Midtown Plaza Mall
Founded in 1962 in Rochester, Midtown Plaza Mall was the first urban indoor shopping mall in the US. Midtown Plaza is only beaten by Southdale Center which was founded 6 years earlier in the suburbs of Twin Cities, Minnesota. Midtown Plaza was designed by Victor Gruen, the Father of the American Shopping Mall. At its height it had 85 storefronts and 3 anchors. Being an urban mall though as middle class families left for the suburbs and the remaining citizens of Rochester became increasingly impoverished the mall fell on hard times as well, shutting down in 2008.
Victor Gruen
Born in Austria in 1903 Victor Gruen is the Father of the American Shopping Mall. Being both a Socialist and a Jew, Victor immigrated to the US in 1938 after the Nazis annexed Austria. While in the US he would achieve fame in the 60s for his architectural designs. Despite being the Father of the Mall Gruen came to despise the purely commercial malls that would be inspired by his designs and preferred malls that maintained a focus on community above commerce. In his life he would design Southdale Center, the first mall, Midtown Plaza, the first urban mall, and Kalamazoo, the first pedestrian outdoor mall.
The Decline of Malls in the US
The first nail in the coffin of malls was the creation of Mega-Malls. As newer fancier malls were created they would steal anchors from smaller malls leaving them to wither away. The next was the rise of online shopping. As sites like Amazon grew to prominence and stores like Wal-Mart started their own online shopping services malls lost their convenience. Even store’s like Macy’s, who still relied on their brick and mortar stores for the majority of their income, started to struggle. As these stores started closing even the larger malls started losing their anchors further sealing the fate the mall.