Posted on 04/28/2017 6:15:53 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Back to the Crabtree Mall. It was the best thing going back in the early 1980s. The main anchors were Ann & Hope, Lechmere and Zayre's with a nice food court that included the ubiquitous Orange Julius, Mrs Field's cookies, Auntie Jenn's Pretzels and some Chinese fast food joint in which you could get a heaping plate of rice and meat with Chinese women standing outside of it offering free samples of stuff on toothpicks. What was not to like?
Another anchor was Sears & Roebuck which was quite the store and they had dungarees, lawn mowers, washing machines and a huge section full of Craftsman tools as well as a huge furniture area and a bunch of TVs all tuned to the same station with some of them showing the picture constantly scrolling and in need of a v-hold adjustment. Remember the knob in the back of the TV in which you had to turn to keep the picture from scrolling? The Sears was so huge that they had escalators going to three levels.
The exterior corridor of the mall housed Pier 1 Imports, La-z-boy, Service Merchandise, Waldenbooks, Tape World, Brookstones, Pizza Hut, Ace Hardware, Jewelry store, Hickory Farms, Denny's, a video game arcade, Hallmark Cards, Spencer's Gifts, some candle store, CVS, Radio Shack, a multi-plex cinema showing movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and a bowling alley for bowling.
Our mall had the best camera store, ever and a great audio equipment store.
My HS boyfriend and I would go in Hunt Audio just to drool over the Klipsch Heresy speakers and Bang & Olufsen equipment.
I remember seeing the first linear turntable ever made.
There was also an awesome record store.
Now, we got nuthin’.
Once in a great while, I go to FYE and Hot Topic.
The rest of the mall may as well not exist, as far as I’m concerned.
Yep, I watched the first Terminator movie the other day and was really enjoying the 80s-ness of it.
I remember a mall that had the BEST cinnamon bun shop-——I wouldn’t go near the place now.
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That mall is dying.I go there regularly because it's a great place for "mall walkers" when the weather's bad.Except for Christmas time and the odd rainy Saturday the place is deserted.There are empty store parcels everywhere.
No problems with punks/gangs that I've heard of...I suspect that the problem is internet shopping.
All retail is aimed at welfare culture. That’s where the money is; the redistributed money. The mall near us is almost entirely black — they bus them in from the city.
The only refuge from the underclass are places with no bus service. If you have a car, you can get away from the rabble.
Now, other than the Santa area, it's pretty boring.
Just no Christmasy feel.
For quite a number of years, I took my elderly mother to Woodfield at Christmas. Just to get a coffee or hot chocolate and Cinnabon, and sit near the center of the mall and watch the people go buy. Last year we didn't go to Woodfield, went to a couple of other, smaller malls. None felt like Christmas.
Christmas has become nothing but selling stuff. No real decorating. No Christmas spirit.
Wow...Lechmere...memories.In the 60’s I was a huge music fan,some of what I liked was hard to find.I’d hop on the Green Line,pay my dime,and got off at Lechmere Station.In the record Department I’d ask at that counter for the album I wanted and 90% of the time they had it.Their “typical” albums were $2.90 back then.
I’m going to check out the Sharper Image.
LOL
I despised Lechmere———(long story).
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O God,that is VERY funny—— I’ve been watching Saul since the show started and that never even entered my mind.
(I can’t stand Chuck) :-)
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“There was also an awesome record store.”
Record stores! I remember hanging out with friends in record stores just thumbing through the albums to see the jacket art! Then they came out with CDs and that just kind of died. . . along with the record stores themselves.
“Across the road is Streets Of Woodfield”
In the mid-90’s that place was a large Montgomery Ward store with a Filene’s Basement store on the lower level.
Yes. It was over run by punks.
Great story, YD. My Aunt and Uncle lived in Ketchum, ID for many years back around them. My aunt kept a huge basket in the living room filled with mail-order catalogs of all stripes. Coming from more mid-sized city suburbs, I was always amazed and wondered “why does she need those?” There wasn’t much shopping around Ketchum in those days and it was two hours to Twin Falls (which wasn’t very big then, either).
I DO remember the Sears catalog around the holidays. What a wonderful “wish book” it was.
Cool Springs Mall in Brentwood, TN is a nice mall. Mainly because it is far from the hood.
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