983 New Britain Avenue; West Hartford, Connecticut

Following our report on an uncovered former Caldor in Groton revealed by a Connecticut local, and a forecast of slow reporting this week due to ridiculously chilly weather in the Northeast which prevents me in my idle time from shooting much of anything new. So, we've decided to dig into the best of 2006 archive and introduce a segment on The Caldor Rainbow; a half-vacant site I had visited repeatedly last year.

983 New Britain Avenue is now home to fallen retail stardom. A plaza most formerly belonging to department discounter Ames has seen brighter years of the past, but not too much since. Ever since its final vacancy in 2003 the building stands devoid of retail traffic today in a mostly dilapidated area in the outskirts of West Hartford. While not originally, it's most notably known as having once been home to Caldor, which was later purchased by Ames.

Signature green of Ames logo peeks from behind the black-out.

Located just no more than three miles from Westfarms Mall, the plaza is located on New Britain Avenue, along Route 71, near some mainlines into the southern end of the capitol; New Park Avenue being one, which trails right into central Hartford, but too far off easy and/or more direct access via Interstate 84.

Apart most of West Hartford’s flourishing historic retail scapes, whether it be the Main Streets, upscale West Hartford Center, the Northernmost shopping parkades including Bishop‘s Corner, and big box areas surrounding the [Westfarms] mall, even going further into Hartford with the brand-new Charter Oak Commons, there could be more than obvious reasons why this neglected, islandic defeated property continues to degenerate into forgotten territory. It would appear the dowdy town is quite ashamed of it's Elmwood side, often times forgetting the somewhat isolated retail beyond the old railroad track underpass.

Within the lesser glamourous sectors of West Hartford, often referred as being more apart of the suburb Elmwood and bordered on the southern end of Hartford, amidst a rustic industrial landscape of the Southern tier of the town, this is an area less traveled by most anyone looking to shop. But it's got a history, maybe one that has shifted demographics over the years into a servant of scrap and alternative retailers, auto centers, government and commerce businesses nearby.

Apart from the town’s otherwise richer population on the other ends, this shopping district tends to cater more towards lower-eschelons; may it be lower-income or minority ethnic groups of the neighboring Hartford and Elmwood. Today, the location is more or less a testiment to poor location versus a sunken socio-economic consumer and collapsed retail plane dominated by big box survivors of the post-millennium. Factor that into an overall uninvitingly doomed and degenerating landscape and you're up against the current situation.

Dollar Dreams; self-proclaimed "Largest $1.00 Store in Conn." operating a former Waldbaum's supermarket.

Built in 1961, this unique structure was not quite the self it promotes today. Originally housing a local department store chain, Family Fair and in 1962 was purchased by the Star's Discount Department Store chain which hosted a Popular Super Markets within. Star's was more or less a typical discounter of its time ranging in many goods you might find at a Target today. This particular location was branded Star's Family Fair.

An elusive Star's Family Fair advertisment from the January 5, 1964 edition of The Hartford Courant (click to see full size).


An "Opening Sale" of Star's Family Fair from the September 2, 1962 edition of The Hartford Courant.

The chain, who shared it's heyday in the booming discount era of the 1960's, presumably had a few other locations across Connecticut, but fell down by the early 1970's. The building style, however, belongs to later tenant, Caldor, with once evident identical buildings in New Britain along Farmington Avenue, and Southington along Queen Street; both long-demolished homes to the mammoth Wal-Mart who was once successor who snatched up a bevy of fallen pinnacle Caldor sites around their falling.

Not too much is known about Star’s legacy, apart from being an department retailer much within it’s own time, sharing mostly forgettable, scattered history today, and was eclipsed by emerging Norwalk, CT-based discount department store Caldor, who purchased a few of their shuttering locations in the area by the early 1970’s. In its time, Caldor, like Wal-Mart currently, sprawled in the discount department store market and had the advantage for snatching up some of the best locations for retail traffic commonly located in highly visible areas which included along major routes and highways. This store wasn’t entirely the case, but in it’s own time, it might’ve been serviceably stationed for the other end of West Hartford but not less travelled areas.

