424. Black Friday though the years (Hampton/Newport News, VA), part 2, 1990-1999 (crosspost from my “history” blog)

A reminder of the movers and shakers and failures of the retail landscape of Hampton and Newport News back then: 

Coliseum Mall

Newmarket North / Newmarket Fair Mall 

Patrick Henry Mall 

Bart is the star of 1990′s coverage. My mom loved Everything’s a $1.00 back then. It felt like we were at the Newmarket location every weekend when I was in the first grade. I found a copy of the Simpsons Christmas book there. K&K Toys was an unfortunate name for a store. 

Oh boy, this is the beginning of the end of Newmarket Fair Mall (formerly known as Newmarket North). They had just finished 10 months of remodeling, just to have several stores leave after their leases expired, and one of the anchor stores, Miller & Rhoads closed the year before. This is the final time in Daily Press history that Newmarket Fair Mall is mentioned in Black Friday coverage. 

1991

The Fisher-Price Game table! With the commercial where the boys played games on the table all day and half the night! 

This was the first year that Kmart decided to be redic. and stay open on Thanksgiving. My mom and I were there that day! This was the thanksgiving that my dad was out to sea, and mom decided that we would just eat at Piccadilly Cafeteria at Coliseum Mall that day and hit KMart later to pick up Home Alone on VHS. 

Note that Newmarket Fair wasn’t mentioned! 

President Bush bought some Reeboks and slime for the grandkids. 

1992

1992′s coverage was sparse. Rollerblade dolls were hot. 

1993

Roses got a shout out. This was right before they turned into a dump. Still a dump in 2020! Newmarket Fair which was one foot in the grave at this point, only receiving a quick Sears mention. Above is a Proffitt’s ad from 1996 that shows what the Cracker Jack sale was all about. Proffitt’s didn’t last long at Coliseum, closed in 1997 and then Dillard’s moved in. 

1994

This was the first year my paper went to WalMart, which is strange considering WalMart opened around 1991 in Hampton. Took them three years to get there. Maybe the Newport News location was new in 1994. There was a $139 VCR on sale at WalMart if you got there at six am. 

The Cracker Jack promo was back at Proffitt’s. I forgot that they had two separate stores in Coliseum Mall, because they took over the old Children’s Palace and Hess’s store. So if you needed women’s clothes and men’s clothes, you had to go clear across the mall for the men’s clothes.  

Our Super KMart got a mention too. 

1995 

1995 feels like the first year that the discount stores beat the malls in popularity on Black Friday.  Hills, which had just opened in Hampton was the the star in 1995. By January of 1997, they were toast. The store stayed vacant from 1997-2017 when an At Home store finally moved in. 

My mom and I actually went to Coliseum Mall on Black Friday that year. The first time I had ever been to the stores that day. I don’t remember it being that crazy.

1995 was also the last year someone said they were excited to go to Montgomery Ward. 

1996

Aw, weeks before Hills closed, and months after we got our first Target. Brenda forgot her shoes! Jeanie got her Tickle Me Elmo! Internet greetings at Patrick Henry Mall! People fought over a dinky gift bag at Target!: 

1997

Daily Press didn’t have the 1997 newspaper.

I saved this paper when I was 15! I’m surprised Montgomery Ward carried Furby. 

1999

Barely any mall coverage in 1999, mostly focusing on stores like Toys R Us and the guy who hoarded all those monitors at CompUSA. Check out Carol and her walkie talkie! 

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424. Black Friday though the years (Hampton/Newport News, VA), part 1, 1980-1989 [crosspost]

(cross post from my “history” blog)

I know everything is going wrong right now, and I know, priorities, but sometimes I really just miss going to the store. I didn’t do Black Friday in person this year, due to the obvious. I only went grocery shopping for my mom on Black Friday this year. 

(Woolco, 1980 or 1981) 

So beginning with the parade on Thanksgiving, I hopped on ProQuest and began looking at my local newspapers for their Black Friday coverage in the 80s and 90s. 

I’ll try and set up the retail landscape of the area to the best of my ability and using my retail blog for assistance. Here’s all my information about Newmarket North / Newmarket Fair Mall. It started dying in 1989 when local retailer Miller & Rhoads shut down. By 1994 it was pretty much toast other than Sears, and around 1997, the former anchor stores were renovated into offices. Now the mall is all offices, except for the empty Sears which closed in 2018 and was one of the last locations in the state, and the Piccadilly cafeteria. 

