“Virginia Beckons Retailers To Surrounding Markets” (1997)

From Retail Traffic Magazine

lol @:

-Hannaford (Hannaford was only here for a nano second due to some buyout with Food Lion)

-Wal Mart just getting super centers

-Super Fresh

-Revco

—-

Newmarket Fair is mentioned.

A Drive Down Newmarket Fair Mall/Newmarket North Mall

{Mutiply.com mirror}

Ok, this is bad video, and I should have cleaned my windshield first, but I ran out of wiper fluid. I did this on a whim.

This mall (in Hampton, VA) stopped being a mall in 1998-ish, and became Netcenter, an office complex. Only Sears and Piccadilly Cafeteria remains.

I had to duck my digital camera at one point because an Amsec worker was outside an entrance on his break.

I drove from the old Miller & Rhoads to the very last mall entrance before Sears.

My Newmarket Fair Mall Sociology Essay (April, 2007)

My superior; Brian Florence over at deadmalls.com surprised me this morning by pasting my essay I wrote for my Sociology 202 class last year on Newmarket Fair.

The essay is here.

Also, he finally posted something I’ve been working on and off with for a while. A blog that mentions tiny updates on each mall at deadmalls.com. Sometimes we get a little update on a mall that is on the site. An update that is important, but um…not important enough to open the page, edit the HTML, and FTP it to the server? The blog is at http://deadmalls.wordpress.com.

Longest Blockquotes Ever

I had these two mall related dreams Sunday morning:

I had both Coliseum and Newmarket Fair dreams. In the Coliseum Mall dream, I think I had missed the demolition ceremony for the mall, and I had also missed a television special about the demolition. I got so upset by this I started crying, and somehow my cries appeased someone, and they had found me footage of the TV special, but the footage I was able to see looked as though it was shot though binoculars, all I could see was a distance shot of the mall area. The mall was gone, but the J.C. Penney and the Hechts (yeah, when I was writing this dream down, I didn’t write Macys, whoops) was still up, but the new J.C. Penney was built and open — it seemed teeny tiny compared to the old J.C. Penney. And the footage looked very old, as though it was shot on the mall’s opening day, not 30 something years later when the mall was dead.
——-

The Newmarket Fair dream I had took place after the mall stopped being a mall. Everything had been painted white (I guess as a primer coat), and even the insides of stores had been gutted and replaced with white dry wall. I was walking around, pretty much lost since everything was white. Then I realized that I had become trapped in the mall — and that Snape guy from the Harry Potter books and movies was keeping me captive. Every entrance in and out of a store had been drywalled over as I was walking through the mall, and I was trapped in the stores. I thought I was trapped there forever, until I saw a small opening between the dry wall, and the floor on the second level of the mall right above Sears. I could look through this space, and I could see a red light coming from the old Sears sign, and the floor to the first level. The space between the dry wall and the floor was large enough for me (shuh, yeah I know that must of been a BIG opening) to squeeze and fall through onto the first floor. I was scared, but I knew that it was my only way out. So I squeeze though the opening, and fell onto the first floor of the mall in front of Sears. There on the first floor was this annoying as —- student at my school who is never prepared for his classes, and is always clueless about everything. I assume we both ran out of the mall.

More Newmarket North Mall Microfilm Printouts

{The last time I posted Microfilm printouts was … hey one year ago today}

So, last weekend I was able to go out to the main branch of the Newport News library and get more microfilm printouts of Daily Press microfilms of Newmarket Fair (then Newmarket North)’s opening day in March of 1975. I also got printouts of their 2nd grand opening on July 30, 1975 when Legget and some other smaller stores opened.

So, let’s follow the seagull again (CAW! CAW!!) and look at more newspaper clippings.

A better scan of that Sears opening day ad … nice exterior shot of Sears here. This Sears and the Picadilly Cafeteria are the only store stores remaining at the mall since everything else is offices.

This was the best scan I could get of what the Miller & Rhoads looked like. This was from a newspaper ad from July 30, 1975. When you drive all the way back to the building you can still see the labelscar. This building is now home to Verizon.

“Newmarket North Draws Thousands”> — article from the March 27, 1975 Daily Press.

You guys, Hickory Farms is fond of cheese! {article and photo of Hickory Farms. This place remained the same until it closed down in I’m guessing 1994} .
“Woman Finds Advertising Difficult — I swear that is one of the headlines. Daily Press was “teh sexist” back then! Also includes a photo of Toy City and The Nautilus arcade. I remember in the early 90’s, mom took me to an arcade that had opened at Newmarket Fair (I guess it opened a year or two after the whole Newmarket North to Newmarket Fair phase) and it was near the food court and it was called Tilt.

“Project Manager Resolves Problems”. Also includes a photo of Westfields Jewelers.

Legget’s Largest Store Opens at Newmarket North (article).

Photo of the interior of Legget. I only was able to go here once when I was real little, probably six. I think it was when Newmarket North was being remodeled into Newmarket Fair. Mom wanted some Estee Lauder makeup for this vacation we were going on. I just remember how fast and scary looking the place was to a six year old since everything was so open.