The enormous pebble-faced, concrete-looking box still surely sets itself apart from a long-gone architecture with a decidedly eccentric design; namely rhombus and triangular-shaped scaffolding pillars as a frontal façade. Remarkably, the former super-sized discount store building has no easily identifyable label scarring from before Ames, whose rectangular logo shadows the bulding’s furthest right end today. It's hard to imagine any significant improvements over the years beyond a few paint jobs.

There are plenty of ghastly elemental scars from weathering, including immense amounts of water damage on the building's frontage, most likely seeing a few paint jobs and subtle patch works over the years. Today, the building can't hide its dilapidation with pockmarked walls, gaping holes, and an overall degenerating façade.

Along the sides and rear of the complex show more dire circumstances as most vacancies share; dumping grounds, graffiti-laden, and other unusual items and litter. Along with the rest of the plaza, tenants on the outskirts, all of which have fled years ago include a former Piper Brook Restaurant, and a now dilapidated vacant auto center from the 1960’s.

The remaining neighboring tenant, whose home was once a Waldbaum’s Supermarket, shuttered all Connecticut stores around the departure of Caldor, now houses a Dollar Dreams; a self-proclaimed “Largest $1.00 Store in Conn.” who's patched some local vacancies of past with other locations in New Britain and Manchester. Despite the current anchor woes, Dollar Dreams is the only one left keeping parking spaces filled - and they are in fact fulfilling the objective. Even their property has signs of elderly distress.

When both Caldor and Waldbaum's collapsed around the turn of the century, the entire plaza was soon falling into alarming vacancy rates. It wasn't too soon when an overzealous Ames snatched the site in 2000 in their attempt to house themselves in one of many various former Caldor locations, finding overspaciousness to ensue. The gargantuan complex, which housed a volumous girth, was apparently too large-scale for Ames’ stock causing them to purge unused store space by a good 25 percent.

Ames, who purchased the troubled site, eventually adopted the curse of the Caldor closure in 2003 causing the building to become what's now a borderline vacant eyesore with an equally hazardous parking lot. When last I visited Ames in the store's final week before closure in 2003, it was evident the place was destined for bulldozing. The surrounding area smelled of something rotten just within the parking lot and beside a distressed creek.

Currently the building has an owner; and one that seems to have legal troubles of their own. In 2005, the building was converted and gutted to suit a climate-controlled storage facility seeing the property had no forseeable progressive future beyond demolition. Despite this, the building resembles it's former retail occupants with no alterations done to the original exterior.

A plaza which was serviceable at one point in time seems to be living on the brink of an expired contract. The times have changed, and long beyond the years of the plaza's structures. Hindered today by it’s inability to attract and adapt to both developers and patrons. Drudgey surroundings or the lack of retail support keep it down, adjacent to a branch of the Postal Service, or beside it, Shield Street and its other commerce. Shield Street Plaza neigboring it, once a destination center, is now dominated by an alternative array of Asian commerce including an unusual ethnic otherworldly A. Dong Supermarket who might not be seek your average demographic either (like Stop & Shop of the third, alternate world).

How much longer will the plaza at 983 stick around? Perhaps until the building itself falls.

See more photos of 983 New Britain Avenue on Facebook. All pictures were taken in Summer to Fall 2006.

EDIT (July 8, 2007): Vintage advertisments for Star's Family Fair added.

Surviving Caldor in Groton Confirmed

One of our local readers, Greg, has checked up on a suspected long-vacant former Caldor site in Groton, Connecticut he mentioned a while back in an earlier comment posted here. Located right off I-95, along Kings Highway, behind a bowling alley, this site has been long overshadowed by future developers for it's somewhat obscured placement apart the other retail establishments along Groton's retail corridor. After we pursued his claim about a "dead 70's plaza", he further offered to photograph the site known for containing a Caldor and Shop-Rite supermarket. After looking a little more into it, some feedback on the Ames Fan Club had presumed the site was purchased and converted into something other than retail which caused us to further investigate.

