Randhurst is 50!

Today marks another in a series of retail golden anniversaries in a year already full of them. While less renowned than the others we’ve talked about here in recent months, it’s the one closest to my heart. Fifty years ago today, Randhurst Center, the “pinwheel on the prairie” to cite one nickname from its early days, opened in Mount Prospect, Illinois, about 20 miles northwest of Chicago.

I’ve written about Randhurst several times on this site in the last few years, and there’s not much I can add to that. We started with a historical overview of Randhurst on the eve of its massive redevelopment, looked at the wondrous Randhurst Christmas seasons from the 1960’s, and introduced the Randhurst book - a comprehensive, entertaining and copiously illustrated history of the mall from then to now.  As mentioned, I contributed some research and had the honor of writing the foreword to the book. It was a great experience and I learned many things, not the least of which was how to spell “foreword”.

       

But just look at these photos. Taken right at the time of Randhurst’s opening, they are among the relatively few formal publicity photos (many snapshots and slides exist) of the shopping center ever made.

Of course they show the place in its pristine state, but setting that aside, many of us would still find it hard not to compare the classic Randhurst (and the other great malls of the past) with what we frequently see today. Take the anchor stores’ inside entrances, for example – contrast today’s “one style fits all” signage on whitish or rustish or grayish marble tile backgrounds with the exquisite variety of old. The prominent columns and filigreed second-level openings of Wieboldt’s. The handsome brick and globe lights of The Fair, which remained through much of the Montgomery Ward era.  Carson Pirie Scott’s (not pictured here, unfortunately, but viewable on earlier posts) stunning blue tile with antique gold signage.

Then there are the kiosks – no tacky stands, no pushy salespeople hawking vitamin supplements or cell phone covers (granted, there wasn’t a 60’s equivalent for those), or toy airplanes flying into your face.  Instead they were quaint, low key and beautifully designed, reflecting architect Victor Gruen’s European sensibilities. 

  

Even the amusements for children are vastly different. Where today outdoor playground or Little Tikes equipment and rubberized floors are the norm, once upon a time we played on cement-sculpted animals. On polished granite bases. On top of a cement floor. Yes, friends, the insurance industry would love that today. 

And now, at Randhurst and a number of other malls across the country, the mall “core” itself is disappearing. Outdoor walkways and parking spaces have replaced the seating coves and fountains of the past. One thing that really strikes me about “lifestyle centers” is the acoustical difference. The echoes, the dull rumble of even a small crowd at the good ol’ mall, is disappearing. Now they sound like…parking lots. (For those of you who tend to stay a step ahead of me, I’ll spare you the expected Joni Mitchell paraphrases.)

But forget all of that for now, this is a milestone worth celebrating! And in light of that I’m going to do something completely new here. Yes, friends, we’re having a contest! In observance of the 50th anniversary of Randhurst and the somewhat less important 5th anniversary of Pleasant Family Shopping, I will be giving away, by random drawing, 5 copies of Randhurst: Suburban Chicago’s Grandest Shopping Center, written by Greg Peerbolte of the Mount Prospect Historical Society and published by The History Press. The book contains a free foreword by me, and was voted one of the Ten Best Books Ever*. 

   

What do you have to do? Well, it’s simple! Just leave a (hopefully tasteful as always) comment on this post, with a way for me to identify you on the winners’ list. “A way to identify” means something other than Anonymous (one of my most loyal commenters), and can be your real name, an assumed name, you Army serial number, checking account number and pin, whatever you’re comfortable with!

On Saturday, August 25^th, each name will be written on an appropriate piece of paper, placed into an enclosure of some sort, and five names will be drawn at random. I will publish the winners’ names (or whatever you use) on the site that evening, and winners will need to contact me with their address info. It’s that easy! Don’t delay - enter today!  

   

NOTE: No purchase necessary, but of course we always appreciate such things. This offer is void where prohibited, taxed or generally frowned upon. One entry per person, please. Odds of winning are somewhere between 100,000,000 and 10 to 1. Many will enter (I hope), only five will win. This contest is not open to employees of the Mount Prospect Historical Society or their families (like I’m gonna know) or employee (singular) of Pleasant Family Shopping and my family (except my Uncle Louie, who wouldn’t read the #@&$ thing if I paid him, so I’m okay there). E Pluribus Unum, Annuit cœptis, Quid - Me Vexari? and all other conditions apply.  Thankyouverymuch, you’re a beautiful audience.

