Westgate Mall: Bethlehem, PA

Westgate Mall is one of those malls easy to miss.  From the outside it does not even look like a mall.  From aerials, it is easy to mistake it for a large strip center.  This probably explains why in the many discussions about dying malls that this one is overlooked.  Originally opening in 1973, the mall exists as a forgotten yet surviving early shopping center in Bethlehem.  Since eclipsed by larger malls, the mall has largely become a community mall serving an ever decreasing customer base.  Probably the only reason it survives today is because it maintains three major anchor tenants that provide financial security although they seem to be awaiting either redevelopment or openings for better locations.

Developed by Harold S. Campbell, Westgate Mall is a combined enclosed strip and enclosed mall meaning that few like it exist anywhere.  The anchors to the original center included Hess's on the west end of the main mall, Newberry's on the east end and George's IGA Foodliner on the strip portion.  The mall also contains an upper level portion of offices on the strip portion over the top of the current Rite-Aid.  Another second level office portion was located next to Newberry's, but that portion is walled off and currently unusued.  In all, it was a strangely designed center.

It's a big step up into the mall leaving Bon-Ton (former Hess's).  However, don't expect to be stepping up into a shopper's paradise.  The first photo shows the bend from the enclosed strip into the main mall with the former Newberry's entrance on the left and a mystery staircase to walled off offices straight ahead.  Photo and all other uncredited (webmaster) photos taken May 3, 2014.

Westgate Mall in the full mall portion has no natural light relying on overhead artificial light to brighten the concourse.  This was typical in the 70's, but since the 1980's natural light is preferred.

It is unknown what this last operated as, but it was a very large tenant.  The portion on the left was rebuilt after a 1977 fire.

Apparently this empty store was used as a Republican campaign headquarters in 2012.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Former Newberry's mall entrance head on from the main mall with the mystery steps to the right (no public access, of course).  First photo taken May 3, 2014.  Second photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

An interesting note about the Hess's is that it is identical in design to a store built at South Mall closer to Allentown.  However, the enclosure of the mall was not handled in a typical fashion.  Since the mall included both a strip and enclosed portion, ultimately the strip portion was enclosed, too!  However, unlike most efforts to enclose a strip, it simply became an enclosed hallway with the original tenants on one side and the parking lot on the other with glass windows separating it.  Only a portion of the enclosed strip actually has tenants on both sides.  In addition, Hess's anchored the mall in a strange fashion with the store staggered like a discount store with the store set back away from the front of the mall.  While it still does have a mall entrance, it includes a tiring set of steps and an odd diagonal door to the right going directly outside.  In addition, Bon-Ton today takes up space of an inline tenant on the opposite side of the single door.

Looking back from Newberry's to Bon-Ton with these odd railings posted as a means to give some sort of definition to the mall.  The mall has continuous slopes from Newberry's to Bon-Ton.  First photo is by Digital Sky from August 26, 2012 and second is from May 3, 2014.

These photos show the mall a little less cheery between 2012 and 2014 with the colorful banners removed overhead.  First photo by Digital Sky.

Kay Jewelers sporting this vintage logo has since left the building.  Only in Pennsylvania would a store like this last this long in a basically dead mall.  I guess they drew enough traffic from Bon-Ton.  Second photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Westgate Optical clearly appears to be one of the mall's oldest tenants.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Tragedy struck the mall when in 1977 a fire erupted that destroyed 18 stores.  The fire happened along the front portion of the mall next to Hess's.  That portion today includes is where Bon-Ton operates a second store in the mall.  Aside from this obvious major setback, the mall appeared to be modestly successful throughout the 70's and 80's, but by the 1990's the mall began to struggle as Lehigh Valley continued to draw customers away.  Like most early malls, the mall had a tough time competing with only one department store anchor and a major five and dime store as its principal anchor tenants.  JJ Newberry closed with most of the chain in 1997 leaving a huge vacancy in the center of the mall that has never been filled.  However, the owners also lucked out with A&P eventually being replaced by Weis and Hess's was replaced by Bon-Ton.  Rite-Aid also maintains a location in the mall along with Weis in the enclosed strip portion.

The two entrances to Bon-Ton.  The latter replaced an unknown store inline and was part of the portion rebuilt after the 1977 fire.  Note the door on the right of Bon-Ton to the outside.  The wall directory ties the two images together.

The two Bon-Ton stores side by side with the "escape door".  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Beginning of the enclosed strip portion includes what appears to be a second former entrance of Newberry's to the right.

More of the corridor headed to Weis with a bend in the corridor approaching the Weis store entrance.

A curiosity with the mall was the size of front-facing inline tenants, most of which looked to be junior anchors.  An empty store with a wood front is the most noticeable sat next to a former front mall entrance that is today part of Subway.  This store had both outside and mall entrance access and took up a large section of the road-facing side of mall.  It looks like today it periodically opens as a temporary store/office, but most everything in the main mall portion is empty.  Kay Jewelry and Payless Shoes are two of the remaining tenants in that section as of 2012 with Kay since departed.