It was conclusive through some research, the once vacant site was purchased by Pfizer Pharmacutical Company and was misinterpeted as having been converted or demolished for a Pfizer Kings Heights Global Research & Development branch. As it turns out, the information was partially true based on some inconclusive information from a town report, predating back to 2002. Greg has confirmed the former Caldor building is in fact still standing!

Picture from town report displays entrance (red dot) behind the former Shop-Rite while former Caldor (blue dot) is unaltered but currently owned on current Pfizer property.

In the report, which vaguely captions a picture from the "former Caldor Shopping Center" actually displays the former Shop-Rite which has since been dramatically converted into the research center. Greg also states stores in between the two anchors are now nowhere to be found, most likely demolished in the renovation for the former Shop-Rite. Our reader went by the facility today and took some superb shots of the secured former shopping center to reveal a highly unusual looking former Caldor which is certainly an oldie!

Pfizer has done some cosmetic enhancement to site including what looks to be newly paved asphalt and their new facility practically leaving everything else standing including a vacant outparcel bank and some security measures. To our dismay, the site is heavily secured by chain-link, barb-wire fencing, reported security cameras in addition to a main steel gate covering the entrance to the lot to detract traffic flow.

As it turns out, this Groton location was one of the 12 that closed just months after Caldor declared Chapter 11 in 1996, in the first wave of the company's purge. Judging by the sloped brown facade and appearent label scarring on the building, a fellow Caldor enthusiast, Caldor1999, over at The Ames Fan Club forums has made note that this store closely resembles one former 1976-built store at the late Fairfield Mall in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Greg believes the bottled beverage machines seen in this picture were held over from the store's life. We believe these were placed here recently for Pfizer employees.

The label scarring, and a difficult one to make out, it appears this store was unlikely a "rainbow" era store, perhaps an orange-letter era but features plenty of patch work likely from graffiti. Does anyone remember what it looked like in its heyday? We hope to visit the site in the future, but of course given it's new ownership, will have to exercise extreme caution.

Currently, there very few former Caldor locations left in Connecticut with Newington, almost complete as Stew Leonard's future home as well as a former location in West Hartford, most recently used by Ames. When Caldor went out in 1999, other big box titans of the times including Kohl's, Wal-Mart, and Home Depot have snatched a bulk of the former sites.

The Caldor Rainbow would greatly like to thank Greg and his reporting and images which were taken by him and used for our site at his behest.

Last edited: February 5, 2007; 12:37 AM.

Everybody Likes Photo Albums

View: Caldor-Pergament Express plaza; East Patchogue, New York (12.10.2006)

The Caldor Rainbow has compiled some photo albums of a few recent sites we've visited lately, or in the past few months. Beginning with the Caldor-Pergament Express plaza in East Patchogue, New York (Long Island), which we first reported in our one of our first posts way back in September. Since we were in our infancy back then, we suspect the story may have been overlooked so we saw the opportunity to revisit the site back when we were in the area back in December 2006 and took a slew more photos of one of New York's remaining former Caldor sites now home to primarily potholes and pigeons (or seagulls but it doesn't rhyme well).

As we've mentioned before, this presumably decade-vacant site came as a tip off from a poster, Caldor1999 at Ames Fan Club forums who discovered a gallery on the 'net from some Long Island natives who actually found a way inside the building. Unfortunately, we didn't find a way in to the hollowed out building, but we scored a fine number of images of the building's exterior, site, and the horrendous pending destruction conditions it's currently in. To our dismay, no enormous bird nests were found this time around...

The site, not entirely vacant, has suffered losses from the bankruptcy of dependable anchors, Caldor and Pergament Express; the latter a now defunct compact hardware store chain. The collapse of such magnets drove-out other smaller stores; Vision World, a local eye doctor's as well as Genovese Drugs; whose since been purchased by Eckerd. With Eckerd, a cramped old store, to soon merge into Rite-Aid, there's a good chance this location will shutter sealing the fate of the long-troubled site.

