Dixie Square Mall

Dixie Square Mall

Front cover of mall directory
Location	Harvey, Illinois
Address	151st to 154th street and Dixie Highway, Harvey, Illinois
Opening date	1966
Closing date	1978
No. of stores and services	64 (in 1968) 20 (in 1978)
No. of anchor tenants	3
No. of floors	1
Parking	4000 (at 1966 opening)

Dixie Square Mall is an abandoned enclosed shopping mall located in Harvey, Illinois, United States. It has been abandoned for thirty years, more than twice as long as it was in business. It is famous for having been used, both inside and out, for the mall chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. More recently, it achieved notoriety because of a growing Internet cult following (including local urban exploration groups) dedicated to covering the mall's deteriorating condition. Like other "dead malls", it had been characterized by high vacancy rates and low patronage, which led to its closure. However, while other dead malls were redeveloped or demolished, Dixie Square has stood out due to its extensive neglect, vandalism damage, and history.

Ever since the mall closed, various abortive plans have been made to demolish or redevelop the structure, although none of these plans has ever come to fruition. The first plan to demolish the mall came about in the late 1970s, though the filming of The Blues Brothers prevented this demolition. The mall has been left to decay ever since, due in no small part to a lack of funds (the blighted town of Harvey owned the property itself for the greater part of the last 25 years), political incompetence, general mismanagement, and apathy. The only parts of the mall that have been fully demolished are the central energy plant, the former Woolworth anchor, and the former Montgomery Ward building.[5]

Mall and mall site history

Open for business: 1965–1978

Constructed between 1965 and 1966 at the cost of US$25 million, Dixie Square opened in August 1966 on the site of a former golf course. Montgomery Ward was the first of the mall's stores to open, doing so in Spring 1965. A soft grand opening happened August 31, 1966, with 36 stores open for business. Construction was completed nearly three months later by November 1966; the mall was dedicated on November 9, 1966, and grand opening celebrations extended from November 10-12, with 50 stores open. Grand opening celebrations featured: Homer and Jethro; Art Hodes and Sid Sakowicz; the Art Van Damme Quintet; and Ned Locke of the Bozo's Circus show. Dixie Square Mall's two anchor stores, JCPenney and Wards, were considered cutting edge at the time, complete with psychedelic wallpaper and fixtures.

The mall had sixty-four shops by 1968, included the two anchor stores JCPenney, and Montgomery Ward; Woolworth, Walgreens drug store, and a Jewel, the last of which did not open into the mall.

The mall enjoyed four years of success, until around the time a third department store anchor, Turn Style discount department store, was added in 1970. Many of the stores, including the anchors, renovated their stores several times in the 1970s in an attempt to keep up with the times. The ailing mall itself went through a renovation in 1976.

In the meantime, crime was becoming an increasing problem in the mall's town of Harvey, a failing, poverty-stricken suburb 20 miles (32 km) south of Chicago. Several major incidents occurred near or at the mall itself. In November 1972, a young woman was fatally shot near the mall in a botched robbery attempt. On April 20, 1973, another person was shot in a robbery on the mall property itself. In July 1973, a teenage girl was lured away from the mall by three other teenage girls, and strangled to death.

From 1973 to 1976, Dixie lost many stores, being hardest hit when the Montgomery Ward anchor moved out on October 4, 1976. In a last effort to bring back shoppers and tenants, the mall underwent a renovation in 1976 and shortened its name to "Dixie Mall". These efforts failed, as by 1978, it was down to its last twenty stores, with JCPenney finally leaving in late January. The mall closed in November 1978. Walgreen's and Jewel, which were both accessible from outside of the mall, stayed open for another year, departing in 1979.

On January 25, 1979, a full year after closing, JCPenney briefly reopened and held a sale they called "Dixie's Last Gasp", in which they liquidated outdated merchandise, mannequins, and display cases.

1979–1981

In January 1979, after the mall's interior had closed, the city of Harvey gave the property not still in use by stores to the Harvey-Dixmoor School District. The mall space was used as a temporary school while a new one was constructed. Turn Style's floor space was used as gymnasium. The mall was used for this purpose for two years.

The mall chase scene from The Blues Brothers.

In the meantime, shortly after the last store (Jewel) vacated, director John Landis rented the vacant mall for eight weeks in the Summer of 1979 to film a scene in the movie The Blues Brothers. Police cars were driven through the mall, destroying parts of it. Some former tenants, including Hickory Farms and Walgreens, refused to let their storefronts appear in the film so these were either "dressed up" as other stores (the Walgreens became a Toys "R" Us and the interior of JCPenney became the interior of Jewel, although the exteriors of the real Jewel and JCPenney stores were retained), or not featured at all. In the film, main characters Elwood and Jake Blues drive through store fronts, display cases and walls and destroy much of the mall while being chased by Illinois State Troopers. Much of the mall interior was left in poor condition after filming wrapped. The fake wall that the cars crashed through in Toys "R" Us at the beginning of the scene was still there until the mid 1980s.

