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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Azalea Mall - Late 1960s

Northside's Azalea Mall in it's late 60s heyday. Richmond's first enclosed mall opened to much fanfare in 1962, closed in 1995 from among other things, competition from the new Virginia Center Commons a little to the north, and was demolished in 1999.

Driving by today you'll still see the sign in the photo below, but it's now rusted and surrounded by cracked asphalt, weeds, litter and small trees. Don't be fooled by the desolation though, the Azalea Garden Center is still open at the rear of the property, near Westminster Canterbury. It's a great family run business, and I highly recommend it.

6 comments:

  1. Awesome! Did you notice that Dewberry Capital Corp now owns it out of Atlanta. Awhile back, before they started a website redesign, they had full plans drawn up of the mall they were going to build there. I think the economy put that on hold.

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  2. I got my ears pierced at Rees Jewelers...and we always went to Safety Town, a child-sized town built to teach traffic safety, to the left and behind the mall.

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  3. Oh wow, Woolco. That was Woolworth's stab at running a big-box format discount store similar to KMart; my dad managed one in Wilkesboro, NC for a couple of years. The experiment was not successful and all of the USA Woolcos closed in 1982.

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  4. I remember Woolco, but not as well as I remember Woolworths. That would explain why!

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  5. ... and sad to say, the Azalea Mall Directory sign finally bit the dust a few months ago. It outlasted the mall by quite a few years!

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  6. ... and sad to say, the Azalea Mall Directory sign finally bit the dust a few months ago. It outlasted the mall by quite a few years!

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