I know some of you really don't like Walmart, but I have a thing for nonstandard Walmarts, especially in weird repurposed buildings. And this definitely counts for that, being a three-story 50s/60s-era department store! Specifically, this was once The Broadway, the only actual anchor store for Panorama Mall (Wikipedia makes the claim that this was the first mall to have four major department store anchors, but that seems rather dubious, even ignoring the fact that only one of them was actually attached to the mall as you'd expect for a mall anchor; the other three include Montgomery Ward across the street, what's now the Indoor Swap Meet a full block away, and one other that no longer seems to exist but was similarly not even on the same property, let alone attached).
Ha, I guess you would have liked some of the Mall-Marts I've driven by on my vacations of late. There was the Bayshore Mall Mall-Mart in Eureka, CA this year and the Crossgates two-story Wal-Mart in Albany, NY which is the largest Wal-Mart in the US (it was formerly a Wal-Mart/Sam's Club stack that was turned into a two-story Wal-Mart Supercenter). The latter wasn't attached to a mall, but I believe it was in a shopping center co-developed with the mall in some way. Anyway, I didn't go to any of these Wal-Marts even though the hotel I stayed at in Albany was within walking distance of that Wal-Mart! Going to Wal-Marts around here seems like punishment enough. Going to one on vacation seems even worse!
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, I have actually visited the Bayshore Mall Walmart, and that was one of the sets I was considering posting this time around! But I decided this one was a bit more interesting, particularly with the Montgomery Ward bit.
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