Posted on 04/28/2017 6:15:53 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Back to the Crabtree Mall. It was the best thing going back in the early 1980s. The main anchors were Ann & Hope, Lechmere and Zayre's with a nice food court that included the ubiquitous Orange Julius, Mrs Field's cookies, Auntie Jenn's Pretzels and some Chinese fast food joint in which you could get a heaping plate of rice and meat with Chinese women standing outside of it offering free samples of stuff on toothpicks. What was not to like?
Another anchor was Sears & Roebuck which was quite the store and they had dungarees, lawn mowers, washing machines and a huge section full of Craftsman tools as well as a huge furniture area and a bunch of TVs all tuned to the same station with some of them showing the picture constantly scrolling and in need of a v-hold adjustment. Remember the knob in the back of the TV in which you had to turn to keep the picture from scrolling? The Sears was so huge that they had escalators going to three levels.
The exterior corridor of the mall housed Pier 1 Imports, La-z-boy, Service Merchandise, Waldenbooks, Tape World, Brookstones, Pizza Hut, Ace Hardware, Jewelry store, Hickory Farms, Denny's, a video game arcade, Hallmark Cards, Spencer's Gifts, some candle store, CVS, Radio Shack, a multi-plex cinema showing movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and a bowling alley for bowling.
That’s my neighborhood. Once the largest and arguably greatest mall in Tennessee when it opened in 1978, with the demographic shift in the ‘90s it was a “slum mall” by the turn of the century. My former fiancée worked there at the time, hired on the spot because she “looked” like the new demographic (Hispanic/Illegals). Came home with horror stories every day about shoplifting and generally disgusting behavior on the part of the “patrons.”
The mall officially closed and was renamed Global Crossings or some such (I still call it Hickory Hollow) and has been repurposed. I believe it has a college branch, library and ice skating rink now. I haven’t been over to see it.
The “mojo” of the old mall can be found over at Cool Springs in Franklin, like it was in the better days of the ‘80s.
Love Chrisse Hynde. Saw The Prentenders twice.
About 6 years ago, friends were in town from Montana, they were originally from Crystal Lake years ago. I took them downtown, for dinner at the Rainforest there. Then took the sunset cruise on the Wendella boats.
My cousin from Michigan came to town, with his 16 year old son, 2 years ago. His son had never been out of Michigan, or the west side of Michigan, so had never seen a big city. He is a baseball fan and a Detroit Tiger fan, so he had gotten tickets for the 3 of us to go to a White Sox vs Tigers game.
So we went downtown and had lunch at Rainforest, then walked over t Michigan Ave and the river and did a Wendella river and lake cruise, so that Josh could get a good look and experience of the good parts of Chicago.
I definitely remember the elephants and gorillas there.
As an aside, if your coming down 90, at rt 59, there is another restaurant, Claim Jumper. It's not "fun" like Rainforest, but has got good food.
Well, Rainforest and Claim Jumper (and others) belong to Landry's restaurant chain. They have a reward card where you get points every time you eat or buy something at one of the restaurants. Don't know how often you'd go to any. Just thought I'd throw that FYI at you.
http://www.landrysselect.com/LocationMap.aspx
Makes it easier to streak
That’s the first time I’ve seen Sears and Neiman Marcus lumped together. Short Hills Mall in NJ (basically an indoor Rideo Drive) has quite a few vacancies including three huge floors of space formerly occupied by Saks.
But as I noted that mall seems to be in trouble.
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