* on the subject of Mount Prospect area shopping malls.   

Christmas at Randhurst, Early 1960's

Randhurst. In its early years it was an appealing sight, regardless of the time of year. At Christmastime that appeal was magnified in many ways. A glittering new shopping center it was, the world’s largest…where we lucky Northwest Suburbanites got fresh new gift ideas from sparkling new stores…where we found gifts galore from token to treasure…all under one roof, in 72-degree comfort.

When November rolled around, though, things took on a new air of excitement. Each Christmas purchase we made there, for example, was affixed with the gleaming “Randhurst Seal” - an evergreen-shaped foil sticker-thingy sporting the center’s winsome triangular logo, to glisten on our gifts as a symbol of our good taste and thoughtfulness.

And there were special events in abundance. What with school choir performances, ice skating shows (on temporary portable rinks), celebrity appearances, and a homestand by Jolly Old St. Nick himself, a trip to Randhurst became a must on everyone’s Christmas list in our corner of the world. Topping it off were the decorations – Christmas trees big and small, beautiful lights, animated displays and poinsettias in profusion, all of which combined to produce a magical effect.

Realizing that this holiday magic was by no means limited to Randhurst or the other ‘historically significant’ malls, of course. To be sure, “attention to detail” was the watchword for many of the early enclosed shopping centers, partly from a desire to compete favorably with the pomp and circumstance of the downtown department stores and their classic display windows. The victory of the suburban “branch stores” over their downtown flagships wasn’t yet complete, but by the mid-60’s the music had started playing and the end credits were about to roll.

As nice as many modern-day retail Christmas displays and events are today, and some are fantastic, there’s just something about the Christmas shopping experience of decades past that stands out. No doubt a major reason for this is our tendency to view this time of year through “nostalgia glasses”, to make endless comparisons with Christmas past. It’s an ingrained part of the American holiday experience. (One thing I know for certain – that department store gift boxes used to be a lot nicer than the flimsy things given out today. Don’t need my nostalgia glasses to see that.)

I suspect at least some of it may be due of the passing of an era – in this case, the era of the great display houses. For decades, the retail holiday decor business was dominated by a handful of firms whose origins dated back to the early years of the 20th century. These companies combined a theatrical flair with old-world craftsmanship to create charming and memorable scenes that became a vital part of a store’s image, year in and year out.

Most prominent among these firms was the Bliss Display Corporation of New York City. Founded by Lord & Taylor display designer James Albert Bliss in 1929, the Bliss company built elaborate displays for most of the key New York department stores – Macy’s (including this 1959 stunner), Gimbels, Abraham & Straus, Lord & Taylor and Bloomingdale’s, along with Philadelphia’s legendary John Wanamaker stores. Bliss’ reach extended well beyond the eastern seaboard, including work for St. Louis-based Stix, Baer and Fuller (I guess New Yorkers would consider St. Louis “the sticks”, right? Ok, I’ll stop that now.), among many others. A fascinating profile of the Bliss company and some of the other major display makers can be found in the book “Holidays on Display” by William L. Bird, Jr., a perennial coffee-table book at our house at Christmastime.

But Chicago had its own Duke of Display. The Silvestri Art Manufacturing Company was founded in 1901 by George Silvestri in 1901 and operated by his son, George Jr., during the exciting years of the 1950’s and 60’s. Silvestri’s plant was located at 1147 West Ohio Street, just blocks away from the best restaurant that ever existed - the late, great Como Inn. (As voted by me, that is. Whenever our family ate out for a special occasion and the choice was mine to make, that’s where we went.) The Silvestri company made a wide range of decorations, including “the white reindeer tethered to State st. lampposts”, as the Chicago Tribune put in one of a near-annual series of articles on the “fascinating” firm, the lighted trees and wreaths at O’Hare Airport ($15,420 worth in 1966 alone), and scores of elaborate, animated holiday window sets for such Chicago luminaries (pun not intended, but I’ll take it) as Marshall Field & Company, Wieboldts, Goldblatts and Carson Pirie Scott, including several years’ worth of jaw-dropping faux-European storefronts for the latter.

