Billy's Retail History Emporium

It’s a Mall World After All (November 12, 1989)

2009-07-27T22:46:00.001-04:00

I was at the downtown library this afternoon, and I came across this very interesting article from the Greensboro News & Record, dated November 12, 1989, titled It’s a Mall World After All.

The article describes how malls were basically taking over the world. Keep in mind that this was 20 years ago, years before the open air shopping center and big box stores began to over-dominate malls.

Carolina Circle Mall, Four Seasons Town Centre, and Friendly Shopping Center are mentioned in this article. In fact, the above picture of Carolina Circle Mall (the second floor corridor) happened to come out of this article. The picture was republished on July 1, 2005 when Carolina Circle Mall began its demolition.

So here it is, from November 12, 1989, It’s a Mall World After All! Wait till you get to the part about what Friendly Shopping Center almost did in 1992! No challenge to copyright intended.

Greensboro is a mall town that’s getting maller.

Its true town center-or should I say centre?-is Four Seasons Town Centre, three stories and three city blocks of Radio Shacks, Chick-Fil-As and Electric Eels. According to Four Seasons’ surveys, most people in Guilford County, at least 67 percent, visit the 1.2 million square-foot mall off Interstate 40 at least once a month.

On the other side of town, recently renovated Carolina Circle Mall is making a comeback, drawing shoppers with its well-stocked department stores and carousel centerpiece.

And the owners of Greensboro’s mall alternative Friendly Shopping Center, say chances are good Friendly will go the way of gurgling fountains and Muzak, Starmount Company has tentative plans to convert the shopping center into an enclosed mall in 1992.

There’s no doubt, it’s a mall world. Teenagers socialize there; fitness buffs walk laps there; kids even trick-or-treat there.

The National Research Bureau reports there are 82,560 malls nationwide. In a typical month, 170 million American adults shop at a mall.

In Rome, cities were often centered around entertainment structures such as The Coliseum. In medieval Europe, the cathedral embodied the religious spirit of the age. Our era of malldom is really the logical conclusion of a society moving from an industrial base to a service-oriented consumer one.

The transition has been hard for some. Writers bermoan the emergence of shopping mall culture, a character in Sam Shepard’s play “Curse of the Starving Class” calls the mall that will replace his home “a zombie city”, and academics build careers studying the phenomenon.

Even Chrissie Hynde lamented the change in The Pretenders’ song, “My City Was Gone,” when she sang “All my favorite places had been replaced by shopping malls”.

As in many cities, Greensboro’s suburban shopping centers and malls have taken the place of the downtown shopping district. The department stores that once drew shoppers downtown moved out in the ‘70s. Department stores such as Thalhimers, Ivey’s, Belk, Sears and Montgomery Ward are now the anchors that draw shoppers to Four Seasons, Friendly, and Carolina Circle Mall.

David Mitchell, an urban sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, says a city loses something when it centers itself around a mall instead of downtown.

“The mall owners have the ability to control activities and they have a strong desire to maximize buying potential,” Mitchell says. “A downtown has much more diverse activities, festivals, and parades.”

Malls tend to separate people, Mitchell says. When department stores were downtown, he points out, suburban homemakers would mingle with lawyers at lunch, but now the two groups are separated in city and suburbia.

In his 1985 book The Malling of America, William Severini Kowinski argues that malls are still in their infancy and will continue to grow and expand in the next “mallennium”. He predicts a culture of “mallcondo continuum” where you can eat, shop, work, and play in one huge “mallolithic” structure without ever needing to know the outside temperature.

He also believes we will eventually retreat to the mall if natural or man-made disasters threaten our cultural security, just as medieval huddled in castles during the Dark Ages.

“Malls are already becoming the citadels of our time, fortresses protecting the dream worlds of our culture,” Kowinski writes.

America grew attached to the mall in only one generation. Baby Boomers’ car-driven culture addiction to air-conditioning and desire to consume paved the way for the suburban mall.

Malls, in turn, borrowed from television. Boomers’ central culture guide, to create a sanitized version of the American ideal they would eventually replace, Main Street. Four Seasons, for example, is designed to be a mini-Main Street complete with simulated old town square.

Greensboro’s real main street became obsolete as a retail hub when it was physically bypassed by the new paths of the car culture, Interstates 40 and 85. These days, although downtown is basking in the dust of three new office towers and umpteen parking decks, shopping is mostly limited to antiques.

