BIGMallrat

Opening on July 17, 1958, Corte Madera Center arrived at Marin county. JC Penney arrived a few months later, then Montgomery Ward on March 16, 1960. He's a vintage postcard for Corte Madera Center, now known as Town Center Corte Madera. Love the trendy stripes. I bet that got old fast. The back of the card reads "Corte Madera Center, Marin County, California. This extensive Shopping Area (too big for a single picture) of large stores and specialty shops is easily accessible and adjoins U.S. #101." Like the other postcards of Bay Area Malls, this one was taken by Mike Roberts. I can see he carefully framed Mt. Tamalpais and the surrounding hills. One thing this card confirms, colorization. Clearly the Woolworth's and Thrifty signs are colored in. Thrifty glows so bright, it looks fake. But, their 15 cent ice cream cones of yesteryear is worthy of forgiveness. Regrettably, I know very little of this shopping center. Only after it remodeled in the mid-2000s did I visit...

I finally had the pleasure of visiting one the very few malls in Northern California that I haven't been to, Country Club Plaza. Well, I tried to visit once before, but it was closed (at 7:30 on a Saturday!). I only got to see the inside from the gates of Gottschalks that time. Then it was gutted and in its place a new, expanded mall. I'm glad they kept the mall enclosed, but I'm not sure if the public shares my opinion. The outside of the mall had a number of big-box retailers that were doing fine, but the interior of the mall wasn't so lively. Personally, I prefer less crowds, but that isn't good for business. Gottschalks at Country Club and a former JC Penney. Country Club Plaza wasn't much when it celebrated its grand opening on June 23, 1955. Just a line of stores fronting Watt.  The new plaza opened across the street from Country Club Centre, which opened August 21, 1952 with Penney's. The area was quickly becoming the hottest shopping destination i...

Macy’s was always part of the backdrop of my youth—a department store anchor in more ways than one. But truthfully, I didn’t do much actual shopping there until I was older, armed with a slightly bigger paycheck and my very first Macy’s credit card (which, believe it or not, I still have tucked in a drawer somewhere). Back in the ’80s, I was more of a window-shopper. I’d wander through the Tiger Shop, eyeing the latest in bold prints and shoulder pads, pretending I had places to wear them. But the real magic was up on the third floor. That’s where The Cellar served up all things culinary—gleaming cookware, gourmet gadgets, and fancy labels that made me feel like I might someday host a dinner party that didn’t involve frozen pizza. I still remember my very first Macy’s purchase—an extravagance in red and white stripes. It was a Polo Ralph Lauren Oxford shirt, not the Chaps version or on sale (details that felt both rebellious and wildly sophisticated). At the time, it felt like a seri...

I may have been the only one still conscious during my History of San Mateo County class when the teacher briefly touched on the Hillsdale development in the 50s. While everyone else nodded off, I perked up the moment he mentioned the mall. That little fact stuck with me far more than anything about land grants or local agriculture. To me, the mall started in 1981. This postcard shows Hillsdale at the beginning. No telling the year, but there is a "60" on the back of the card and the parking lot shows a car from the mid-to-late Fifties. The heart of the Peninsula, Hillsdale Mall. The back of the card reads "Hillsdale, California. Heart of the San Francisco Peninsula. Located on the famous 'El Camino Real,' just 20 miles from San Francisco. This beautiful shopping center offers the newest and most modern shops and stores." Fast forward to when time began, the 1980s. I luckily came across an old ad for the expansion—the very same one I’d once car...

You know what I miss? Emporium-Capwell. Not just for the prices, though I could swear a decent Arrow shirt once cost twelve bucks. No, I miss the whole production. The drama of the escalators, the hush of the fitting rooms, and—oh—the culinary treasure hunt that was the Market on Market downstairs. A trip to “The City” wasn’t complete without ducking into the old Emporium on Market Street. You'd pass under that grand rotunda and feel like royalty. But downstairs? That’s where the real magic happened. Fancy cheeses. Glazed fruit tarts. Baskets of imported crackers with names you couldn’t pronounce but definitely had to try. Everything smelled like international sophistication and fresh bread. I was a kid with a paper bag full of croissants and the feeling that I’d somehow stepped into a European train station from the future. The other day I found an ad from 1984—Emporium-Capwell's big splash at Vallco Fashion Park in Cupertino. You could tell the year by the shoulder pads al...

Let me tell you a secret. When I was a kid, Sunvalley Mall wasn't just a mall—it was a planet. A self-contained, air-conditioned universe that stretched endlessly in all directions, wrapped in terrazzo and mystery, and echoing with the whispers of escalators and the chime of the JC Penney intercom. Sunvalley opened in 1967, and back then, they weren’t subtle about it. No, no. They called it the world's largest enclosed shopping center—two levels of pure retail bliss, and it had everything: a cinema, an ice rink below ground, department stores big enough to have their own weather systems, and a parking lot that could swallow 9,000 cars whole. And because it was the future, it was also fully air-conditioned. That was important enough to stamp on the back of postcards. And oh, the postcards. Those dreamy snapshots from the late ’60s and ’70s, shot in perfect Kodachrome, now live in my collection like old valentines. One shows the mall from above—looking southeast, Mount Diablo ...