Silvestri had an interesting sideline that profoundly influenced Christmas decorating in general, both commercially and at home. In the mid-1950’s, they introduced the Italian miniature Christmas light to the American public, importing them and selling them in department and discount stores under the Silvestri name. Prior to that time, most indoor or outdoor lights available were the big honkin’ “C-7 style” GE or Noma lights. (Don’t misunderstand me. I still love ‘em.) The new lights, jewel-like and much smaller, proved to be such big sellers that the Italian government bestowed a special award upon Mr. Silvestri in 1957. Until the advent of LED lighting (Maybe my eyes will get used to those things one of these days.), they were what most of us thought of as Christmas lights, though more than a few folks still call them “Italian lights” (made in China for eons now, of course) and packaging still often refers to them as “mini lights”.

I’m not sure if the Randhurst decorations pictured above were Silvestri products, but because of their extensive work for Carson Pirie Scott, it’s a strong possibility. Carsons, of course, was “first among equals” in the Randhurst Corporation partnership, with the lesser among equals being Wieboldts (another Silvestri customer, as mentioned) and The Fair/Montgomery Ward. It’s safe to assume they had lots of influence in the matter.

The photos above were taken at Randhurst between 1962 (its first Christmas season) and 1965, and appear here courtesy of the Mount Prospect Historical Society. Greg Peerbolte, the society’s executive director, wrote a great book about Randhurst that was published this past spring (and is selling very well, I’m told) and can be ordered directly from the society. If you’re interested in shopping center history (and who isn’t, I beg?) or grew up in the area and want to reminisce, you’ll enjoy it thoroughly.

The scenes give a nice feel for the festivities, including the throngs lined up to meet Santa in front of Kresge’s (dig the Aztec-sun background and the space-age outfits of his teenybopper “helpers”). And yes, the impeccably dressed man in the suit, tie and pocket square is none other than actor Cesar Romero, in between his role in the movie “Ocean’s 11” (the Sinatra original, not the Clooney remake with 400 sequels) and his iconic role as The Joker in the 1966-68 Batman TV series. In the early 1960’s, Romero was the traveling “Ambassador of Fashion” for Petrocelli’s, a line of men’s suits.

There’s an indoor skating show, starring two ladies trying to defy nature and become twins, a fairly scary skating hippopotamus (I hesitated to include this photo for fear of a “New Zoo Revue” flashback. I may delete it yet.), and an angelically-robed children’s choir in front of The Fair’s interior entrance. (Check out the backwards “n’s” on the ‘Open Tonight’ banner in back. Cute.)

Several general views follow, depicting various areas of Randhurst bedecked in Christmas finery. At least one year (1963), they featured a set of 11 “traditional” downtown store-style display windows, constructed as free-standing dioramas, one of which is pictured above in photo number 12. Lastly, the landmark Randhurst water tower is converted to a special “holiday hot-air balloon”, years before The 5th Dimension made such things fashionable.

Below, two Christmas-related ads from the early days – a newspaper ad from 1962 (the source for my hyperbolic first paragraphs – I’d love to find one of those Randhurst “Christmas seals”!) and an interesting trade ad from a late 1963 issue of Display World, offering that year’s Christmas dioramas for sale after completion of the holiday run. It was commonplace in those days for big-name department stores or shopping centers to sell their used Christmas displays to smaller-market counterparts as every year something new was needed and the displays were far too costly to toss. The old “direct from Broadway” concept, although in this case it was “direct from Mount Prospect”.

Here’s hoping your Christmas shopping is almost done!

The Fair Comes to Wards

For 85 years, Montgomery Ward had been a landmark Chicago institution. The irony was that after all those years, the company maintained only one retail store within the Chicago city limits (inside a portion of their home office complex) and a minimal presence in the greater metropolitan area (a medium-sized store in La Grange and a few others). In 1957, with Wards in an expansion mode for once, that finally changed. Even so, several more years would go by before the Montgomery Ward name would grace any additional Chicago area storefronts.

