Much like the thousands of Philadelphians who made the journey for a fun outing at Willow Grove Park in the weeks leading up to Labor Day for over one hundred and thirty years, I can remember summer trips to the Mall that now stands where the historic park once did as far back as I can remember.<\/p>\n
And like several times before in the long and storied history of the land that it sits on, the Willow Grove Park Mall is about to enter into a new phase of its existence after being purchased by three New York Investment Firms (Namdar Realty Group, CH Capital Group, and Mason Asset Management.) Excluded from the deal are external portions of the mall that house the larger stores (i.e. Primark and Bloomingdales.)<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Willow Grove Park Mall is nothing like my first memories of its opening almost fifty years ago. The then mall had three anchor stores (B. Altman, Bloomingdales, and Abraham & Strauss) all of which welcomed you into an upscale shopping experience complimented nicely by original stores to the mall like Spencer\u2019s Gifts and B. Dalton Bookstore, and later places to eat like Baker\u2019s Garden. The Mall\u2019s exterior featured the perfectly landscaped remnants of some of the decor and fountains on the grounds that once welcomed families from far and wide.<\/p>\n
Even by the mid 20th century, the area around Willow Grove Park had seen major changes. And by the late 1960s, the Park was struggling to make a profit before finally closing in 1975. A reboot around 1972 as Six Gun Territory was also not a success. Finally, years of dormancy gave way to the opening of the mall on the premises.<\/p>\n
A short walk around Willow Grove\u2019s three story shopping shows signs of a shift in modern shopping and economic trends that are evident at the Mall more and more in recent years. An Anchor department store area has been replaced largely by entertainment like \u201cdine-in\u201d and family amusement. An area of the mall once filled with shopping is now populated largely with arcades and restaurants. Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic have also dwindled the original stores from the 1982 opening down to only a handful today. Some remaining ornaments and mementos of the Park still hang above the water fountain and nearby walls, identified only by those who still recognize the historical significance.<\/p>\n
Something during a trip to Willow Grove Park Mall always draws me back. Whether it\u2019s the post, Covid shopping experience or the remnants of hallowed ground once walked by John Phillips Sousa, Willow Grove Park Mall joins many malls around America with a modern mix of entertainment, dining, shopping and family fun.<\/p>\n
Hopefully for other visitors like the fond recollections of my childhood, these modern-day reasons for visiting Willow Grove Park allow a new generation to make memories of their own.<\/p>\n
Michael Thomas Leibrandt lives and works in the Philadelphia suburbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much like the thousands of Philadelphians who made the journey for a fun outing at Willow Grove Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,8785,36007],"class_list":["post-286422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-shopping","tag-willow-grove"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}