Please post any feedback below. Be sure to include the name of the particular mall (or mobile home) write-up that you are commenting on.
Thank you,
Vintage mobile homes and the Trailerite culture of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s
Vintage mobile homes and the Trailerite culture of the 1940s, '50s and early '60s
pseudo3d commented on Apr 29, 2024
ReplyDeleteI've been a fan of MHoF for a long time (15+ years) and one thing I'm surprised that was never covered was Eastpoint Mall in Baltimore.
It opened in October 1956 as the Eastpoint Shopping Center, anchored Hutzler's and Hochschild-Kohn in a U-shaped strip mall configuration. A new row of shops were added in the 1960s and ultimately enclosed by the 1970s.
By the early 1990s it featured Value City (Value City Furniture was accessible from an upper level, not the main mall, though they might've been interconnected originally), JCPenney, Ames, and Sears (Hutzler's later became Value City, and Hochschild-Kohn was renovated into a food court and additional retail. It still remains open today.
Thanks much for posting. I'm sorry about the delay in responding. Google is supposed to alert me when any comments are received. It rarely -if ever- does this.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, EASTPOINT CENTER is surely deserving of a write up on here. I have done screen saves of the original shopping center logo and a circa-1956 rendering. I also have a list of the original 40 stores and services.
Pseudo3d commented on May 3, 2024
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm not sure if this page is updated anymore, but the other mall that would be interesting to see is Eastwood Mall (in Ohio, not Alabama). It was once erroneously credited as the largest mall in the U.S. by counting its outparcels but opened in 1969 with Sears, Strouss', and Montgomery Ward. Strouss' became Kaufmann's and eventually Macy's, Montgomery Ward was briefly split into multiple tenants but reopened as Dillard's (though a gym, added in the mid-1980s during its multi-tenant phase still exists), Sears became Boscov's. JCPenney and Target were added later. It also has a hotel but I'm not sure if it connects directly to the mall or not.
Yes, the MHoF site is still up & running, although I haven't "inducted" any malls since Dallas' A. HARRIS-OAK CLIFF CENTER was added a few months ago. To be honest, I haven't felt like working on the site since I -and the MHoF- were bitterly lambasted on another mall-related site.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I have saved some graphics for Greater Youngstown's EASTWOOD. I have the original (circa-1969) "Everything Under One Cover" mall logo, as well as a 1969 floorplan (the most important thing to have on hand when doing a write up).
Aaron Olden commented on May 7, 2024:
ReplyDeleteConstructive Criticisms
Why not spin-off Mall Hall of Fame & The Shopping Mall Museum into a standalone website/Why not unify the two concepts? - I would see why you likely haven't done this yet, including domain issues, website building, etc. I more so want to understand why haven't you simplified/consolidated the two blogs yet.
Suggestions for Additions & Changes
- A. Alfred Taubman Malls: I may have suggested this to you before & I apologize if this is at all a repeat of an earlier comment.
- Cheltenham Square Mall (Cheltenham Township, PA): I would find this somewhat interesting as this mall's evolution isn't that well discussed online yet.
- Main Line Centers (Suburban Square in Ardmore, PA & Wynnewood Shopping Center in Wynnewood, PA): I do believe these two shopping centers have some cultural significance when it comes to the history of shopping malls.
- Neshaminy Mall (Bensalem, PA): An article on Levittown's Shop-A-Rama competitor would be feasible and I note this mall in particular because of its current decline.
- Possibly Rebranding Philadelphia Malls to Delaware Valley (Philadelphia) Malls: Delaware Valley is more well known as the name for Philadelphia's metropolitan area
I end this off with I've been a fan of your content for over a decade now & I've always wanted to help out/contribute in the website's development. I do hope my comments didn't come off as insulting or belittling to your current workload, as I didn't intend on that. Thank you for always keeping these blogs up as it has inspired me so much.
Aaron,
ReplyDeleteI greatly appreciate your input. Your comments are -in no way- insulting or belittling. In fact, you've made some excellent suggestions and have done so in a polite, considerate and complimentary manner.
Firstly, I considered renaming the "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" section as (quote-unquote) "Delaware Valley-Philadelphia." However, I felt that this might create consistency issues with some of the other 15 "Cities With Mall Lists" links. Should the "Phoenix, Arizona" link also incorporate "Sun Valley"? Should "Chicago, Illinois" read "Chicagoland" or "Boston, Massachusetts" be listed as "Beantown" or "The Hub?"
I love to incorporate such local-isms as "Delaware Valley," "Beantown,"The Mile High City" or "The Big Apple" into the narrative. However, I thought it best to just leave the "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" moniker as is. Still, I will stress that you are correct that the link should incorporate "Delaware Valley." "Delaware Valley" was already mentioned in the Shop-A-Rama article. I added mention of it to several more "Philly" mall articles.
I see that Delaware, or at least the the northern section, is considered to be part of the Delaware Valley...as is a lot of New Jersey and even some of Maryland. It would be nearly -if not- impossible to add Wilmington and South Jersey malls to the existing "Philadelphia, PA" link. However, I will add references to Delaware Valley to the Wilmington mall articles, as well as those for malls around Camden.
Your recommendations for additional "Del-Valley Malls" were well-thought. I regret that I don't have any graphics, floor plans or info saved for Cheltenham Square, Neshaminy, Suburban Square or Wynnewood. I do have a vintage floor plan of Exton Square (from 1976). I would have to have original floor plans to assemble any new articles, and these can be VERY difficult to find. Back in the day, I would do articles without the benefit any vintage plans or graphics. However, I ended up being lambasted by detractors for posting incorrect info and I don't want to do that again...if I can help it.
The concept of merging the MHoF and MALL MUSEUM sites into one has a great deal of merit. However, this would be extremely difficult, even if I could figure out how to do it. If I could just start over from scratch and post a "new & improved" MHoF -including all MALL MUSEUM content- I probably would. However, this would entail buying a domain and making it a TRUE website and reposting everything. Even with all of the limitations of Blogger, I like that these sites are free of charge.
When I started all of this way back in 2006, I had no idea what I was doing. I (perhaps unwisely) decided that this new mall site should cover only USA malls originally opened during the "Baby Boom" years (my generation). I eventually figured out how to label things and make clickable links to this and that.
4 years later, I created the second site, that -not only- included USA shopping complexes from the early 20th century, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s...but featured malls in Canada, Australia, South America, The UK, France, Africa and Japan. Like, where else can one find detailed -and illustrated- histories of Melbourne's CHADSTONE CENTRE or Johannesburg's KILLARNEY MALL, lol?
Getting back to the MHoF, your recommending a new section for "Taubman Malls" is spot on. I only have sections for 4 major mall developer-designers, i.e., Edward J. DeBartolo, James Rouse, Victor Gruen and John Graham, Junior. In addition to an A. Alfred Taubman section, there should -at least- be ones for Lathrop Douglass, Welton Becket and William Pereira. Assembling correct -and entirely inclusive- lists of malls built or designed by these men might be difficult. I guess this is why I've only completed preliminary work on a few such sections.
So, I'll get this posted. Hope to hear back from you soon.
Ally asked on May 9, 2024:
ReplyDeleteHello! I have been a fan of this blog for many years, and I have recently begun my journey as a PhD student researching the cultural history of the American Shopping Mall. I would love to get in touch with you about this amazing resource that you have built. I'm not sure how to contact you besides posting a comment, but if you see this I would love to get in touch!