Monday 28 December 2015

Mall St Mathews riot

“There were as many as 2,000 kids at the mall — many of them unsupervised,” said Officer Dennis McDonald, the public information officer for the St. Matthews Police Department. “A good amount of them were there for legitimate reasons — to shop, eat or go to the movies. But a large number were there to do nothing other than loiter, harass other shoppers and be confrontational with police officers.”
“The calls started to pile up and we couldn’t respond in a timely matter,” McDonald said.
Around that time, dispatchers began to receive calls from area businesses located near the mall.
At the Toys ‘R’ Us at 4900 Shelbyville Road, a dispatcher is heard sending an officer to the store in response to “a subject throwing bricks at the back of the back of the building, outside. Manager advises he can hear them throwing the items and shouting.”
One of the six St. Matthews Police Officers assigned to the mall on the holiday detail began relaying details of what was taking place inside.
“We’ve got multiple crowds of hundreds, we’ve got stores going into lock down, shutting their gates,” he told dispatchers. “We are responding to another fight right now by the Victoria’s Secret entrance. They are going on all around us.”
Local Kentucky TV station WLKY reported on the chaos and video of the mall thugs shows they almost all black teens from “local middle or high schools. ” 
From: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/28/2000-teens-involved-riot-shuts-kentucky-mall/

Saturday 10 October 2015

Happy Halloween From RETAIL OF YESTERYEAR

Hello Retail Of Yesteryear readers I could not  find much for photos of old malls on halloween but I do know that malls used to have trick or treat events on halloween where each store would give out candy The two photos I found one of Greengate mall both courtesy of greegatemallrevisited.com a great website that i would highly recommend if you are looking for info on Greengate mall the other is cinderella city mall with candy on the floor enjoy the photos and again I hope you have a very happy safe Halloween

Monday 3 August 2015

Mall profile - Oak Park Mall Austin Minnesota


 Hals ,Brauns and Seiferts in the 80s
Austin Minnesotas Oak Park Mall Opened summer of 1975. it's orginal anchors were Younkers of Des Moines Ia And JCPenney. Other notable tenants were a White Drug Mart , Hy-Vee and a Highland Cooper Twin Cinema. The mall was developed by General Growth Properties (GGP) of Des Moines Ia. In 1983 Shopko was added to the east end of the mall. The mall progressed onwards sucessfully into the 1990s but by the late 90s it began to slip. JCPenney pulled out in the early 2000s , as did most of the chain stores. By 2014 when the mall closed it was a mixture of mom n pop stores and overpriced antique places. Hy-Vee who had left the mall in 1985 announced they had purchased the vacant mall. They planned to build a new store where the mall stood. It was demolished spring of 2015 the new Hy-Vee opened on the site in 2017. Younkers Shopko and the Cinemagic 7 are the only sections of Oak Park remaining. I visited the mall twice these are pictures from my second visit. The black and white pictures are from 1975 when the mall opened. I have the first visit photos buried on my computer I'll add them eventually.

The original Logo

Center Court 80s or 90s

Ribbon cutting 1975

Wallins west

St Paul Clothiers

Boxruds

Jay-Vee

Jewelry Hut

So - Fro Fabrics

Johnson Floral

Karmelkorn

Lundbergs

The Char House restaurant

Eat at Joes

Waldenbooks

Regis

Van Duyns

Shopko wing entrance

Cinemagic 7 nee Highland
Cooper Twin Cinema

Retro Musicland
Vision works Formerly
 Vision World

Younkers wing

Fanny Farmer

Sears Hometown Nee
White Drug Mart

County seat?

Former Family Dollar

Younkers mall entrance



Younkers wing

Regis interior


Former Hy-Vee

Former Hy-Vee

Former Hy-Vee



Shopko

Newer mall logo

Shopko mall entrance

Shopko wing
twords center court



Regis

Shopko wing

Seiferts

Jay-Vee Later Brauns

Center Court




Front entrance wing

Former J.C. Penney
mall entrance

Younkers wing

Center court stage

End Of Retail OF Yesteryear

I am making this post to announce the end of this blog. I am Moving on to a new project entitled The Department Store Archives. That project...