On June 25, 1957, as reported in the Chicago Tribune the next day, Wards announced their purchase of The Fair, a Chicago-based traditional department store chain with a flagship store on State Street, plus three suburban branch stores. For the foreseeable future, the stores would continue to operate under The Fair name, and the current management would remain in place. The appeal for Wards was clear – in a period where they were trying to gain critical mass in select markets across the country, they would have a jump start in Chicago. Just as important, Wards now had a presence on “that great street”, Chicago’s legendary retail row, alongside Marshall Field & Company, Carson Pirie Scott and other such luminaries.

The origin of The Fair dates back to 1880, just seven years after Wards’ own founding. Starting out as a “little jewelry shop with a 16 foot frontage on State St.” as the Tribune put it, the company prospered quickly and within a few years added a number of other lines, mostly clothing and other soft goods. The Trib article mentions that The Fair’s founder, E.J. Lehmann, was credited in some circles as “the originator of the modern department store”, although I’m sure there’s been no shortage of others willing to lay claim to that title. Lehmann also receives the honors for being the “first to price merchandise to the odd penny”, i.e. charging $5.98 for a six-dollar item.

Ten years later, word of The Fair’s success had reached America’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, in a May 9, 1890 article that (in the quaint style of the day) proclaimed some exciting news: “A Big Commercial Scheme. – Chicago to have the largest store building in the world.” The “scheme” was the construction of The Fair’s new store, a massive 12-story structure covering an entire half city block, bordered on three fronts by State, Dearborn and Adams streets. While The Fair’s flagship store would be a downtown Chicago landmark for nearly 100 years (it was torn down in 1984), the “largest store” distinction would only apply until 1902. That year, R.H. Macy and Co. opened what is still referred to as “The World’s Largest Store” (as the huge red billboard on the corner of the building continues to remind us) on Herald Square in New York City.

In 1925, stock in The Fair was offered publicly, and controlling interest passed to none other than Sebastian S. Kresge, founder of the famous Detroit-based variety store chain that bore his name and would, many years later, become Kmart Corporation. Although Kresge would control The Fair for over 30 years, he kept a hands-off approach, preferring to let local management run things. The Fair’s operations were never combined with the (many times larger) S.S. Kresge Company. Eventually, formal ownership of The Fair was transferred to the Kresge Foundation, who in turn would later sell it to Montgomery Ward.

In 1929, The Fair took its first (and last for a long time)expansion steps, starting with the January buyout of E. Iverson & Co., who operated a single department store at 1342 Milwaukee Avenue. More significant was its first suburban expansion a few months later. Starting in the late 1920’s, a number of key downtown Chicago department store firms began to open outlying city and suburban branches in what author Richard Longstreth has termed “Bringing Downtown to the Neighborhoods” in his wonderfully informative piece of the same name. In this period that preceded the “shopping center era”, these stores were usually stately structures located in the…well, “downtown” of the suburb in question. The early years of this trend saw three well-known Chicago retailers – Marshall Field (Evanston, Lake Forest), Goldblatts (Hammond, Joliet, Gary) and Wieboldt’s (Evanston, River Forest) as most active. In April, The Fair established retail branches in two buildings in west suburban Oak Park purchased from the Nicholas Company, a hardware store, one located at the corner of Lake and Marion streets, the other at 126 North Oak Park Avenue. By 1936, the operations were consolidated into the Lake Street location, and the adjoining three-story building was also acquired that year. The newly expanded Oak Park store was completely modernized and air conditioning installed as well.

For the next 15 years, things would remain more or less status quo for The Fair, but the 1950’s saw a new injection of excitement into the old firm. The Fair would open new stores in two of the area’s highest-profile shopping center developments. This included the “pioneer” Chicago-area shopping center, Evergreen Plaza, which opened in 1952 in southwest suburban Evergreen Park. The brainchild of famed developer Arthur Rubloff, Evergreen Plaza caused a national splash at the time of its opening. At 170,000 square feet, The Fair was by far the center’s largest store at the time of opening. Evergreen Plaza’s other department store, Carson Pirie Scott, had a much more modest 44,000 square feet. In 1963, Carsons reset the balance with the opening of a much larger square foot store at the Plaza. Other stores at the “L-shaped” shopping center included Lytton’s and Maurice L. Rothschild, two popular area men’s and women’s apparel chains, a Jewel Food Store (and a Kroger, too!), S.S. Kresge and the first shopping center-based Walgreens.