Weis entrance on the right; outside entrance on the left.  Judging from the scene ahead this looks like a bit of a tight squeeze for that cart full.

Another bend in the enclosed strip beyond Weis includes some narrow stores on the left that create a breif (and more legitimate) mall.  Something tells me that door on the right is fake.

Twisting and turning on a climate controlled urban hike that ends at Rite-Aid

Rite-Aid on the right with the end of the mall in sight.

The east end of the mall is...a single glass door.  The possibilities are endless just across that parking lot!

Looking back from the door to the beginning of the long and twisting journey back to Bon-Ton.

Despite this, today Westgate Mall is significantly vacant.  Most of the active tenants are located in the front of the mall with parking lot access while the back of the enclosed mall is mostly empty.  Bon-Ton also likely only holds on due to inability to obtain anchor space at Lehigh Valley Mall nearby.  Otherwise, they would probably close.  The mall has also not had any renovation in at least 30 years making it one of the most vintage malls still in operation in the state, but that is supposed to change when it was announced in 2015 that the mall would receive a $5 million dollar overhaul.  Much of that is to support the addition of Sky Zone Trampoline Park in the main mall corridor.  How the mall hangs on is anybody's guess considering that the vast majority of shoppers drive a little further up the road to go to Lehigh Valley Mall.

View of the upper level offices from the bend in the enclosed strip portion.  The Weis is visible in the background.

Near the turn back to the legitimate (double-sided) mall.  Not that this is illegitimate.  It's still a mall, and these days you take what you can get.

Outside view of the mall from the Bon-Ton side.  The stores in the foreground were wiped out in the 1977 fire.

Bon-Ton's second store outside with the funky mall entrance in the right corner.

Exterior shots of the Bon-Ton (former Hess's) with the mall name on the NW corner.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

The most probably future for Westgate Mall is a redevelopment into a regular strip mall when Bon-Ton finally leaves, but for right now the owners seem to be committed to keeping an enclosed mall: very unusual in 2016!  Regardless, Bon-Ton is probably exploring options currently including taking over the current Sears store in the partially demalled Whitehall Mall.  It is curious that after Leh's department store closed at Whitehall that they didn't decide to relocate then, but most likely at the time they felt they couldn't effectively compete so close to the larger, better mall.  Whitehall was also trying to shake off their own reputation as a mall favored by elderly shoppers when it was redeveloped.  Whatever the outcome, it is absolutely remarkable that this mall has made it over 50 years.  As the first regional shopping mall in Lehigh Valley, it has endured quite a bit of competition to survive this long even in its anemic form.  

Westgate Mall main entrance.  Only the logo was changed.  The original entrance used an Old English-style font.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

A secondary mall entrance to the main mall was unceremoniously downgraded to an entrance for Subway.  To the untrained eye, it looks demalled!  Photo taken by Digital Sky August 26, 2012.

Westgate Mall's original logo was found on this sign.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Weis, originally Harold's IGA Foodline.  To all appearances it was an A&P, and it may have very well been one originally.  Photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Describing the mall corridor is difficult, so hopefully these directories shed some light.  What is not shown is the walled off upper level area at the bottom of the L next to the old Newberry's mall entrance.   Second photo by Digital Sky taken August 26, 2012.

Anniston retail notes: Wakefield's, Winn-Dixie, etc.

Lots of strange things happen retail-wise in second-tier markets.  You know, those cities that aren't big enough to have name recognition outside the state nor the population and incomes to support many big city establishments.  What I mean by that is that not only do retail chains often put their outpost stores in such markets, but such markets also feature a few peculiar stores of their own.  While this is far less true today than it was 20 years ago, Anniston proved to have a few treasures.

The first of these treasures is Wakefield's, a small department store chain that seems to be on the line of Kohl's or Peeble's, but located only in Alabama.  All of its stores, however, are known as Martin's except one...a free-standing vintage mid-century store close to downtown Anniston.  It is a complete mystery to me why there is one store called Wakefield's and all the others "Martin's Family Clothing".  They also operate "Martin's Baby Depot".  I personally like the Wakefield's name, sign and logo better.  The nearest Martin's is extremely close with a store in Oxford at Quintard Mall and also right across the street from it!  Martin's is also located in Rainbow City (suburb of Gadsden), Florence and Decatur.  The latter two are quite far removed from their obviously strong base in Anniston/Oxford.

A couple more views of Wakefield's.  Note the "W" over the doors on the second photo.  All other Wakefield's locations are known under the Martin's Family Clothing or Martin's Baby Depot names.

