04 December 2008

Southdale, 1956


The photo above, from the LIFE archives, depicts Southdale - the first indoor shopping mall in the United States, as it looked shortly after opening in 1956. When this picture was taken, I was 10 years old, and our family lived a short distance from this mall, so I would have walked across this same plaza many times.

To the modern viewer, it appears quite unremarkable. In 1956, however, this was a sensational development. It's hard to explain how startling it was to go to an indoor, climate-controlled mall in Minnesota - in the winter.

1 comment:

  1. you may want to address the skyway system which originated in Minneapolis

    ReplyDelete

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