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Northwest Mall History


IronTiger

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Well....the restaurant area is still there, but the actual Woolworth's store is long gone. The exterior side is (or was) SRO, the mall side is a hodge-podge of small retail, last I saw

I mean, it appears that most people that know of 1407 Studewood as Fiesta, or Clayton's, or maybe even Weingarten's. I have a half an album of pictures when it was Carl Cohen owned "Studewood Food Market" from the 60s & 70s, because my mother ran the snack bar in the back for 20 some odd years. Yes, that store had a full separate snack bar next to the meat market back in the day, not the steam line that was in the front by the door.

 

I always think of that as studewood food market. we lived off Irvington, and that was probably our main store since to us it was nicer and cleaner than the Rice on Weiss and Fulton or the Weingartens on Quitman. and I always headed to the back for a vanilla shake while mom shopped, so I probably saw your mom on more than one occasion.

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I bet you did! Probably saw me running around the store too. The memories I have of that store, and the people in it, are fond. It's been too many years to remember everyone's names, but Bitsy, Miss Fay, Miss Trudy, and the gang were such great people to me as a child growing up, and have never left my thoughts in all these years. Of course, Miss Trudy and Miss Fay have long passed, but a good friend and former schoolmate told me about Bitsy working at Jimmy's, and I've got to make it a point to pop in and say hello. I haven't seen her in probably 20 years. Glad to read that you, too, share in some of those memories of the old Studewood Food Market. Did you know that wasn't the original store building? The original burnt down in the 60's, and was rebuilt into what it was before it was demoed. I have to get the pictures posted I have of the snack bar. They're sure to bring back some great memories for you.

Sorry fellow readers, I have hijacked the thread. Back to the topic. Northwest Mall had an arcade that was in the corridor of the Foley's wing, down the short hallway that turned right at the Pipe Pub, directly across from Battlestein's/Beall's entrance. Does anyone remember the name of this game room? This article has struck up a debate between me and an old running buddy. He says it was Tilt, I swear it was The Goldmine. Tilt was in Northline, not NW. Which one of us is crazy? I swear it's him.

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It was definitely Gold Mine. The exterior was covered with fake rocks to look like the entrance to a mine, and the "Gold Mine" sign was in yellow/gold-colored letters. I don't remember Tilt, but I guess it's possible that Gold Mine later changed its name under subsequent ownership before it closed. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm an idiot, because the CiCi's answer was right under my nose the whole time. I was looking through my photos from 2008, and I found this. Unfortunately, a truck was blocking most of the mall (the subject), but I managed to capture just enough to lay to rest a misconception I had...

 

haif_cicis.JPG

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  • 2 months later...

I worked at Northwest Mall in about 2000, and I actually had my car worked on at that little shack. I believe it was a Western, but I only went there once and can't really recall. The guys were nice.

 

I'm disappointed to see that Cici's closed, though it's been a few years since I've been down there. You couldn't access it from inside the mall.

 

That was a Tilt, and my little storefront was right next to it. The manager there (fat Mexican guy) would let us use his bathroom because the mall bathrooms were so far away, and we didn't have our own.

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My sources (an old book from the 1970s called "Houston Today", checked it out from a library) say that Almeda Mall and Northwest Mall both had 71 stores at start (this may or may not include the department stores). If you find the Almeda Mall store opening list, you've found Northwest Mall's.

 

When they were new they were billed as the twin malls.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not sure of they had the exact same stores on opening day, but by the mid-1970s, they had different stores in different spots, even if it was the same layout.

 

If you look at the map, it has things like 52 xxx at Almeda, 52 yyy at Northwest.

 

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If you look at the map, it has things like 52 xxx at Almeda, 52 yyy at Northwest.

I know, I was just noting that fact. I think the lower right block of stores, that corridor, became a food court later, at least at NW.

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Scanned this last week, may help, at least if you want to know the stores from 1976 (From the Post classified 2/12/76)

 

Many thanks - this confirms my foggy recollection of the name and location of Le Petit French Cafe.

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Northwest Mall had an arcade that was in the corridor of the Foley's wing, down the short hallway that turned right at the Pipe Pub, directly across from Battlestein's/Beall's entrance. Does anyone remember the name of this game room? This article has struck up a debate between me and an old running buddy. He says it was Tilt, I swear it was The Goldmine. Tilt was in Northline, not NW. Which one of us is crazy? I swear it's him.

 

Actually, at least during some time in the early-mid 80's, the gameroom was called ALADDIN'S CASTLE...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yes and no, IronTiger. That part of the mall always had food in it, but it has never been all food establishments. What's listed as "The Saloon" later closed in the mid 80's and became Waldenbooks. El Chico, I believe, is now Foot Action and has been a shoe store since El Chico left the mall. That corridor, at one time or another, also had a Sam Goody's, a candle place called "Wicks N Sticks", a bank, and Ventura's Formal Wear. Northwest has never had a "traditional" food court area like Greenspoint or Memorial City has.

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Your recollection is spot on, mkultra. Can't believe I didn't remember it, especially since I was dragged into Lane Bryant next door, by my mother, more times than I care to admit. If I never walk into The Woman's Shop, Lane Bryant, or Naturalizer again in my life, it'll still be too soon.

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  • 4 years later...

I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Northwest Mall recently. I guess because one of my last major memories of it in anything near its heyday was in the summer of 1987, right before I started junior high school, and now my daughter is in junior high.

 

Even though I grew up in the Spring-Klein area, I went to Northwest Mall a lot during my childhood because it was in the part of town where my dad always chose to have his offices. So, many times when my mom had taken us in town to the pediatrician, or shopping in the Galleria, on our way home we'd meet my dad at his office, and sometimes we'd burn a little time in the mall before meeting him for dinner, sometimes in the mall itself, but more often at the Luby's nearby on 290. I remember my mom buying me some Striderite tennis shoes size kids 13 in the Foleys there, to show how young I was and how long go that was.

 

That summer of 1987, I remember my mother had a serious health issue that she needed to be in the Medical Center all day for testing for, so my dad took my brothers and me into work with him, then dropped us off at the mall with some cash to entertain ourselves. We probably just ate at the food court, and rummaged around in the music store (I think I bought a Gloria Estefan cassette), and then saw two movies back to back - Back to the Beach and The Living Daylights, then played in the arcade. Flashbulb memory.

 

For two summers in late high school and early college I worked at my dad's companies, and would go to Northwest to eat in the food court and do a little shopping on my lunch break. It was still a fairly decent mall then.

 

I didn't think much about Northwest until 2012, when I started a job nearby. For old times' sake I stopped in on lunch breaks here and there until we moved our office to the Energy Corridor in late 2013. By then the mall was just a shadow of its former self. I bought a pair of Levis in the Palais Royale there. I guess it was sometime last year I was dropping my daughter off at a birthday party at that gokart track and arcade on Hempstead Highway, and decided to see what was up with the mall. The interior was completely closed off, though the Palais Royale was still open and I could peer into the mall through the glass doors at their mall entrance.

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1 hour ago, Reefmonkey said:

 I guess it was sometime last year I was dropping my daughter off at a birthday party at that gokart track and arcade on Hempstead Highway, and decided to see what was up with the mall. The interior was completely closed off, though the Palais Royale was still open and I could peer into the mall through the glass doors at their mall entrance.

 

It closed (except for the Palais Royal and the Antique Center) at the end of March 2017. There are a couple of walk-around videos on Youtube that were taken the last day it was open:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K3xSvM42zA

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4O5Qza3-6U

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  • The title was changed to Northwest Mall History

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