Greensboro got its first glimpse of the mall in 1961, when award-winning architect Edward Durell Stone came to town to show the first architectural plans of a new shopping center named Four Seasons.

Stone promised it would be free of the “neon vulgarities” that characterized much of the architecture of the day. And he said the center would not house businesses out to “catch a penny and a quick buck. It will be a place of beauty, interest, and enjoyment”.

Stone’s plan was dumped in favor of a mall design and construction began in 1972, early enough to make it Greensboro’s first mall. Carolina Circle Mall followed two years later. Before long, even old textile mills were being converted to malls such as Cotton Mill Square.

Four Seasons owner Joseph Koury had wanted a three-story mall back in the early ‘60s but had trouble convincing folks it would work. When the mall was built in the early ‘70s, it included a third story that was used for storage. A third story of shops was opened in 1987 and Four Seasons Mall became Four Seasons Town Centre.

With its 175 stores, 23 restaurants, and four movie screens, Four Seasons has become Greensboro’s shopping and entertainment hub.

“We’re really a town within a town,” says Linda Jones, marketing director for Koury Corp. “We have everything you need here from a post office to a drivers’ license office.

And the mall is still growing. Koury plans to eventually connect the mall and its sister Four Seasons Holiday Inn. The proposed 30-story hotel tower would be the city’s tallest building.

Since it is an enclosed, climate-controlled bubble, the mall frees shoppers from the weather. Despite its name, Four Seasons is seasonless, always bright with plants growing year round.

In the summer, shoppers come to escape heat and humidity. In the winter, teens can check each other out without the cocoons of heavy coats. Every morning, legions of mall walkers stomp through the windless, rainless corridors without dirtying their shoes.

Climate control has helped the mall knock off its predecessor, the shopping center, as the dominant facet of suburban culture.

Shopping centers were born out of the car culture of the post-World War II era. As Mom and Dad were busy procreating and moving to the suburbs, they began purchasing automobiles in record numbers.

Meanwhile, television advertisements showcased the spoils of the post-war boom. But in burgeoning suburbia, there weren’t enough places to buy such wonders as vacuum cleaners, lava lamps, and polyester suits.

The shopping center, and eventually the mall, completed the link between television and the highway. As major department stores and national chains moved to the suburbs, shoppers had no trouble finding right in their own neighborhood everything they’d seen advertised on television.

Friendly Shopping Center was born in 1953 when it was just outside the city limits.

In the beginning, Friendly was to be a modest project designed to look like a Williamsburg Village. It grew through the ‘60s and early ‘70s as downtown department stores followed customers to the suburbs. Forum VI, a small mall with exclusive shops and restaurants, was added to the Friendly complex in 1975.

Even as it grew, Friendly retained a neighborhood shopping center feel that lived up to its name. Free from the fake ambience and overwhelming structure of the mall, it’s still a place where you can run into neighbors at their cars and meet friends for a quick cup of coffee.

It also is a unique retail hybrid that blends the outside and inside, the car and the pedestrian, the mom-and-pop stores of downtown and the national chains of the mall.

But Friendly’s days as a shopping center may be numbered.

Friendy’s owners, the Starmount Company, have said chances are good the shopping center will be made into a mall beginning in 1992. The conversion would come in several phases. In each phase some of the existing buildings would be torn down and parking lots ripped u, replaced by a mall section.

“The years are taking their toll, and it is becoming obsolete,” says Elvin Parks, president of Starmount. “We must do whatever it takes to keep this a top scale center”.

A mall would allow for more stores and more diversity for shoppers. But it won’t be as easy for shoppers to pull up to the store they want, dash in and out in a few minutes. Malls keep shoppers contained, forcing them to walk around more and, merchants hope, purchase more.

What about shoppers who aren’t mall friendly?

One hopeful sign for them is the rebirth of open-air markets. At Greensboro’s Quaker Village, for example, a remarkable unmalling happened recently when the developer pulled the roof of the mini-mall and returned it to an open air center.

Mall loathers also have to ally themselves with the shopping center. These strip centers, with their grocery stores, video rental shops, and hair salons, continue to draw shoppers in search of everything from garden hoses to styling mousse.