As of December 2006, the site is pending destruction to make way for Lowe's Home Improvement Store, who has filed a site plan to occupy the entire volume of existing site. In the meantime, you can see the progress on a site which is progressing, Focus East Patchogue, who has confirmed Lowe's is, in fact, coming soon.

The plaza has a rich history of housing pinnacle discount department stores which Pac-Manned their way throughout the decades. Opening in 1968 with W.T. Grant later becoming home to Woolco, who opened many former Grants, before Caldor snatched it up like it did with many former Woolco locations. Judging by the building marks, we also suspect this was an "orange-lettering" era Caldor before the "red/accent era" took place in the mid-90's. It was also most likely painted-over white during the 90's trend. Please comment if you've got any light to shed.

View: The Mall at Bristol Centre (1.30.2007)

Just a few days ago, we decided to revisit the dead Mall at Bristol Centre in Bristol, which is also in the twilight of destruction. Earlier this year, we visited the long-alarmingly vacant, outdated mall and took a slew of interior shots which are viewable on Facebook, and mirrored on Yahoo! Pictures, with some outtakes over there (due to Facebook's limitations).

The mall, a few months now shuttered to the public, sits awaiting a plan to further Bristol's urban renewal project which has taken flight on North Main Street in the past few years. We last heard the site might sit vacant for a few years awaiting the funds to demolish as well as the draft for the site's future, which hopes to keep a vital "lifestyle" component of retail and offices. As for remaining reluctant-to-leave anchor Ocean State Job Lot, the days are numbered as the city has fought to evict the anchor who operates apart the mall.

As we recently reported, Ocean State Job Lot currently has a lease renewal coming up later this year for their other Bristol store currently operating the former Stop & Shop on Route 6.

Have a fine weekend!

Ghost of "Bradlees" Haunts Bristol

Ocean State Job Lot, a lone anchor to the locked-up Mall at Bristol Centre, whose awaiting fate with the big wrecking ball.

It probably won't take a grand deal of reasoning to compell all of you that Bristol is certainly, amongst other more notable things, the unparalleled spent Bradlees shopping cart capital in the state of Connecticut. Chances are pretty good that if you've shopped any of Bristol's plazas, you've been bound to see a crashed and/or neglected once-Bradlees department store-owned cart sometimes doning the barely-changed logo over the decades, often times blacked-out and lobotomized by future owners.

Those future owners, Ocean State Job Lot, known widely for "lobotomizing" shopping carts or painting, scratching, or placing cheap logos over the fallen retail store's carts to pass as their own, have struck yet again. Currently, two Ocean State Job Lot stores litter the city keeping these 1960's-era far-off retail specters alive with their junk store appeal; one by the long-troubled Bristol Centre Mall, which has been emblazed in battle to keep its lease this past year beyond the city's eniment domain and willingness to rid the city of the decrepit vacant mall, and the other, which mostly currently occupies the former Stop & Shop in Bristol Plaza whose lease is soon to expire. Pending a reprisal of lease hangs the company's fate in Bristol; a possible future to be soon rid of the fleabag retailer.

Just today, The Caldor Rainbow explored the central motherload territory; Ocean State Job Lot by the Mall at Bristol Centre.

A series of red-clad Bradlees carts from various eras including a reuniting with one Stop & Shop-owned diagonal-logo version we spotted behind Stop & Shop in early 2006.

Other stores who are known husks for containing older carts are low-offenders; Salvation Army Thrift Stores and Goodwill across the street who keep their premises orderly, keeping most antique carts stored in the backrooms used for overstock holsters. Just yesterday, I strolled into my local Salvo Thrift Store, which are fantastic holdings for old retail findings whether it be adopted former carts, products, or price stickers amongst other things.

Once a prominent discount department store market along Route 6 in Bristol with Caldor, which became home to Kmart, now Price Chopper Supermarket. Bradlees, once a proud affiliate of 1961-established Stop & Shop Companies, essentially Stop & Shop, Bradlees, and Medi-Mart; since sold off to Walgreens. Bradlees soon fell on hard times when the company divorced from the financially-stricken discounter in 1992, ending the Companies partnership. When Bradlees fell, and Stop & Shop continued to expand, the former site became a newer, larger Super Stop & Shop in the shadow of their once partnered history.

