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Old 08-27-2019, 08:33 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by moneymkt View Post
i think i heard cherry hill mall was the first mall in america in 1967
It opened in 1961 as the first climate controlled shopping center in the country. The word "mall" didn't exist then. So interesting that it still seems to be going strong while other newer shopping centers/malls have died.

King of Prussia started as a kind of strip shopping center.
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Old 08-27-2019, 08:36 AM
 
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Originally Posted by Von7philly View Post
Sounds like fear of gentrification.
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Old 08-27-2019, 11:33 AM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kyb01 View Post
It opened in 1961 as the first climate controlled shopping center in the country. The word "mall" didn't exist then. So interesting that it still seems to be going strong while other newer shopping centers/malls have died.

King of Prussia started as a kind of strip shopping center.
It wasn't the first climate-controlled shopping mall in the country, either.

I also need to correct one of my posts upthread on this subject.

The mall I identified as "Southgate, outside Detroit," wasn't the one I had in mind.

It was this one: Southdale Center in Edina, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb. Designed by Austrian-born Victor Gruen, it was the first enclosed shopping center in the United States, and it opened in 1956.

(Numerous open-air malls preceded it. Suburban Square in Ardmore should be considered one of these, given its layout around two pedestrian-only streets.)

The irony of Southdale - the first of several suburban Twin Cities centers to have names ending in "dale," which led to the local use of "the dales" to refer to suburban department store locations there (fans of "A Prairie Home Companion" should be famiilar with this usage from the ads on that show for "Bertha's Kitty Boutique in the dales: Northdale, Southdale, Airedale, Mondale...*") - was that Gruen, a European socialist, meant the complex to serve as a community center of sorts that would counter the spread of "car-centric" suburbia. Instead, it aided and abetted it.

However: Cherry Hill was the first enclosed mall east of the Mississippi - and Gruen designed it too.

Also: While "mall" may not have become a widespread term to refer to such centers by the time the Cherry Hill Shopping Center opened, it had already entered the language by that point: the Blue Ridge Mall on the Kansas City-Independence border in Missouri opened the year after Southgate under that name. It was demolished in 2005.

*It's this use of and play on the term that probably causes me to chuckle whenever I run across Wensleydale cheese at a cheese shop.

Last edited by MarketStEl; 08-27-2019 at 11:42 AM..
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Old 08-28-2019, 08:29 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl View Post
It wasn't the first climate-controlled shopping mall in the country, either.

I also need to correct one of my posts upthread on this subject.

The mall I identified as "Southgate, outside Detroit," wasn't the one I had in mind.

It was this one: Southdale Center in Edina, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb. Designed by Austrian-born Victor Gruen, it was the first enclosed shopping center in the United States, and it opened in 1956.

(Numerous open-air malls preceded it. Suburban Square in Ardmore should be considered one of these, given its layout around two pedestrian-only streets.)

The irony of Southdale - the first of several suburban Twin Cities centers to have names ending in "dale," which led to the local use of "the dales" to refer to suburban department store locations there (fans of "A Prairie Home Companion" should be famiilar with this usage from the ads on that show for "Bertha's Kitty Boutique in the dales: Northdale, Southdale, Airedale, Mondale...*") - was that Gruen, a European socialist, meant the complex to serve as a community center of sorts that would counter the spread of "car-centric" suburbia. Instead, it aided and abetted it.

However: Cherry Hill was the first enclosed mall east of the Mississippi - and Gruen designed it too.

Also: While "mall" may not have become a widespread term to refer to such centers by the time the Cherry Hill Shopping Center opened, it had already entered the language by that point: the Blue Ridge Mall on the Kansas City-Independence border in Missouri opened the year after Southgate under that name. It was demolished in 2005.

*It's this use of and play on the term that probably causes me to chuckle whenever I run across Wensleydale cheese at a cheese shop.
Well, then the wiki entry for Cherry Hill needs to be changed. In any case it remains, to this day ,a historic moment and important place(thank you, James Rouse) wrt shopping in the Philadelphia area. Give it that and stop pushing KC when no one else cares considering that it's always OT on this board.
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Old 08-28-2019, 12:54 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kyb01 View Post
Well, then the wiki entry for Cherry Hill needs to be changed. In any case it remains, to this day ,a historic moment and important place(thank you, James Rouse) wrt shopping in the Philadelphia area. Give it that and stop pushing KC when no one else cares considering that it's always OT on this board.
No one cares? Honestly, I learn more from MSE than any other poster on this board, and I for one hope he doesn't stop what he's doing. Even when it's off topic, per se, it usually relates back to Philly in some interesting way, and I get to learn about us and our place in the country in ways I might not have considered previously.
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Old 08-29-2019, 01:04 AM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kyb01 View Post
Well, then the wiki entry for Cherry Hill needs to be changed. In any case it remains, to this day ,a historic moment and important place(thank you, James Rouse) wrt shopping in the Philadelphia area. Give it that and stop pushing KC when no one else cares considering that it's always OT on this board.
Relevant to the sub-discussion, i.e., historical shopping centers and, in this case, an example of the word "mall" in use to counter your statement that no shopping centers used that name at the time Cherry Hill opened. It's what I know, so why not use it where it's relevant?

And the Wikipedia entry does reflect what I wrote. (I checked it after confirming Southdale's status.) Its somewhat overloaded lead sentence:

Quote:
he Cherry Hill Mall, owned by Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust (PREIT), was originally known as Cherry Hill Shopping Center, commonly reported as the first indoor, climate-controlled shopping center east of the Mississippi River in the United States, and opened on October 11, 1961.
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Old 08-29-2019, 03:42 PM
 
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Originally Posted by Fireshaker View Post
No one cares? Honestly, I learn more from MSE than any other poster on this board, and I for one hope he doesn't stop what he's doing. Even when it's off topic, per se, it usually relates back to Philly in some interesting way, and I get to learn about us and our place in the country in ways I might not have considered previously.
Sandy writes for a living so he's about "essays" and has a wealth of information in his head at his finger tips. The KC crack is kind of tongue in check.
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Old 08-29-2019, 05:40 PM
 
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I believe I saw 1967 on the wall at Cherry Hill mall
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Old 08-29-2019, 11:24 PM
 
Location: Germantown, Philadelphia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by moneymkt View Post
I believe I saw 1967 on the wall at Cherry Hill mall
Look at the cornerstone on the Macy's store there - it's dated 1961.

So was the one on the Strawbridge & Clothier store when it was still standing.

It opened in 1961, not 1967.
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Old 08-30-2019, 04:15 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MarketStEl View Post
Look at the cornerstone on the Macy's store there - it's dated 1961.

So was the one on the Strawbridge & Clothier store when it was still standing.

It opened in 1961, not 1967.
i must go to cherry hill mall this weekend to confirm i dont need eye surgery. lol
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