This is a truly amazing find.My friends over at Labelscar.com travel to malls all over the country checking out the retail oddities that dot our cities and towns. The photo above was taken in 2002 in Fremont, Nebraska at the Freemont Mall.
This, Steve-landers, is probably the oldest 1965-1971 era JCPenney signage still in active use. The dark letters with the neon background and turquoise P werre a familiar sight in malls across America for a long time.
Most JCPenney stores were updated throughout the 1980s to replace signage and expand clothing departments into former ‘hard goods’ areas of larger stores. Apparently they missed the mall entrance on this store. Not that I'm complaining :-)
I wish the electified nostalgia could have stretched to the exterior of this store, but the funky brown and white color scheme is still pretty sweet, even with the updated logo.
Check out their blog entry on this mall to see what I'm talking about.
I'm sorry: I look at this and I'm still in some mall in suburban Virginia and/or Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Wa.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I haven't left the house since my Harcourt passed away and I was forced to eke out an existence knitting cat-hair sweaters and selling m'squirrel-pot pies..
It is sweet! They built our home town mall as a kid after a department store was built (meyers/arnold), so you could look into the covered mall from the glass wall in the store and see the bulldozers and all. It was way cool as a kid.... how does this relate?? There was a big Penney's JUST LIKE THIS down on the other end. BTW- Maurice's is all that with that outside door going on!
ReplyDeleteHeather: The mall itself is very bland, to be sure, but the old Penneys is what made me swoon.
ReplyDeleteTodd: It would have been awesome to see the mall under construction through the windows of Meyers-Arnold like you did. McAllister Square, right?
This pictures takes me back to Crossroads Mall in Roanoke Virginia, which had a Penneys sign at least twice that size on its mall entrance. The vision is a great memory I'll always have.
I didn't know Maurice's existed anymore either (followed "brown and white" link in your entry). Do people still shop there? Do they still make clothing? I used to be a Maurice's fashion slave back in the 6th grade when the Park Plaza Mall had exactly three clothing stores from which to choose: Maurice's, Vanity, and Id.
ReplyDeleteAh, nostalgia....
Our local Maurices were called The Closet for many years, and there are a lot fewer of them than there used to be a few years ago.
ReplyDeleteMaurices exists primarily in downscale malls or rural areas these days. The merchandise mix is pretty much the same as it always was, with some stores selling menswear in addition. Kind of like a country version of Forever 21.
I occasionally go in their stores, but I don't recall ever buying anything there. Not really my scene anymore.
Hey! Don't diss my mall! LOL! And actually, the old sign is still on the exterior of the store, in the back. I'll take a picture if you want me to!
ReplyDeleteI'd like that. If you do take a photo, please send me a copy or post it somewhere I can see it.
ReplyDelete