Coliseum Mall was the mall in the area until about 2003? when Burlington Coat Factory moved in at the old Montgomery Wards, and Dillards moved out. After that, things went downhill fast, and by 2007 the mall was town down, and was rebuilt into an open air shopping area with apartments and a big Target and a rebuilt JCPenney. 

1980

Shopping was “fast and furious” at Newmarket by 11am. The stores opened at … 8am. Toys R Us and Lionel Playworld were new to the area. 

1981

This is the only photo I’ve seen of this JCPenney location that was almost across the street from Newmarket North Mall, at the Newmarket South Shopping Center. I was surprised that it was still open in 1981, considering that Coliseum Mall had a giant JCPenney just a five minute drive away. 

1982

Five people had to direct traffic at Coliseum Mall! 

Unfortunately, ProQuest did not have the 1983 paper. Which I’m so mad about because I was born in 1983. 

1984

Back when there was traffic on Mercury Blvd. Also, can’t you imagine a giant six kid family coming out of that giant van in the parking lot?

1985

1985′s coverage was half-rear ended. It’s truly bizarre to me to picture Newmarket North being busy. By the time my first real memories begin in 1988, 1989, I never remembered the mall being “busy”. 

1986

Okay, so I had no clue that Sears was still selling real fur coats in their stores in 1986. I didn’t think Sears old fur coats all, even in the catalogs at this point. Miller & Rhoads had an on site fur vault at their Newmarket location. I wonder why those ladies weren’t picketing that.

1987

How could I forget 1987?! That was the year that the next town over, Newport News got their own mall: Patrick Henry Mall. Although in the beginning things seemed awfully slow according to this article.

Check out the Fisher Price vacuum cleaner a couple is buying at the Children’s Palace toy store at Coliseum Mall. I had one of those! 

1988

As I said earlier, my earliest memories begin in 1988, 1989. My parents did NOT go to Coliseum Mall back then, citing that it was always so crowded. So I have no memories of that mall until the mid 90s.

Nintendo Computer Games

1989

Wendy just wanted the 106 fm Wild Money Man. 

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Escalator Accident at Newmarket North Mall, May 8, 1989

I’m absolutely terrified of escalators. I don’t like the “up” escalator, because you’re going high up in the air, under no control of your own, you worry about falling over the side, even if you know you’re far too big to fall over the side. The “down” one scares me even more, seeing those all those little teeth on the edge of the stairs, ready to stab your body if you stumble while getting on the step. I know, I still have the scar on my knee from when I stumbled getting on a stair at the old Sears at the old Newmarket Fair Mall in ‘99.

Speaking of Newmarket, this is where this entry started. During this quarantine, I’ve been working on reviving this website. I have access to Proquest from the Newport News Library, so I’ve been getting newspaper articles about my two dead malls in the town I grew up in. I found one article about Newmarket that made me incredibly sad, realizing that I had walked by the site where a girl was killed because she was playing on an escalator so many times growing up.

Newmarket Opening Day Articles Updated

I updated a thirteen year old post this weekend. With clearer images and easier to read articles.

New (ish) website for NetCenter (the old Newmarket Fair Mall)

(site) (archive)

There’s a small photo gallery on the site, which is nice because the majority of the people who read this site haven’t been inside the depths of the old mall since the mid 1990s.

 

Also, apparently there’s a coffee and panini shop inside?

Look Back: Christmas shopping – Daily Press

A long-standing holiday tradition – shopping!

Source: Look Back: Christmas shopping – Daily Press

“Newmarket Theatre ’65 time capsule to be opened” (Daily Press, 9/5/2015)

4 STORES TO LEAVE NEWMARKET TENANTS WILL LET LEASES EXPIRE AT REMODELED MALL: [Final Edition]

NEIL CORNISH Staff Writer. Daily Press [Newport News, Va] 19 Dec 1990: B7.

Four stores at Newmarket Fair have announced they will not renew their leases when they expire at the end of the year.

B. Dalton Bookseller, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Butler’s Shoe Store and Dutch Maid Donut Shop will leave the mall next year, said Deborah Moreau, who manages the mall for owner Goodman Segar Hogan.