In late 1956, the company opened up its second shopping center location at Old Orchard, the “Jewel of Chicago’s (shopping center) collection” as termed by Women’s Wear Daily columnist Samuel Feinberg. Nestled in the upper income suburb of Skokie, Old Orchard was a beautifully-designed outdoor shopping center, replete with courtyards and fountains amidst the who’s who of Chicago-area retail. Originally planned as a development of Marshall Field & Company on land that they owned, Field’s ended up selling most of the property, with the exception of the land on which their own store would stand (although they would maintain a high degree of sway over the tenant mix and other key decisions at Old Orchard) to Philip Klutznick, who had recently developed the famous Park Forest “planned community”, which included a shopping center as a central feature, and would go on to develop Oakbrook Center. The Fair occupied the second anchor spot within Old Orchard, although at 121,000 square feet, the store was dwarfed by the Marshall Field’s store at the opposite end of the center, a behemoth nearly triple its size. When Montgomery Ward took over The Fair soon after the Old Orchard store opened, a large hardware department was added.

The last Fair store opened five years after the Wards buyout of the company, and in a sense it was the most surprising. In 1962, Montgomery Ward joined forces with Carson Pirie Scott and Wieboldt’s to open Randhurst Center, a huge enclosed mall in Mount Prospect, the first major shopping center in the Northwest Suburbs. Randhurst was groundbreaking in many respects, from the center’s unique ownership structure to the highly advanced triangular architectural design by the famed Victor Gruen. At a time when Montgomery Ward was striving to establish its modern image in the minds of the American buying public, they made the amazing decision go with the staid Fair nameplate on the highly publicized, nationally renowned Randhurst project. The store’s exterior design was anything but staid, however, and those colored, illuminated panels still shine on in my memory (I only knew the store in its later incarnation as a Montgomery Ward). See the first photo above.

In the book “Satisfaction Guaranteed” by Booton Herndon, a very entertaining look at the first 100 years of Montgomery Ward, chairman Tom Brooker related the problems that had faced Wards all along with The Fair, of management set in its ways (and in my opinion, a scale too small to effectively compete with the likes of Fields, Carsons, Goldblatts and Wieboldts). Combined with that was the huge opportunity cost of mothballing the Montgomery Ward name in the crucial Chicago market. The inevitable conclusion was that the old-line department store model embodied by The Fair was a poor fit for a mass merchandiser like Wards, and the time to convert The Fair stores to the Wards nameplate and system finally came.

The first Fair store to be converted, of course, was the Randhurst unit, which took place in November 1963, a year after its original opening. (An auto center had already operated under the Wards name for some time by then.) In late 1964, the Oak Park, Evergreen Plaza and Old Orchard units became Montgomery Ward stores as well. In the fall of 1965, the last and biggest conversion took place, a major renovation of the gigantic State Street store, which would then become the largest of the 500-plus Wards stores at the time. The circa-1890 exterior was stripped away, replaced with a sleek new look “with windows recessed under protected arcades”, as the Chicago Tribune put it. And of course, all-new area Montgomery Ward stores were in the works as well – at Dixie Square Mall (1965), Yorktown (1967) and many others to follow.

The Fair had moved on, and the funky, diamond-like “MW” logo now stood in its place.

The first photo is a circa 1962 postcard view of The Fair at Randhurst. Second is a Kresge publicity photo of Old Orchard, circa 1957 followed by an aerial photo of Evergreen Plaza from a 1953 Urban Land Institute bulletin. The Fair's units are visible in the foreground of both photos.

Below, from the Library of Congress, is a 1964 view of the downtown Fair flagship – the temporary “Montgomery Ward" sign is already in place. Last, from around the same time, is an artist’s rendering of that store’s very extensive modernization.