Martin's is located here in a small strip mall on Quintard Avenue.  This one is located across from Quintard Mall with some departments located in a store across the street inside Quintard Mall. 

Second, Winn-Dixie, long a staple of the South, has mostly been erased in the more populous areas due to the ever increasing dominance of Publix.  Winn-Dixie once coexisted peacefully with Publix, but not so anymore.  Winn-Dixie was in a difficult position with many antiquated stores and a market that catered to the same crowd that also buys groceries at Wal-Mart...oops.  They were also pushed back in their northernmost markets by the upscaling of Ingles (same demographic) and continued regional popularity of Harris Teeter.  Since then, Winn-Dixie has retracted, retrenched and reinvented themselves.  The Winn-Dixie I stopped at in Oxford was far superior to the older stores. It was very clean and well-stocked with an attractive, semi-upscale design.  However, Winn-Dixie also dominates the Anniston market in part because they have been snubbed by Publix there, which I'm sure that the management of Winn-Dixie is definitely not complaining about.  I, for one, am not comfortable with only one or two chains having a stranglehold on whole states and regions so I'm happy to see Winn-Dixie still around.  Unfortunately, competition Foodmax seems to have withered away in the same town, their parent company Bruno's almost fatally wounded by the expansion of Publix into Birmingham.  I visited one of those Foodmax locations in 2006, which felt like a firm step back to about 1991.  At one point, they had stores in the Atlanta market along with Bruno's.

This Winn-Dixie looks to be of very recent vintage, and it sports the newest logo.  It is located on the new Anniston By-Pass about a mile north of I-20.

Third, small cities tend to not get hung up on the replacement store bandwagon found in hotter retail markets.  This is evidenced by the Rite-Aid located across from Quintard Mall.  This is not a former Eckerd; this is an original Rite Aid located in a very small strip mall with only one other local shop.  Inside, the store is a mid-century treasure with wall displays apparently never updated from around 1972.  If you'll note in the photos, these displays also do not generally match up with the merchandise being sold underneath.  Note the Cokes underneath what says "video"...that is, unless they're secretly chilling vintage VHS tapes back in the freezer.

A couple outside shots of the vintage Rite-Aid across from Quintard Mall.  The only other tenant with Rite-Aid is a men's clothing store.

A look at the inside of the Rite-Aid.  The wall displays remind me of pictures I've seen of the wall displays inside the Montgomery Ward at long-abandoned Dixie Square Mall.  I like them, though.  They are delightfully tacky, cozy looking and vintage.  Owners, please do not ever change them as long as the store is there.

Fourth, speaking of drug stores, I wanted to show you a vintage franchised drug store I found downtown known as Wikle's Rexall Pharmacy.  This seems to be an extremely popular site to photograph in Alabama, so if you want any daytime shots, they can be easily found in a web search.  This one is one of those drug stores of baby boomer youth...the ones where you knew the pharmacist by name and the place felt like home as well as a treat to shop at with its quirky selection of merchandise and vintage feel inside.  That was the case with a pharmacy my family went to as a kid known as Bells Ferry Pharmacy.  It was a Rexall franchise like this one.  We knew the pharmacist personally like a relative and the place fit that description completely.  The pharmacist finally gave up and closed in the late 1990's after the place was robbed, and he worked a few years longer in a group of pharmacists with CVS.

A couple night shots of the Wikle Rexall drug store.  It is a registered historic site.

Last, I wanted to note a local Alabama barbeque chain known as Golden Rule Bar-B-Que.  This chain attempted very unsuccessfully to move into the Atlanta market, but it is a standard in Alabama.  According to the website, its first location was built exactly a century ago in Irondale north or Birmingham.  I also remember an earlier attempt they made in another part of the Atlanta area west of Marietta.  Their failure was quick and abyssmal both times, and part of that nowadays is due to the popularity of another Atlanta-grown barbeque chain known as Shane's Rib Shack.  Nevertheless, Golden Rule seems very popular in Alabama, so I'm wondering why they never caught on in Georgia...oh wait, I keep forgetting *slap*.  Inversely, Shane's does not appear to be in Alabama at all.  One location of Golden Rule I know of actually converted to Shane's, and it has been a major hit ever since it reopened as such.  I personally never tried Golden Rule, but I did not hear positive feedback from those who tried it locally.

A recently-constructed location of Golden Rule Bar-B-Que in Oxford.  This location was identical to the two closed Georgia locations.

In all, part of Anniston's interesting retail history may be attributed to its location on a historically popular route to Florida, US 431.  US 431 basically functions as a continuous suburban highway its entire length with endless shops, strip malls and stores extending from Anniston to Huntsville.  With this, there were a couple things I failed to cover such as the closed Food Town and Foodmax stores I saw as well as the presence of Rally's Hamburgers...the same thing as Checker's with a different name.  I would love to hear your comments and memories of the area as well.