Rest of the Legget opening article. Dark photos, sorry

It Used To Be Daily Show Correspondents Birthdays, Now its This

Oh I almost forgot! Today is Newmarket North/Fair Mall/NetCenter’s 32nd birthday! Yay for the dead mall turned Tidewater’s largest office building!

Saturday, dad and I went to the Newport News library so I could get more microfilm scans of the opening week of Newmarket North (I’m doing yet another school project on the place). I don’t have them all up yet (ugh, the scanner at school scans like crap, I gave up), but here’s a little sample, I suppose:

Yeah that is totally dark. It’s a photo of the Sears, that is actually still open.

1988 East Coast Mall Directory

I got a MySpace mail from Mike Hepp one of the people who works on the Penn Can Mall Website the other day:

Hi Anita this is Mike Hepp you know the PennCan Mall Historian. Anyway I have this 1988 East coast mall directory, you know another piece of Penncan history I’m glad I saved. This has some info on this mall it lists a North, South and a plaza for this center and it lists it under Newport News,VA. This might be valuable to you since your doing intense research on the mall.

Newmarket North Mall Original Tenant List (1975)

I recently brought back out the few Newmarket North/Newmarket Fair microfilm scans I could get back in January of 2006 for a paper I’m working on. I forgot I had a somewhat complete list (albeit in pieces so I can’t just you know scan it) of the original tenants on opening day (March 26, 1975). Here is the best copy I have of the directory.

(the number corresponding with the store is what space they were in in the mall)

Women’s Wear

Casual Corner -75

Foxmoor Casuals - 18

Frederick’s of Hollywood -89

Hanna’s - 96 (I believe that Hanna’s moved from Newmarket South Shopping Center along with Miller & Rhoads)

Joseph R. Harris -62

Kanter’s - 31

Lerner Shops - 44

Susie’s Casuals -5

Shoes

Butler Shoes - 8

Hofheimers - 94

Kinney Shoes - 6

Thom McAn -19 (this place was here until about 1995)

Men’s Wear

Country Legend - 92

Stiches - 47 (I had an unused notebook that was a Stiches giveaway from the 80’s that I found at the old Salvation Army on Mercury Blvd a few years ago, but its in storage now)

Jewerly

Barclay & Sons - 66 (this was still open in the mid 90’s)

D. P. Paul - 95

Gordon’s - 36

Treasure Chest - 11

Weisfield’s - 42

Gifts

O’Neill’s Card Shop - 29

Food

Baskin Robbin’s 31 Flavors Ice Cream - 34 (Lasted until about 1995)

Chick-fil-a - 33 (I think this place lasted until the late 1990’s)

Fanny Farmer - 51

General Nutrition Center - 102 (I remember going in here with my mom in 1994)

Hickory Farms-46 (closed in about 1994-ish)

Orange Julius - 73

Morrison’s Cafeteria - 54 (this place is still open but changed hands to Piccaddily in the late 1990’s)

Morrow’s Nut House - 37

Sal’s Italian Restaurant - 81 (I think my folks and I ate here when I was about 5 years old in 1989 if in fact this place was still open in 1989)

Household & Dry Goods

Singer - 45

So-Fro Fabrics - 99

Seasonal & Miscellaneous

B. Dalton Bookseller - 64

Lowrey Organ Center - 28

Nautilus - 23

Parklane Hosiery - 10 (we used to buy my pantyhose for my dance outfits here when I was 5, 6 years old in 1989, 1990)

Pearle Optical - 13

Things Remembered - 69

Tinder Box - 71

Toy City - 65

WaldenBooks - 16 (left in about 1995, 1996 sometime around then)

Wide World of Music - 17

Theaters

Newmarket North 4 Theaters - 39 (this place had to leave after 1992, ’cause in late 1992 I saw Home Alone 2 Lost In New York at this theatere)

And of course the original and only anchors the mall ever had Sears, Leggett, and Miller & Rhoads, which in 2007 are Sears, Northrop Grumman, and Verizon, and of course the mall is now Netcenter. A lot of the stores are now Amsec (my dad works for Amsec, but I don’t think he ever has to go to the Netcenter location) I keep on forgetting to mention that if you drive by the old M&R building you can still see Miller & Rhoads’s labelscar, I’ve just never been able to get a photo because Verizon employees are always standing outside.

Miller & Rhoads Fur Storage and Cleaning Offer (mid 1980’s)

Miller & Rhoad’s Hey Day Ad 1, originally uploaded by Look In The Tunk.

I haven’t been able to see this ad in a few years, but I think the ad said that M&R had its own walk in fur storage fridge.

Going out of business fur sale ad a few years later

//edit//

Ah, here is a close up on the ad:

Yeah, that’s still hard to read….

From The April 6, 2006 Daily Press

This has been on my desktop since like April 8th. I have a “browken” computer at the moment [just look up "emac freezes up" on google and you'll know why] and things fall by the wayside.