Mall Historians
“I need to know the address of the Gamestop Store in Norwoods Mall or Norwoods Mall Address Please?” That was a forum question on Peoria.com. I don’t know why I felt the need to answer it, but I looked up the Northwoods address and posted it anyway.
Somehow my curiosity got the best of me and I clicked on a link three down in the google search and ended up at www.labelscar.com where they aim to document the rise and fall of the Shopping Mall. In their words: “Our mission has been to study these centers, and attempt to preserve something of their presence. The enclosed shopping mall, despite still often being considered a dominant scourge that kills our downtowns, is now in its own slow, drawn-out death spiral.”
“We became amazed at the disparities we saw between large, successful, packed malls and old, dated, or for whatever reason emptier malls. We began to realize that many don’t even realize the differences or, if they do, they don’t really consider them. We found them fascinating, and started to contemplate the bigger picture. This blog is essentially the culmination of our explorations, our discoveries, our ruminations, and efforts in putting together a semblance of understanding in the retail puzzle of America.”
As to Northwoods Mall, they have this to say about it, along with many photos, pre-renovation: “Though meticulously maintained, many elements harkened back to the mall’s 1970s roots, most notably the grand center court with the huge 1970s silver light fixtures hanging from the raised ceiling.” Unfortunately, they got there too late to see the red/orange carpet in the center court and the old clock (which I miss).
The other local mall featured is Pekin’s East Court Village Mall, of which they didn’t have much good to say: “Pekin Mall is the first remarkably dead mall we visited, in January of 1999 [...] When we approached the mall from sad downtown Pekin on Court Street, it looked spectacularly dated on the outside, but nothing, I repeat, nothing could have prepared us for the inside.
“We entered through Bergner’s on the east end of the mall and walked into the main mall and suddenly timewarped into someone’s psychadelic, drug-induced trip from 1972. The floor tiles were this shiny mix of off-white, deep blue, purple, and what can only be described as puke green. Horrifically, the tiles alternated colors so a striped pattern repeated the mismatched color scheme throughout the entire mall. I’ve never seen anything like it, and haven’t since (thankfully, I was born in the 80s). Strangely, the mall also seemed rather dimly lit, despite the manmade lighting and the very cool mod-70s windows carved into the ceiling for natural light.”
“However, I’m afraid that’s only the beginning…”
These mall connoseurs claim to have visited 2/3 of all the enclosed malls in the United States and have documented them with descriptions and photographs. It is also a blog, and they encourage comments.
Sometimes doing a good deed, even if done out of pity, can have some unexpected results, and this strange but interesting site is one of them.
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:16 am
The old Pekin mall is gone, gone, gone and East Court Village is now a thriving shopping area with 4 new businesses opening just within the short time I’ve lived in Pekin. A lot can change in 8 years.
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:19 am
I did a Planning Project on Pekin in college and I brought up how dead that side of Pekin was. You would think that the main retail section in a town that size would be a little more vital. This was about the time they built the Super Walmart. There were so many empty box store buildings down there, old Walmart, Krogers, want-a-be Walmart store building, and over half the rundown Pekin Mall. It was really sad. I accidentally ended up over there six months ago and was pleasant suprised to see that some of it was making a comeback. Pekin still needs some help but at least its a step up from Canton