The Harvey-Dixmoor School District attempted to sue Universal pictures in December 1981 for $87,000, citing damage to mall property created during the movie shoot, which was never repaired. Eventually, in any case, the district vacated the property, and the mall was completely shuttered.

Shuttered and seeking use: 1981–1985

Following the movie shoot and the departure of the school district, the mall sat completely empty while new uses for the property were sought. In 1984 vandals broke in, damaging and looting the mall, and leaving a number of entrances wide open in the process. Every accessible pane of glass in the mall was broken. By the next year, any piece of metal worth salvaging had been stolen. Over time, weather, lack of maintenance, and harsh Chicago winters also took their toll on the building.

In approximately 1985, the Wards Auto Service garage in the southwest corner of the mall property was razed, in preparation for construction of a new police station for Harvey. Work was temporary halted on July 9, 1987 (at about 35% completion) while concerns about the building's foundation were addressed; work on the police station resumed a week later.

Left to stand and deteriorate: 1985–present

"Block B" storefronts inside Dixie Square as they appear in 2009 showing severe state of decay.

Despite the new Harvey Police station occupying land immediately adjacent, the shuttered mall gained a reputation as a notorious crime magnet during the early 1990s, with at least one murder and rape taking place there, not to mention abundant gang and drug activity. By this time there were full-grown trees in the parking lot and portions of the roof had collapsed.

Also in the early 1990s, a juvenile court was built on the far west end of the parking lot. Despite numerous attempts to board up and secure the mall, it has been forced open repeatedly. Vandalism is the primary cause, but many homeless people have also turned the former mall site into makeshift living quarters. There has been much debate on what to do with the site.

In the 1990s, a massive fire broke out inside the Woolworth's store and nearly destroyed the building. The fire caused the roof to cave in, and due to that and other cave ins, entire saplings are now growing inside the building. Another fire broke out in the City Life lounge, causing minor damage to the abandoned bar. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, several other small fires broke out at the mall.

In January 2005, an agreement was made with American Kitchen Delights to turn the former Montgomery Ward building into a showroom for American Kitchen's products, with the YMCA then using another portion of the property to build senior citizen housing. Just days after the agreement was made, work on the Montgomery Ward store began. All debris was removed from the floors, which included 25 years of fallen ceiling tiles that had deteriorated and turned to a thick mush. Then came the removal of the store's remaining original decor and signage.

On April 14, 2005, a plan was set in motion to demolish the remnants of Dixie Square (except for the Wards building which was ostensibly being renovated) and bring top "big-box" retailers to the former mall site, including Costco, Kohl's, and Old Navy. This plan forecast bringing more than 1,000 jobs to Harvey, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in Cook County.

Soon it was found that the mall contained asbestos. The removed debris was covered in plastic and the Wards renovation and mall demolition were halted in late June 2005. It was also discovered that the demolition and renovation company had acted without a permit.

On July 3, 2005 the site renovation project was put on hold until the asbestos issue could be dealt with.

On Christmas Eve 2005, during demolition of Dixie Square Mall's central energy plant (which was being done late at night and illegally, as the asbestos problem had not been resolved), a large portion of the Wards building was accidentally demolished as well, ending any chance of its renovation. The mayor of Harvey actually witnessed this personally and stopped the crew from doing any more damage, when he coincidentally happened to drive past the site.

On February 16, 2006 the entire mall property was sold to developer John Deneen of the Emerald Property Group. The remainder of the Wards building was torn down March 1 in a widely publicized stunt, but no progress has been made to demolish the rest of the mall since that time. After the news crews left, so did the demolition companies, and no further work was done.

In late November 2006, the painted Toys 'R' Us sign was removed. The sign could be seen in The Blues Brothers as cars crashed through the building. Between then and January 2008, a massive section of the second floor of the JCPenney building collapsed to the first floor. Several more sections of the second floor have collapsed since. In mid-2008 the City Life nightclub sign was removed. The City Life sign was the last of the mall's exterior signage. The Thom McAn sign, which was the mall's last interior signage, had been removed by March 2009.

On July 20, 2009, a fire broke out in the former JCPenney store during the night. The cause of the fire is unknown. The fire damaged the Block C entrance to the point where it collapsed within a month afterward, and left scorch marks on the exterior of JCPenney.[6]

Further reading

• Luhar-Trice, Christopher W. (2008). Aesthetics of Abandonment: The Dixie Square Project. ISBN 978-0-615-26033-4.

External links

• Barraclou.com: Dixie Square Mall
• 2003 CLUI Exhibit: "The Best Dead Mall in America"
• Deadmalls.com: Dixie Square Mall
• Exploring Dixie Square Mall
• Labelscar: Dixie Square Mall
• Paw Filmworks: Dixie Square History
• Google Satellite Imagery of Dixie Square Mall pre-demolition