Moreau said most of the stores had told her last spring they did not plan to renew their leases. She said she is negotiating with prospective new tenants, whom she did not identify.

Lesley Mellor, B. Dalton manager, said the store will close Jan. 10. Officials with Butler’s corporate office in Atlanta declined comment concerning the store closing. Frederick’s store manager also declined to comment on the closing.

Goodman Segar Hogan spent $9 million to renovate Newmarket Fair, originally Newmarket North, to keep up with the newly refurbished Coliseum Mall in Hampton and the newer Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News. Merchants waited 10 months while work crews completed the facelift, which included the addition of a food court, carousel and skylighting. The food court has not yet opened.

Moreau said a number of the mall’s merchants will be undergoing store renovations and relocations in coming months as Newmarket Fair tries to improve its tenant mix. Fine’s Men Shop and The Athlete’s Foot have renovations scheduled, and a new arcade, Tilt, will soon be opening upstairs near the carousel.

The mall is still looking for men’s and women’s ready-to-wear stores as tenants, Moreau said, as well as a children’s store and specialty gift store. A sporting goods store is also planned for the mall, she said.

Moreau said its not surprising to see some turnover in a property as old as Newmarket Fair, which opened in 1975. One of its main anchor stores, Miller & Rhoads, went out of business at the start of this year. She said the defection of four smaller stores would not reflect negatively on the mall’s attractiveness to merchants nor would it place a financial strain on the mall.

In some respects the vacancies may help the mall, she said, noting that Butler’s departure will leave one fewer shoe store at Newmarket, which has 10 others.

Illustration

Staff photo (b&w) by JOE FUDGE The departure of Butler’s Shoe Store next year still will leave Newmarket Fair with 10 other shoe stores. Mug (b&w) of Deborah Moreau

Word count: 395

Copyright Chicago Tribune Co. Dec 19, 1990

Truck fire leads to death investigation in Hampton – dailypress.com

HAMPTON—

Firefighters apparently did not realize the smoldering truck they extinguished at about 4 a.m. Tuesday also contained a deceased occupant.

Police are now conducting a suspicious death investigation after officers were called back to the scene when a body was discovered shortly before 10:30 a.m. in the Sears Auto Care Center parking lot in the 5200 block of West Mercury Boulevard.

“At the time (of the fire), weather conditions were pretty poor,” Hampton Police spokesman Sgt. Jason Price said. “The deceased person was not discovered at that time.”

Several inches of rain fell throughout Monday and overnight into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service, in Wakefield.

“They responded to a vehicle fire on Mercury Boulevard and it’s being investigated as we speak,” Hampton Division of Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief Jeff Pereira said. “That’s all I can tell you now.”

The body — which was still inside the 2006 Dodge Dakota when media arrived Tuesday morning — will be transported to the Norfolk Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy.

Police could not determine the identity of the victim because of the condition of the body, which was burned, Hampton Police Division spokeswoman Cpl. Mary Shackelford said.

Police are still determining the identity and whereabouts of the vehicle’s owner.

Investigators are still determining whether the incident is a criminal matter, Price said. The deceased person’s identity will be made public if police determine the incident was criminal in nature.

Tuesday’s incident was the second within a week on the Peninsula in which a body was found inside a burning vehicle.

On Friday, Newport News police found the body of 28-year-old Portsmouth resident Jermaine Custis in the trunk of a car found near the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and 12th Street. Firefighters initially responded to the scene after receiving a report of a vehicle on fire, though it was put out by an employee of a nearby lumber business before officials arrived.

Newport News officials found Custis’ body after checking the car. They said the body did not appear burned, with fire damage confined to the car.

While Hampton police are talking to officials with neighboring law enforcement agencies about the case, Shackelford said Tuesday it would be premature to make any connection between the two incidents.

Staff writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this story. Brauchle can be reached by phone at 757-247-2827.

via Truck fire leads to death investigation in Hampton – dailypress.com.

” 1988 Newmarket North Mall Commercial (Summer Sizzling Sidewalk Sale)”

 

Wowwwwwww. I never thought I’d ever see an old Newmarket North Mall commercial on YouTube. This is amazing, check out the quick pics of the mall.