But those days of cancerous Chapter 11 discounters are long past, partially swallowed in a gaping hole that is Wal-Mart on the Bristol-Farmington border who built on a fresh site. Amongst it all, the ghost of Bradlees continues to haunt the city in nearly every shopping plaza along the 6 corridor with it's overstock of identity-morphed, abandoned shopping carts.

A host of carts spotted in the rear of Big Lots! in the Bristol Farms plaza. The sea-green one belongs to active tenant Sears Hardware while the primarily metal one belonged to Wal-Mart.

Over the past year, I've been documenting various carts from discount retail history sighted in Bristol, and certainly to this day, there's no shortage of them littering the streets and plazas in various forms. You can see all of the known variants of Bradlees carts, most of which sighted in Bristol in my Shopping Cart Sightings of 2006.

A rare and equally bizarre "Wal-Mart Discount City" cart


An ordinary font found on the handle to this Bradlees cart.


A Bradlees cart seized by Target?!

Bradlees cart straps (illegally) recovered from the prongs of Job Lot captivity.

While Bradlees, almost as fond a memory as iconic rival Caldor, does jog the memory well whenever I walk into a Target (or hijacked by the must of Kmart) upon the smell of salty popcorn which once permiated the air at most Bradlees as the customer walked in. Ah, those days...

Malls of Connecticut ~The Best~

Westfarms; West Hartford owned by Taubman. The Center Court taken by Nicholas M. DiMaio, 2006.

We would like to invite all of our readers to view our Malls of Connecticut ~The Best~ photo album hosted by Facebook. You will be able to see a collection of special images from Connecticut's many unique shopping malls. Enjoy!

Horizons The Colors of Hash Browns

At this time, we'd like to inform our readers at The Caldor Rainbow of just a few things.

It's been a heavy week for your director (myself) which is why the updates have been scant lately. However, we've got some stories planned for next week. Because the weather has been just brutal over here in the Northeast, places I'd like to visit just aren't very practical right now in conjunction with other worldly obligations not involving The Caldor Rainbow.

You just can't hold a camera straight when just thirty seconds outdoors makes your legiments numb.

It has recently come to my attention that my readers are the ones who keep the facts straighter than I around here. Whenever doing research on whatever updates I come fourth with, my scope is generally scaled down to whatever I can find on the internet and or by memory - which is hardly enough. Lately, this hasn't been cutting it. So, as with my last post on The Crystal Mall, I will be editing the story a bit in the coming days as I see to have bungle some things. I'm asking all of you, and to even invite more people, to help me compile the most exact history on these malls and sites. Just post some comments, lend me an e-mail and we will credit you thus becoming part of the process.

Have you been to a Target store lately? I usually stop in once a week to see their fancy displays and see they've brought back the "Global Bazaar" concept from last year. Those unfamiliar can expect to see all kinds of worldly home furnishings from countries in the Southeastern parts of Asia, and Africa. The department, like year's past, is filled with all kinds of eye candy and other eccentricities I wish I had about a thousand bucks to blow it all on.

Their Valentine's Day 2007 set-up looks lovely this year as well... (Pictures taken from Keene, New Hampshire store).

Upon my recent trip through Massachusetts, I've noticed that Dunkin' Donuts franchisees have launched something new to their menus: Hash Browns. Many of the Connecticut stores haven't brought them to light yet, which might be a good thing. The shop at the corner of US-5 & MA-9 in Northampton, Mass., coupled with a Pride gas station (not a good combo; when you have coffee made with fresh grounds, it will inherent any scent in the area, including gasoline, as I've discovered recently) have been spotted with Hash Brown promo posters.

Now I've seen some oddities at some upstate Dunkin' shops; breakfast pizzas and flatbread sandwiches included. This is actually something the company is seriously trying to sandwich inbetween mimicking playbooks from Starbucks (and then tastelessly dissing them in their recent ad spots) and McDonald's in order to expand their clientele.