Requiem for Randhurst

On September 30, northwest suburban Chicago’s historic Randhurst Mall, a fondly remembered part of my childhood, closed its doors for the last time. Soon the bulldozers will roll, tearing down the famous triangular center core of the mall, leaving only the (still open and operating) anchor stores standing. The mall is scheduled to reopen as Randhurst Village, an open air “lifestyle center”, in Spring 2010.

Although Randhurst’s day in the sun was brief – having opened in 1962, it was completely and permanently overshadowed less than ten years later with the 1971 opening of the gargantuan Woodfield Mall just 9 miles away in nearby Schaumburg, it was very influential early on. Randhurst was groundbreaking in a number of ways that are underappreciated today – in its location strategy, its ownership structure and most of all, its outstanding architectural design.

The idea for Randhurst was originally conceived by Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., a downtown-Chicago based full-line department store with a rich 100-plus year history. With the tremendous growth of the suburbs, Carsons became acutely aware of the growing opportunities there, coupled with the hard fact that a large percentage of these new suburbanites would not be inclined to drive into the Loop to shop. Also in play was the competition factor – there was a definite need to maintain parity with their arch-rival (and State Street neighbor) Marshall Field & Company, who had recently opened their north suburban Old Orchard location and were underway with plans for Oakbrook Center in the western suburbs. Although Carsons had a couple of satellite stores to augment their State Street flagship – the very successful Edens Plaza location, opened in 1956 and another in west suburban Hillside that same year, the vast northwest suburbs, where no major shopping existed, beckoned.

(A decent sized strip mall, Mt. Prospect Plaza, would open in 1961, just down the street from Randhurst at the corner of Rand and Central roads. It contained a Goldblatt’s store, among others, and was also the site of the "Scanda House" restaurant, a fantastic smorgasbord place. Our family celebrated many special occasions there.)

In August 1958, Carsons announced its purchase of an 80-acre plot (an additional 28 acres would be added before construction started) at the intersection of Rand Road and Illinois Route 83 (Elmhurst Road) in the northwest suburb of Mount Prospect, where commissioned studies showed a population of 300,000 within a 25-minute drive and another 100,000 expected by 1965.

By early 1959, two more Chicago retail stalwarts had thrown in their lot on the new project – Wieboldt Stores Inc., and Montgomery Ward & Company. Wieboldt’s, another Chicago department store chain, had been in business for nearly 80 years at the time and had grown to 10 stores, including successful locations in suburban Evanston and River Forest. Of recent note was their very successful Harlem-Irving Plaza store, opened in 1957, which no doubt whetted the company’s appetite for more suburban expansion. Montgomery Ward, founded in Chicago in 1872, had long since become an American institution, but ironically had a negligible store presence in Chicago at the time. In a bizarre move, Montgomery Ward had frozen all store development in the mid-1940’s, and wouldn’t open a new retail unit until 1958! It’s an amazing story that I hope to discuss in more detail here someday. In 1957, Ward bought out The Fair, a small chain of department stores whose flagship was yet another fixture of State Street. In the 50’s, The Fair, which also had an Oak Park location, had added locations at Evergreen Plaza and at Old Orchard. Ward’s Randhurst store would open under The Fair nameplate.

In an unusual business arrangement for the time, the three retailers formed a joint venture, much the way competing railroads used to join together to build a “union station” in a given city. The new entity was named Randhurst Corporation, the name derived from site address at Rand and Elmhurst roads. Harold Spurway, a Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. vice president, was put in charge of the new company. Randhurst Center (later termed Randhurst Mall) would be anchored by Carsons, Wieboldt’s and The Fair, and would house some 80-odd stores and seven restaurants, totaling over 1.2 million square feet. Downtown Chicago shopping was coming to the northwest suburbs!

To design Randhurst, the corporation hired the renowned architectural firm Victor Gruen Associates . The Austrian-born Gruen was based in New York City and had already made an impressive mark in the area of shopping center architecture, having previously designed Detroit’s Northland Mall for the J. L. Hudson Company, which opened in 1954, and the Southdale Shopping Center in the Minneapolis area which opened two years afterward. Gruen had a well-developed sense of the shopping mall as a transformative societal force, eventually writing a couple of books on the subject. Gruen’s ideal was an enclosed space, with optimum traffic patterns between stores.