What shopping centers lack in beauty, they make up for in honesty. While a few try to pass themselves off as quaint towns in concrete clothing, most simply get people in and out quickly with no-nonsense style.

And then there’s downtown. A few civic leaders are tossing around a new idea they say would be just the thing to reinvigorate downtown.

They want to build a mall.

Wards.com in 1998

2009-07-24T19:02:00.001-04:00

The Internet Archive also has an older version of Montgomery Ward’s website to check out.

This one is from December 1, 1998, four years before they announced their closing.

Be forewarned that many of the pictures fail to load in this archived webpage, so you might get lost on this one.

Check it out here.

Kmart.com in 1996

2009-07-24T18:58:00.001-04:00

Thanks to the technology of the Internet Wayback Machine, we can take a look back at what Kmart’s website looked like on November 8, 1996. Very primitive to what we’re used to today.

Check it out here.

Circuit City Closing

2009-01-17T16:15:00.003-05:00

Boy, is this a surprise.

Yesterday, Circuit City announced it was closing all of its stores.

I am really surprised by this. This was one of the stores I least expected to ever close. They're not wasting any time either. This afternoon, I was riding down Wendover Avenue here in Greensboro and saw people standing on the side of the road with Going Out of Business signs.

So, if there's a certain plasma screen HD TV you've been wanting, now might be the time to get it.

And as a tribute to Circuit City, here's a little blast from the past from 1991 advertising Circuit City's Christmas sales.

Pictures of Winston-Salem K-Mart

2008-12-11T10:09:00.006-05:00

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to visit the K-Mart on Peters Creek Parkway in Winston-Salem.

Currently, this would definitely be my favorite existing K-Mart because it hasn't done much updating since the early '90s, except for pictures of Hannah Montana every where you look.

I took some quick pictures of the store on my cell phone. I apologize for the quality of these pictures.

1995 Montgomery Ward Commercial

2008-12-11T10:06:00.001-05:00

Lost Retail City Transition...

2008-11-13T16:58:00.002-05:00

Is now complete.

All of the posts I created at Lost Retail City from March 23, 2006 to October 14, 2008 are now available here at Billy's Retail History Emporium. Your comments have also been transferred. Just access them from the archive on the sidebar.

Welcome!

2008-11-13T12:49:00.001-05:00

It's been a very long time since I started a new blog, but I decided that the time was right to do it.

If you've been following my Internet history since I started back in 2005, you've probably noticed that I have an interest in retail and malls.

When I was little, I learned from my parents that there used to be an ice rink at Carolina Circle Mall. One day I was eating lunch at the Carolina Circle Food Court. I glanced over at the Carousel and began looking for any scuff marks from the old ice rink.

I've also been to several Woolworth over the years. I even occasionally went to the one at Friendly Shopping Center and I witnessed its demolition.

This blog will be a lot like Lost Retail City in that it'll mostly revolve around stores and other establishments that are no longer with us. But this new blog will cover much more including current stores and malls.

I will soon begin to transfer the posts and comments at Lost Retail City over to this new blog so hang in there. I will also delete Lost Retail City as well.

Welcome to Billy's Retail History Emporium!

Video of Illinois K-Mart in 1990 (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2008-10-14T16:27:00.001-04:00

I found that on YouTube this afternoon. Brings back a lot of memories. Too bad there's no real audio in this video so we can hear the loud "whoosh" from the oversize vents.

Burlington Square Mall Hit With Foreclosure (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2008-07-09T16:25:00.000-04:00

According to WFMY News 2, Burlington Square Mall (It's in Burlington, duh), has been hit with a foreclosure.

If you go to News 2's website, you will find the entire article dealing with the foreclosure, as well as a very interesting video of the mall's grand opening from 1969, when it was Holly Hill Mall.

I have some good memories of that mall in the '90s. I remember when the food court (now closed) had a Panda Express and a Burger King. I also remember frequenting the music store and Woolworth (Now Goody's).

I also remember sometime around 1997/1998, the mall's Easter Bunny gave me a coloring sheet. After coloring it, I took it back to the mall in order to receive a prize, which I never got.

One major thing I remember is its first name change. Back in the late 1990s, Holly Hill Mall was renamed to Colonial Burlington Mall. I think this was when the mall started to take its nosedive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall it being renamed Burlington Square Mall in 2005.