Hopefully, by the time they're done with the hometown test run, and sometime soon migrate to Connecticut, I will have left my job at my current Hash Brownless Dunkin' Donuts (which is also coupled with a gas station). To be frank, the entire place (gas premises included) now smells like a McDonald's in all its greasy, oily fried doom. And another little secret, most stores don't even have ovens apart from baking ovens used for bagels and muffins so it's likely they'll be shipped in pre-prepared from the master store (based on franchisee) or possibly made to "warm" up (or incubate until someone orders them). The new cookies concept, despite their $1.49/each toll are popular with people, maybe not so much if they realized eating one is comparable to two or three donuts (and yes, more than a "fancy"). I wonder how this will work out.

They're currently on test run in Massachusetts stores I'm told and they're only $.99; approximately a few pennies higher than a donut or bagel.

Crystal Mall; Waterford, Connecticut

The Crystal Mall opened in 1984 in Waterford, Connecticut, by brand-conscious mall management outfit, Simon Property Group; who around the millennium, began training shoppers to memorize their Simon brand a la Westfield.

Located off Interstate 95, CT Route 85, and just bordering the city of New London serving coastal regions of Connecticut with the changing regional indoor shopping mall trend which was sweeping in after a boom of smaller, indoor malls of the decade before it. In its time of conception, the two-level mall was a bright, new attraction easily trumping a few smaller enclosed malls around the area including the New London Mall, located a short exit away on 95 which has since become a "lifestyle" center, and the further away Norwichtown Mall, nestled in Norwich but plenty far north and holds near flatline status. Even back then, neither could quite compare to the increasing appeal for the regional Crystal Mall; who had no hard competitive edge for many miles.

I wouldn’t say developer Simon is as brand-centric as egomaniacal Westfield Group, who sees its objective to rebrand and disassociate much about older malls they either own or have acquired over the years for the sake of their icon (find me one person content calling a mall "Westfield..."). The two groups are certainly bordered by a fine line in presentation, attempting to revive aged or long-neglected centers and you‘ll see the resemblances at their other malls doning their names at even kiosk and corner. Currently, Simon owns just one property in Connecticut, and it so happens to be Crystal Mall which is also the smallest regional mall by square footage but also one with some distinct qualities in a sea of copycat shopping malls.

The central chandelier at Crystal Mall

While no certain or admitted history is currently available, there’s very little doubt its developers named their mall after the elegant Waterford Crystal name; based in Waterford... Ireland. Seeing its base in Waterford, Connecticut, it was more or less a shoe-in to connect the two and create more than just a name but doubling as a classy shopping center. To further this conclusion exactly, the mall actually features a much scaled down, and quite frankly, eccentrically placed chandelier in the smack central of the mall, where there could’ve easily been a center court designed to better display it. Why exactly does a median-level mall need a chandelier anyway?

Known Anchor History

Filenes; 1984-2006, subdivided into Christmas Tree Shops (Level 1) and Bed, Bath & Beyond (Level 2) to be completed in early 2008
Jordan Marsh; 1984-1996, became Macy’s 1996-presently
JCPenney; 1984-presently
Sears; 1984-presently

One of the more fully-functional Sears includes an Auto Center around the other side.

The Crystal Mall hasn’t done much more in past years to challenge most upper-echelon malls in the state, especially those with the glaze of malls like Westfarms, an iconic Connecticut Taubman Center located in Central Connecticut. Given it's cozy, somewhat isolated position along the coast, it really doesn't have to.

When Crystal Mall opened in 1984, primarily brown-and-gold shades draped the center from top to tiles, like most malls fading out of the darker-centric tones of the 70's. At around the tenth anniversary of the mall's life, it came to realization that a refreshing look would have to dawn through the dark corridors of the aging dungeon look of the center. Brighter trends of the mid-90's were clashing with with primarily outdated brown-atmospheres of yesteryear architecture turning the contrast up many notches to a sterlized, arctic wonderland of white.