Because of the three-anchor setup, a triangular plan for the mall became the obvious direction. A 1962 Architectural Forum article, which aptly dubbed Randhurst a “big pinwheel on the prairie”, gives some fascinating insight into Gruen’s design process for the layout – “The intensive use of galleria space evolved directly from the problem of tying together three large stores of about equal size. Gruen at first conceived a simple triangular pattern, but this left too much space in the central court. On the other hand, had the central court area been too greatly reduced, the passages reaching from the core to the large stores would have become too long, narrow and generally unattractive. Also, a straight triangle would not have drawn shoppers so effectively as does the pinwheel”. And so, Randhurst’s design was set – a (very) large pinwheel, with a 160 foot diameter domed galleria in the center.

A multi-level central court featured a sunken “bazaar level” and a mezzanine level in the center of the galleria. The bazaar level featured “Wieboldt’s Hobby Shop”, an annex of sorts to their main store, among others. There was also a second level around the perimeter of the galleria composed of office space, which many years later would be converted to retail space. Sculptures and stylized benches were an integral part of the package, and beneath it all was a basement service level.

An unconventional mall called for an unconventional groundbreaking, which was held in November 1960. Instead of the standard lineup of executives, shovels in hand to turn over a bit of dirt, a 60-year old barn on the property was ceremonially burned down. The $20 million project was underway. On August 16, 1962, Randhurst opened its doors to throngs of excited crowds. In addition to the three anchor stores, there were a number of other notables, including a Jewel Food Store, the outside entrance of which can be seen in photo number three above, and the inside entrance in pictured below. The inside entrance was particularly attractive, with its mosaic tile surround, oval welcome sign and translucent panels featuring the store logo. In 1970, the Jewel store was relocated to a free-standing unit at the edge of the Randhurst property. There was also an S.S. Kresge store, which I remember particularly well.

In short order, the mall would prove to be a smashing success, and many stores were added to the initial lineup in the first couple of years – Baskin, Maurice L. Rothschild and Lane Bryant, to name just a few. A year after the mall opened, in August 1963, Montgomery Ward changed the name of its Randhurst store from The Fair to (of course) Montgomery Ward, capitalizing on the store’s success to promote its main banner. The store’s merchandise offering was expanded by 40 percent and a restaurant was added as well, possibly to counter Carsons' popular Tartan Tray. Within a couple of years the remaining Fair stores would also assume the Wards name. In 1966, the Wieboldt’s store was expanded from 190,000 to 225,000 square feet, making it Randhurst’s largest store. (Wards had 154,000 and Carsons 200,000 square feet).

This was the Randhurst my family discovered when we moved to Mount Prospect in early 1966. It was a magical place to my young eyes – the galleria dimly lit as if to make the storefronts shine even brighter. The Le Petit Café, a particular favorite. The polished cement floors, with seams in the Randhurst triangular logo pattern. The great concave moon-like surface of the dome (composed of sprayed-on concrete) and the funky contour of the support columns. The majestic fountain in front of Montgomery Ward, the color coded lockers inside the main mall entrances (orange, blue and yellow, I believe), the cement benches and the many plants. Most important were the cement animal-shaped sculptures. Whether or not they were meant to be played on, they most certainly were - so much so that they had a patina by the time of my earliest memories in the late 60’s. Truly charming features were the parking lot reminder signs – Apple Lot, Grape Lot, Orange Lot, etc. , with modernist pictures of the corresponding fruit. Randhurst had personality.

Another fixture of my elementary school days was the Randhurst Cinema, a single-screen theatre which opened on a Randhurst outparcel in June 1965, premiering with John Wayne’s “In Harm’s Way”. It was developed and operated by General Cinema Corporation, a Boston area company who was then in the midst of a ferocious expansion drive to build theatres in shopping centers everywhere. Randhurst was the second of many theatres GCC would open in the Chicago area. Interestingly, the first was in Mount Prospect as well (they also owned a drive-in located on Route 66, which they would eventually sell to concentrate on shopping center theatres). Among the earliest movies I saw there were “The Battle of Britain” and “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” (the Peter O’Toole version). Of course, I saw a ton of Disney flicks there as well, including “Napoleon and Samantha” and “Herbie Rides Again”. I checked the most recent AFI Top 100 list, and unfortunately these two didn’t make it. Oh well, maybe next time around.

