MOA Galleria - Shopping Mall Still Life
Beaver Dam, Wisconsin - 1981
Lonely moment in time captured by famed photographer, David Plowden, at an unnamed shopping mall on Easter Sunday Morning in 1981.
(Study image copyright ©David Plowden)
posted by Keith @ 11/14/2006
3 Comments:
If it's Beaver Dam, WI, then it's the Beaver Dam Mall of course.
Anchored by Herberger's and Slumberland Furniture. Slumberland used to be JCPenney. Also has a former Wal-Mart which was originally Woolco and later Copps.
I'm sure Matt will give you the rest of the story.
Love this photo. Definitely has a lonely, quiet, Easter Sunday morning feel to it.
Actually, I almost don't want to know which exact mall it is in this case. I like it better nameless (from an Art point of view).
Beaver Dam Mall actually opened in 1980, JCPenney and WoolCo its original anchors. Herbergers would build out and open in 1981.
Once housing up to 40 tenants, the WoolCo / Wal-Mart was the draw. Trouble is, Wal Mart wanted their own Superstore as part of a new complex north of this mall, just off the highway. (BDM is about a mile away from the highway).
Long story short, Wal-mart's pullout has spelled certain death for the mall.
A changeover from WoolCo to Copps to Wal-Mart doesn't help either....that much turbulance with one anchor tenant is surely to keep tenants in that wing on edge. Sure enough, that wing was the first to whither away, stores closing up starting as far back as the late 1980s.
This picture makes perfect sense, especially now with the mall on its last breaths.
Amazes me how Herbergers can survive without anything pulling more people in.
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