What's really killing it is the new Alamance Crossing Shopping Center just down the road from the mall. Belk and JCPenney have already moved to the new shopping center, leaving just Goody's and Sears at Burlington Square Mall.

The last time I went to Burlington Square Mall was last month. Shopping traffic was alarmingly low and stores were closed all over the place, including the Apple House Cafeteria. The only store I went into was Radio Shack.

From what I saw, it started bringing back memories of the final years of Carolina Circle Mall during the late 1990s. Yes, Burlington Square Mall is currently a lot like the later years of Carolina Circle.

It's been foreclosed, however it is not closing... yet.

Next time I go, I'm taking my camera.

The News 2 article and the 1969 grand opening video is here.

Woolworth Stereo Spectacular (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2007-07-10T16:22:00.000-04:00

Over at Retro Junk, I came across an interesting classic commercial for the Woolworth Stereo Spectacular '71. I must admit, it really has that early '70s vibe to it.

Take a look at it here.

Losing the "Big K" (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2007-02-11T16:21:00.000-05:00

In 2002, the "Blue Light" at the Carolina Circle Mall K-Mart went out. Now in 2007, it looks like the "Blue Light" is being shattered.

I rode past the K-Mart this afternoon and noticed that heavy machinery was picking away the garden center. K-Mart appears to be the next to be demolished.

Also, I'm assuming the rest of the shopping center including the former Big Lots will be demolished as well.

I'm still not sure why they're doing this. I did hear that one of those home improvement stores was looking into that location. Also, the K-Mart was also broken into a few weeks ago and was caught on fire. Those are two possibilities.

We'll miss you, K-Mart.

Fresh K-Mart Pictures (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2007-01-13T16:20:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, I took some pictures of the Carolina Circle Mall area K-Mart. Well, I went back there today and took some more.

Obviously, the place looked about the same as it did a year ago, but I was able to get some more higher quality pictures this time. It's all in the weather.

Like last year, I took some pictures of the inside of the store from the window. It was a very interesting view. They sure didn't get rid of a lot of stuff when they closed about 5 years ago. They still even have the cash registers!

You can take a look at all 9 pictures here. Again, let me know if you have difficulties looking at the pictures.

Knuckles (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-12-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

Let's take a look at one of my favorite defunct restaurants.

Known as Knuckles, this restaurant opened in the '50s or '60s has some what of a truck stop. It matured over the years into a nice little cafe with good plate lunches.

Sadly, it closed in I think 1995 or 1996 and was reborn as Woodard Funeral Home in the late '90s.

It was located on Sands Drive in Greensboro just up the road from Carolina Circle Mall.

Woolworth Bag (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-10-14T16:15:00.000-04:00

Last week, I went to the flea market off US-29 and bought an old video tape. That's all, have a nice day.

Oh, alright! Well, when the cashier bagged the video, he put it in an old Woolworth bag. To me, this is worth more than the video.

This particular bag was probably made sometime in the 1990's and it features two slogans "Buy With Confidence" and "Satisfaction Guaranteed".

On a smaller note about the video, the case has a Woolworth price tag with the price marked out.

Carolina Beach Maxway (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-09-27T16:12:00.000-04:00

This is my favorite Maxway store located in Carolina Beach, NC near Kure Beach. It's not lost retail but it features lost retail.

Maxway is similar to Roses except a little bigger. This particular one features beachware and beach souvenirs.

There's a similar Maxway closer to home here in Greensboro on Randleman Road. It features a lot of similar items that are at the one in Carolina Beach, but without the beach stuff.

Urgent Closer Update (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-07-27T16:11:00.000-04:00

I went by my all time favorite Pizza Hut at the corner of Cone Boulevard and Summit Avenue today for lunch. I wasn't able to get lunch there today because they were closed... permanently! Man I have so many great memories of that Pizza Hut. I wish it didn't close.

Service Merchandise (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-06-04T16:09:00.000-04:00

This is the old Service Merchandise store that was once located across from our favorite mall Carolina Circle Mall. Let's take a look behind the scenes of this very interesting store. Unfortunately, I don't have much information about this store, so hang in there.

This store opened sometime in the '70s or '80s. Just like all of the other stores in this area, this store was predicted to be a success, however was squashed like a bug soon after.

There really isn't another store to put up against Service Merchandise. It was sort of a downsized version of Sears and Montgomery Ward. But it did specialize in jewlery. I also remember buying a typewriter there in the early '90s.