We continued to shop regularly at Randhurst until 1971, when two things happened. One, we moved a bit further away (we would return to the Mt. Prospect area less than two years later). Secondly, our hearts were stolen by a new mall – Woodfield – and things would never be the same. The largest mall in the world at the time of its opening, Woodfield had it all – Sears, JCPenney, Marshall Field’s, scads of other stores, and for me – Musicland and the Orange Bowl restaurant. It was all over but the shouting. Unfortunately for Randhurst, too many people felt the same way, although a loyal, local core of shoppers continued to hang in there. After Woodfield opened, Randhurst became a once-in-a-while stop, and by 1976 or so we barely darkened the door, despite the addition of some nice stores, including an Americana store, and the great Kroch’s & Brentano’s, Chicago’s bookstore of repute before the advent of Barnes and Noble.

In mid-1981, Randhurst Corporation sold out to Columbia, Maryland-based developer Rouse Company. Among many other projects, Rouse was involved in the early redevelopment of the near-abandoned Navy Pier to the shopping funland it is today. Although their plans for Randhurst were more modest, they still felt the need to update Randhurst’s appearance, and a number of renovation projects were initiated. The dome’s space-age cement fascia was stripped away to reveal bar joists and corrugated decking. The funky contoured columns were given a (boring) cylindrical refacing, and brass lighting sconces were attached. The mall’s lighting level was cranked up, and the main floor was resurfaced in a white and rose striped terrazzo, admittedly a very nice touch. Eventually, the fountain and sculptures were gone, the Gruen-trademark cement benches replaced with off-the-shelf wooden types. Additional stores were crammed everywhere, including the second level, and a food court was placed atop the center galleria mezzanine. It all served to give Randhurst a more generic appearance, in my opinion.

I’ve been to Randhurst twice in the last quarter century. In 1987, I moved away from the Chicago area to Atlanta to begin my career. One Saturday afternoon shortly before I moved, my Dad took me to Randhurst to buy me a briefcase as a going away present. It seemed like a special moment even at the time, and of course I look back on it with fondness. (My dad is still alive and well.) I remember marveling at how much Randhurst had changed since the remodeling. The second time was just about a year ago. I was on a business trip to Chicago that took me to the northwest suburbs, and I had recently read about the upcoming changes to Randhurst. Besides the obvious changes – Wieboldt’s and Wards were long gone, Carsons was now located in the old Wieboldt’s store, the revolving door of other anchors, etc., I was sad to see the mall looking somewhat emptyish, and the stores that were left didn’t seem to be doing that well. As much as I hate to see history torn down, I certainly see the logic behind the lifestyle center conversion, and I wish the new incarnation of Randhurst all the best. I’m grateful for photographs and memories, though.

There are some excellent Randhurst articles to be found on the following websites, which chronicle Randhurst’s more recent history in much more detail. Labelscar has a great article and photos, which are fun to contrast with those I’ve included here. The Mall Hall of Fame has another great article on Randhurst, part of a series on Victor Gruen’s historic malls (the site also showcases other mall pioneers as well). Stores Forever is a site by John Gallo, who seems to have been at all the right places at the right times, and fortunately for us, he brought his camera along. Check out his two recent posts on Randhurst, including great 1982 views of the anchor store facades, which were largely unchanged from their original appearance at the time.

These photos are all circa 1962, Randhurst’s maiden year. The first photo, showing the classic Randhurst sign is a publicity shot from the sign company. The exteriors and galleria shots (in the sixth photo, check out the whale sculpture and the ladies in Randhurst logo hats in the foreground) are by famed architectural photographer Balthazar Korab and appeared in the November 1962 issue of Architectural Forum, the section and plan views are from the same magazine, and the individual store façade shots below are from Chain Store Age. (Corned Beef Center, where ya been?) Last is a grand opening ad with a listing of the initial lineup of stores.