At last, Crystal Mall would start to resemble its crystalline persona. Now, everything’s white as snow as far as the eye can see enough to mistake it for Level-8 in The Legend of Zelda; except for it feeling anything like the dungeon it used to.

This is 2007, and where most malls across the state have updated their look or are planning (like Macerich-owned Danbury Fair Mall), expanded, and grew with the changing trends, Crystal Mall is steeped in insipid mediocrity by design and decor. As far as its basic array of shops (including a retro Radio Shack) and clientele, it probably won’t attract any different a crowd of most median-income malls across the state (or country for that matter), even that of a vastly improved The Shoppes at Buckland Hills, even those who've drastically upclassed its image (and name!) in the past years to compete not only with the changing trends of shoppers but also with rapid developments (like the outdoor mall; The Shops at Evergreen Walk) all around it.

An original Connecticut Filene's, with a truly distinct, geometrical skylight-facade, now vacant.

Simon is certainly capable to revitalizing aging centers; Florida Mall, built in 1986, is their quintessential portfolio. Those who’ve seen the Florida Mall turn a 180 in the early 2000s to its present look can see what’s over the horizon at a [Crystal] mall centered around its decade-old reworking.

Now a Crystal Mall wouldn’t be crystal enough without the theme intact it took a good ten years to get right. A roof-lined of skylights all along the middle keeps the center now from feeling dank; which also allow the mall to live up to a "crystalline", luminous sheen beyond its years, especially on those sunnier where the light casts down onto the center creating less of a indoor experience (especially in the Winter months). Despite this, and it's white-era, there's some aspects that hearken back to the mall's origins apart some aging white tiles like wood-trimmed railings and even some groovy sloped bars below them.

Yet, among the whited-out decor of the mid-1990's remodel, the mall is given a volumous appeal while holding close to an earlier era especially within most of its anchor stores; especially the rock face facade around the Filene's, the [scarred] brown-brick around the former Jordan Marsh, and the mirrored walls around JCPenney. While they've addressed most of the mall's aging looks, there are certainly those elements which hearken back but also give the mall it's character and origins not decimated by the banes of today's cheap, safer, less-experimental facades.

If not for the colors of the interior, Crystal Mall might’ve just been inspiration for Danbury Fair Mall with the spiked tent-like skylights, warehouse-style ceilings, and a somewhat airy interior helped along by it's brighter sheen, and is an eerily alternate link to the past with a darker-shaded Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, New Hampshire (sans the step-downs), also owned by Simon.

A touch of neon lighting "Food Court" sign added sometime during the remodel and a mirror-facade JCPenney which hasn't changed since!

Compensating for its size, the mall follows a two-level standard and just a few things that make it a unique mall, certainly also a memorable one. Lately, the tenant set hasn't matched the vitality of a once booming center that appears to now seek steady improvement.

Crystal Mall once featured a few Boston-based department clothiers Filenes and Jordan Marsh -- not featured in any other mall at the time, which helped make the mall a more distinct shopping experience in '84, apart Westfarms.

This is the only Connecticut shopping mall to have featured an originally built Filene’s department store anchor, which were otherwise added later in the state when the G. Fox namesake became phased out as part of the 1993 Filene’s name enclosure. Unfortunately, the original husk was vacant up until late 2007 until a couple unusual-for-mall tenants Christmas Tree Shops and Bed, Bath & Beyond announced a subdivision, to be completed in 2008.

Filene's, which once bogged the mall with it's outtatime look and unfortunate vacancy stay original with an interior wooden brown-toned 1970's-styled facade which remains very true to art deco design on the outside as well. The vestibule is complete with the tones; globe lights, and a geometric skylight glass entrance. A few years before its closure, the store was slightly renovated, replacing the once, deteriorated wood-draped exterior.

Visible Jordan Marsh scarring against a stone-originated inner (as well as outer) entrance.

