Vintage Malls

My blog today was inspired by Vintage Malls of America. When I started my blog I spent some time Googling other vintage and retro related blogs to see what else is going on in the vintage blog world. I kept coming across this blog called Vintage Malls of America. It was really annoying me because it was coming up at the top of all my searches. I really wasn't interested at all. I couldn't think of any reason why I would be interested in a bunch of big old boxy buildings! What was I thinking? Apparently, I wasn't thinking!

I came across Vintage Malls of America again last night and I finally surrendered! I was drawn in by some creepy store mannequin in the dark and I didn't turn back! I spent more time looking at this blog last night than any other I have ever looked at. I saw an image of a deserted mall with a beat up theatre sign that just made a pang in my stomach. I have no idea why! I think it reminded me of the old mall we used to go to when we would visit my grandparents. We always ate dinner there and got to go shopping for some kind of little treat. It is now on the list of deserted malls. Then I saw more pictures of more malls that made my stomach drop. There were memories of the mall I went to as a kid and the trips we took to the mall in the city. Then there was a picture of an old Sears store from 70's. Again, it resurrected more memories of going to the Sears by Grandma's house. This was back in the day when Sears was a stand alone store. Vintage Malls of America brought up so many memories and emotions. I never realized how many of my childhood memories were connected to malls! It really is so obvious but I just never thought about it!

I was then reminded of some photos I took in the fall. My Grandma had just passed away and we were in town cleaning out her house. We went downtown and I took some photos of the old Kresge store we used to visit as kids. I really don't remember a lot about this store. But, the image of what it looked like is still very vivid in my head. Kresge was a five and dime incorporated in 1912. Kresge and K-Mart were the same company. In the late 1970's K-Mart began taking over. In the late 1980's the last of the Kresge stores were sold to another company. In the late 70's the Kresge near my grandma's house closed. It was like an old fashioned store with a soda fountain and a little eat in dinette. To this day the location of the store is still empty. Someone has painted a mural on the windows of the store. It looks just like it used to. If you look at the mural it almost looks like a real store inside. You would never know that it has been empty for 30 years!