent (and smaller) Saratoga Mall. That store was never built, though, leaving a “ghost anchor” space at the Wilton Mall that still exists today, although rumor has it that JCPenney will relocate their store to that vacant space on the mall’s south side soon.

Of course, even if Wilton Mall didn’t rob the tinier Saratoga Mall of its Montgomery Ward, it did seem to rob it of its soul. The Saratoga Mall, which featured Jamesway and Service Merchandise (in addition to Montgomery Ward) as anchors in its lifetime, was squashed in the late 1990s by this behemoth, as I have illustrated in this intuitive diagram:

Now it’s a big box center, of course. According to the website of the contractor who built the current center, the ol’ Saratoga Mall was ground up and turned into fill on which the new center was built. Ouch.

Today’s Macerich Company-managed Wilton Mall isn’t anything monumental, in part because scenic downtown Saratoga Springs–a tourist town, and one of the most desirable cities in the area–hosts many of the more upscale national chains, including Borders, The Gap, and Banana Republic. The Gap, as a result of their recent financial troubles, chose to close the store at the Wilton Mall rather than their store in downtown Saratoga Springs, which is saying a lot. As a result, the mall feels strangely lesser than it should, given that it’s clearly the major shopping destination for the entire populous (and relatively affluent) stretch of towns along the Northway from Albany.