April 18 th 1979, The night of the FIRE at Elmwood Plaza

The day the mall burned.
April 18th 2006 was the 27th anniversary of a day I will always remember. It was the day my mall burned. I was a teenager and like all teens, going to the mall known as Elmwood Plaza was the center of my life at that time. Since it had been built in 1957, Elmwood Plaza was old and a little rundown. It had two department stores which were J. C. Penney and Goldblatts. It was the Goldblatts that would be ravaged by the fire. It was during Easter break and I had spent the whole day there with my friend Jim. We started with lunch at Burger King and later walked around the plaza all afternoon and ended our day at the Zayre across the street. Then we went home for dinner. We couldn't have been gone for more than a hour when the tragedy struck. The fire started in the Goldblatts beauty salon and spread through the first floor of the store. My family had dinner at Denneys and later on that evening as we were heading home, we saw fire trucks racing to a fire. my father was working a part time job at that time and wood drop us off at home we were settling in for the evening of watching tv when dad called and said ther had to be a big fire on our side of town because the fire trucks were coming from the north side . With that information, I got on my bike and started looking to see if I could find the fire and was very shocked to see it was Goldblatts. I still can feel the chill in my back as I stood there and watched that big black smoke cloud rise from the store. It would be November before things were back to normal there and we would be once again able to shop at Goldblatts. Unfortunately, the store would close two years later because Goldblatts had gone bakrupt. The building that once housed Goldblatts would sit empty for almost 20 years until a supermarket would take it's place. Most of the other stores would close or move to the bigger and newer Regency Mall down the street. The old plaza has been redone and is now more of a neighberhood center with the supermarket as its main store.

Elmwood Plaza Racine WI.

Opened in October of 1957, the new Elmwood plaza shopping Center was one of Wisconsin's largest. The plaza as locals call it was a true regional center at it's beginning and it had over 30 stores including two department stores . The anchors were the Goldblatts department store which was a chain from Chicago and the J C Penney Co. It was Penney's second store in Racine and the chain would operate 2 Racine stores until both were merged into one in the 1980s. The plaza also had a Kroger food store and a S.S. Kresge Co . variety store and even housed a local drug store chain called the Red
cross Drug Co. The plaza had a strong mix of local and national stores that were big at the time. They included three sister stores: Kinney shoes, Richmans men's store, well known locals including Feiges, The Leader Store , and Lepp & Co. There were other stores as well that many would come and go as the years passed but because of the great location and the centers popularity, it never had a vacancy problem. Elmwood Plaza enjoyed market dominance until the opening of Regency Mall in 1981. The first big changes happened with the closing of Kroger which would be replaced by a Goodwill store that would eventually become a Whitlock auto supply. The next change at the plaza would be Kresge which survived the opening of the local Kmart and would get re branded Jupiter, a store I would say would compare to a Family Dollar store of today. Jupiter wasn't the only change at Elmwood Plaza as Red Cross would close the plaza store and it would later become a Jamb Discount beauty supply store. The biggest changes came with the opening of Regency Mall in 1981. Most of the stores including J C Penney would move to the mall at the same time. Goldblatts would go into bankruptcy and would close the Racine store leaving the plaza what today we call a dead mall by the year 2000. However, things looked much better after 20 years of nothing and Goldblatts would finally be replaced by Racine Produce giving the center a new anchor. As the small stores filled in quickly, the new owners of the center remodeled it with a new canopy and store fronts as well as a new sign and landscaping. With the exception of today's economy causing some problems, the plaza is again alive and well even though it is known more as a neighborhood center than the regional power it once was.

its the holiday 2008

Hello one and all. It has been a season that has almost killed me this year. The Wal-Mart that i work in is one hard store.So what im trying to say is that ,i did not get a chance to much of anything other than work theses last few monthts.i did get to do the anual trip downtown chicago to see the stores this year so for the holiday this year i will show you the sights of macys state st.
happy hollidays everyone
from storesforever

Old Randhurst Mall Mt. Prospect Il.

Know that Randhurst is closed ,I thought that i should post the photos,from my first visit there. I also am posting the anchor stores as they changed trough the years.Hope you enjoy them.

Randhurst mall Mt.Prospect Il. RIP Sep.30th 2008

The Randhurst mall will close for good on Sep.30 th , many things have already been written about its past and can be seen on Labelscar.com and deadmalls.com so i don't want to do a repeat of that but take a more personal look at the mall and what it meant to me and how it fit into my life.The first time i ever herd of Randhurst was when i was in high school. I was doing a paper on urban planing for one of my classes and while going through old books in the library i found a book that talked about Randhurst. it said that Randhurst was one of the most innovative mall to date.It also said it had been the largest built at the time of its opening in 1962. I talked my parents into taking me there so in the spring of 1982 i wood walk though the doors for the first time. with my camera in hand ( i will post those photos soon ) . Through the years since, I wood come and go through there doors many many times. I saw Weibolds close and Bergners open. Wood see Mainstreet come and then become Kohls. Wood see Carsons move to Bergners building and then JCPennys open only to close latter. Spiess wood come and go . Oh what a fantastic store that was just to high end for Randhurst. Then Wards wood go that store was first the Fair Store . Kohls wood move down the street leaving only Carsons in the mall. Wards and kohls and jcpennys stores wood come down and be replaced by Cosco . with only one big problem no mall entrance and not a mall door near the new store . All i have to say is why did that do that?I wood move to Ill. In my 20s i wood move to Chicago and wood work at Randhurst as the assistant manager of the Bombay co. store there, I wood spend many years working There before becoming manager at the Spring hill store. So I want to not only say good buy to Randhurst but to the many people that I met their though the years , Nancy, George, Carson, Anita, Jay, Larry and all the people i worked with . Also a thanks to all the food court workers, mall security and most of all the customers who shopped us and keep ed us there fore as long as they could. Thank you to all and best wishes to the new randhurst village coming spring 2010 you know i will be there with my camera in hand on opening day
john

Burlington Coat Factory Regency Mall Racine Wi.

The new Burlington Coat Factory is now open at Regency Mall. It fill the vacant Bergners store (see first post on Regency Mall) . I know that Meany of you mall people feel that Burlington is the kiss of death for most malls , i fell that this is a good fit for Regency it returns this building to its full use and brings a forth anchor back to the mall. Unless something happens to Sears i see Regency staying this way for a long time to come. The photos were taken on opening day at about 11 am 8-29-08. so it shows the store at what will probably.

Zahns department store Racine Wi. update

Hello John,

I came across your Zahn's Department Store page while searching on the web. I am the great great grandson of Edward Zahn, who founded the store. I grew up in Racine (but now live in California).

Thank you so much for your page. That store meant a lot to many people. Unfortunately it closed when I was 11 years old, so I never really appreciated it like older people did.

I'm curious, where were you able to find all those photos? Many of those I have never seen before, and my family has many old photos. The Zahn's Food Shop photo was very interesting; I'd not seen that before.

If you'd like to see more photos, I have some other ones posted at my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ited/sets/72157600236816713/

Thanks again,
Ted Zahn


Thank You Mr.Zahn your email means a lot to me . i also thought that i wood add a few Zahns things that i had saved through the years.