Jordan Marsh also opened with the mall, unlike any other during its time, which in 1996, became a home to Macy‘s when they sunk. While Jordan Marsh is but a memory, the interior helps live that legacy being richly evident of Jordan Marsh stores in the 1980’s with a host of 70’s basketball court faux-wood linoleum flooring, low-level ceilings and bizarre wood-framed department dividers. It’s a true relic and experience into the 70's-80's fade of decor, certainly one that hasn’t seen the brighter age of some of Macy’s newer looking acquisitions with vastly improved lighting and space.

The exterior is also an intruging design -- with a rich, rounded stone design which is sadly fallen victim to heavy deposits of time's weathering today.

A food court, which has been reworked over the years still serves most of the fast food types (Burger King, Sbarro, "Chinese" etc.), but also some designed with an athletic-centric mini-stairs idea I personally remember this mall for since my coming here as a young'n. All across both levels of the mall, the developers fancied the idea of including various steps and handicap accessible ramps alongside for a good amount of footage along the mall's interior. Instead of a flat layout like most malls, this one believes you should stay in shape while you browse the shops at Crystal Mall.

A fine idea then and now; especially for a growing obesity rate in America (or one which hopes you'll become hungrier and/or thirstier faster). At any rate, Crystal Mall might just contain the most manual staircases in any mall frequented in the state leaving any sense of automatics inside anchor stores or at either points of the mall.

Steps or ramps?

You might often be forced to use those manual-access stairs. That's right, the oddly placed "one-way" escalators on each side of the mall will have you walkin' or steppin'. Can't use the stairs by any chance? Need to get back downstairs? Either take the center's elevators (which happened to be under repairs when I last visited) or go around looking for a randomly-placed polarity escalator.

Surprisingly, there's no actual center court or fountain; typical indoor shopping mall centerpoints, even if the chandelier and neighboring cascading-waterfall staircase hint there maybe should've been one. Upon the ten-plus year old remodel, there's no more planters and seating areas are now scant. Should you want to, you'll have to "refuel" in the somewhat uneasy food court where you'll likely spend your time under some purple fluorescents. No time for relaxing, so eat or shop!

As something of a sub-anchor, the mall also contains a Massachusetts-based Tweeter Etc., which has reportedly faced downsizing over the years in favor for a "Mall" entrance beside it. While not the trend or scale of amateurish Best Buy and Circuit City, Tweeter Etc. traffics in mainly top-of-the-line hi-fi home theater and consumer goods with an all-around wider selection in that arena than its younger-aimed counterparts but not quite to the dimension of Bernie's.

The last "retro" Radio Shack left in the state, which refuses to update its signage.

As the Simon-template webpage shows, and a keen observation from one of our readers, they've abandoned once "street-style" signs which once directed shoppers as they hung over tenants. Upon the white remodel, the brown-gold original octogonal vertical-striped "C" logo from the original mall has also been retired. Apart the colors, Crystal Mall is still preserved in its original mold as well as not having had too many anchor changes over the years and, of course, has yet to expand.

The Caldor Rainbow visited the mall on a very chilly New England weekday morning in January 2007 but have returned since January 2008, so we hope you enjoy our year-old (particularly exterior) shots. If you want to get an idea of what Crystal Mall looked like before the remodel, check out some of our photos from a bizarro Crystal Mall: Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua, New Hampshire, taken January 2008.

Very special thanks to David "Fox N Allen" Cuozzo, who submitted this Christmas shopping bag featuring the vintage logo from a personal collection. Retail Memories Coast To Coast has an incredible amount of shopping bags from retail history.

UPDATE: June 26, 2007. A "vintage" picture of Crystal Mall; circa 1980's. You can see Radio Shack on the far right end as well as The Gap on the lower level. They may have only painted the slats but they kept that chandelier! And check out those floor tiles! Submission by Joseph Rifkin.

Here's a bonus gallery of shots taken at Crystal Mall, some not pictured here, as part of my Flickr. While the mall has a written no camera policy, that of course didn't stop us apart the mall's lack of patrols!

This page has been edited due to appearent inaccuracies and additional information gathered. Would you like to report any others? E-Mail me at XISMZERO@yahoo.com or submit a comment.