This mall was built in the mid-60s, as the second of three malls that would be built by Allied Stores, the parent company of the Bon Marche -- and therefore, it has one of the three beautiful mid-century modern Bon Marche stores the company built as their mall-based flagships, which is what I decided to open the set with. This mall came over a decade after Northgate, incorporating many of the changes that mall had seen (such as an enclosed main corridor), and seems to have been something of a prototype for Southcenter, which is pretty much identical in its original portions. Both of those malls will obviously be coming to the blog some day, but I have several hundred photos of each, so I keep kicking that can down the road!
We had an Allied chain here in Houston, Joske's, but too bad they never built anything even remotely as neat as this. Their store in front of The Galleria (now Dillard's, Dillard's took over Joske's) is probably as neat as we had, but it's not even close to this: https://s.hdnux.com/photos/40/30/54/8489746/3/920x920.jpg
ReplyDeleteAside from Sears/Homart, Federated (Foley's) was the major department store operator here who developed malls in Houston, but their malls were not successful and they are most certainly in the 'all but officially dead' category today. Oddly enough, Sears/Homart's many malls in Houston are all still successful!
Interesting -- I can see a bit of resemblance between that store and this one, just with the Joske's being a lot simpler overall! And it still feels weird to me that so many department store chains branched out into building malls, since those malls would then host their direct competitors...
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