Places

What is now the Anderson Towne Centre, Old School Shirts remembers the Beechmont Mall. Opened in 1969, it was originally anchored by??Shillito's, Mabley & Carew, and later??Gold Circle.??In 2003 it was redeveloped into an outdoor shopping center with the old Shilito's, now Macy's, the...

Lincoln Mall opened in 1973 at the corner of U.S. Route 30 and Cicero Avenue in Matteson, Illinois. For the next 42 years shoppers to roamed its two levels, four anchor stores, and 250,000 square feet of retail space. In 2015, the inside of...

Musicland was founded in Minneapolis in 1955.?? In 1964, it merged with music distributor JL Marsh followed by merger in 1968 with record label and distributor Pickwick International. In 1977, American Can Company bought Pickwick and a year later, famed New York record store...

Tape World was a mall-based chain of music stores owned by Trans World Entertainment, operators of Record Town, Coconuts, and FYE among others. While the name suggested emphasis on the one format, it did offer CDs, briefly, before being retired by Trans World.

Harmony House was founded in 1947 in Hazel Park, a suburb of Detroit, by Carl Thom. At its peak, it had 38 stores in Metro Detroit. The bursting of the CD sales bubble of the late '90s and the rise of digital music spelled...

Canada's Sam the Record Man, not to be confused with U.S.-bases Sam Goody, was founded in 1937 by Sam Sniderman. Originally it was the phonograph records department of his parents store on Yonge St. in Toronto. It grew to become the country's largest music...

In the 1980s, it was the battle cry of the British Phonograph Industry (BPI), later championed by similar organizations around the world. Little did they know that a much scarier beast was lurking on the horizon.

Media Play was an attempt by The Musicland Group to compete with so-called big box retailers such as electronics stores Best Buy and Circuit City, who sold CDs at near cost to lure customers in. In addition to music, Media Play also carried books,...

Ii all started in 1971 when nightclub owner Sherwood Cryer asked country music legend Mickey Gilley to be his business partner. Gilley's Club became on the most iconic nightclubs of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as a Texas institution. It was featured in...

Weingarten's was a supermarket chain based in Houston. While most of its locations were in the greater Houston area, it had locations in San Antonio, Austin, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Memphis, Tennessee. The parent company sold the grocery stores to concentrate on its commercial real...

J & R Music World was a music retailer and electronics store founded in 1970 in New York City. It had two locations, one on Park Row in Lower Manhattan and one on the campus of Columbia University. The company closed its main store...

It is one of the most dead malls in America. Now known as Forest Fair Village and previously Cincinnati Mall, and Cincinnati Mills, this giant shopping center opened in 1988 as Forest Fair Mall.?? While a few anchors remain, there is only one tenant...

Opened in 1969, the??Beechmont Mall??in Anderson received a facelift in the 1990s. However, even new design features couldn't reverse its fortunes and it closed in 2002, making way for the outdoor shopping destination known as Anderson Towne Center.

Hills was a discount retail department store that was founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1957. It started as full-fledged department store before moving into the discount arena some years after its founding. In the late '80s it bought a number of stores out of...

Mississippi River Festival, or MRF, was an outdoor concert series held from 1969 to 1980 on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Illinois. Many top performers of the day appeared. The run ended when the university asked the new promoter to bring in classical...

The Westlake Drive-in opened in the summer of 1950 on 10th St., near what is today the intersection with I-465. It closed in 1982. Today the site is occupied by a medical building and a home improvement center.

The Summit opened in 1975 and was home to the NBA's Houston Rockers for whom the arena was primarily constructed. However, it was also the home ice of the original Houston Aeros of the World Hockey Association from 1975 until 1978, as well as...

Python, sponsored by a soft drink company for most of its existence was Zyklon-style coaster at Old Coney in Cincinnati. It opened in 1996 at Splash Zone Water Park in Wildwood, NJ.?? After the 1999 season, it was relocated to Cincinnati where it operated...

The Storybook Paddle Boats have been plying the waters of Lake Como at Old Coney since 2013 and are one of the few rides kept when the park decided to focus solely on water attractions following the 2019 season.

Top Spin was a dizzying bit of fun at Old Coney from 2015 through 2019. Manufactured by Italian amusement park ride maker SBF Visa Group, it left more than few riders woozy but wanting more.