Around 1996, the store decided to move all operations to the other side of town. Service Merchandise packed their bags and moved from Carolina Circle to the Landmark Center area off Wendover Avenue. It was located in the former Best store.

In its new location, the store started to sink real deep into demise. In the early '00s, all Service Merchandise locations went out of business nationwide including the Carolina Circle/Wendover one.

Today, the store's Carolina Circle location has been left abandoned and the store's Wendover location is now I believe Hamricks. Also, Service Merchandise has reopened as an Internet retailer only.

Lost Toys 'R Us (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-04-17T16:08:00.000-04:00

I've got to do 10 minutes worth of work in 1 minute. Help!

This Toys 'R Us is the one across the road from Carolina Circle Mall. It opened in 1985 with a bang. I remember going there as much as Carolina Circle. Hey, it's less than walking distance from there!

Due to poor sells, the store closed in August of 2002. Everything closed in 2002 in this area!

In May of 2005, it was demolished in one day. This was because of the Wal-Mart.

Toys 'R Us seems to be a dying chain and within 10-20 years, it'll probably end up like Montgomery Ward and Service Merchandise. More on Service Merchandise later here at LRC.

Pendle Hill Christian School (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-04-02T16:06:00.000-04:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Carolina Circle Mall of schools called Pendle Hill Christian School. Even though it's not retail, let's take a look at the history and greatness of this school.

I took the above picture of the school on March 10, 2006 the day the school went belly up.

The school opened in 1997 in the basement of Hunter Hills Friends Church. When it first opened, the school was called Pendle Hill Friends School. The school was pretty much makeshift consisting of only a few students, a few teachers, and limited classrooms.

Starting in 2001, the middle school moved across the street into the basement of Saint John's United Methodist Church. Like the rest of the school, the middle school was also pretty makeshift. 2001 was also the year I started Pendle Hill.

In 2002, the building seen in the above picture was built in the backyard of Hunter Hills Church. For the first time probably, the entire school operated in one building. I think 2002 was also when the Pendle Hill Lighthouse Emblem was created as seen on the left.

2003 was probably the height of the Pendle Hill legacy. Money was coming in, the classes were superb, etc. Also in September of 2003, I became a Roadgeek which really helped the field trips.

2004 brought many new changes. One of the founding people who started Pendle Hill left (who was the adminstrator). That resulted in another big change. 2004 was also the year when the name changed from Pendle Hill Friends School to Pendle Hill Christian School.

Starting in March of 2005, I tried to film my Back to the Future the Second movie at Pendle Hill. One important thing that had to be done was to convert the school into Carolina Circle Mall. It wasn't going to be easy. I'd put a picture on here of the hallway, but there's some blogger error. Later.

2005-2006 was also the school year that Pendle Hill started the 9th grade. That gave me another 1/2 year.

Around Christmas of 2005, Pendle Hill started to fade away. Due to severe financial troubles, Pendle Hill Christian School closed permanently on Friday, March 10, 2006. It was a very sad day. The nearly 9 year old school was gone. There are so many theories on the reason the school closed, it's hard to really pinpoint the reason it closed.

We will never forget the great school called Pendle Hill Christian School.

K-Mart (Formerly of Lost Retail City)

2006-03-23T16:04:00.000-05:00

This store isn't lost... yet. Anyway, I'd like to take some time to honor this very interesting store called K-Mart.

The K-Mart in the picture above is the K-Mart near Carolina Circle Mall. This one opened in 1976 and was the first K-Mart I ever went to.

The K-Marts of the 80's and early 90's have been know to be very unique. Why? Most of these are actual memories of mine.

I remember walking through this particular K-Mart near Carolina Circle way back in the early-mid 90's. K-Mart had this unique smell to it. Sort of a popcorn/rubber ball type smell. And the sandwhich shop. The food there sort of reminded me of Drive In movie food. The moist hot dogs, popcorn, candy. Who can forget the oversized air vents that made that loud whooshing sound? Couldn't tell you were at K-Mart or the mothership. Finally, the music. They'd always play 80's music like Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.

Unfortunately, the blue light burned out in 2002. The Carolina Circle K-Mart closed leaving only the Super K-Mart on Wendover.

Nowadays, I do my big box shopping at Target, but when it comes to nostalgia, you can't beat K-Mart.