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This is a sight that should be familiar to anyone from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area; it's the IDS Crystal Court. For those of you outside of the Twin Cities, you might remember this building as one of the opening shots from the "Mary Tyler Moore" show, although this photo is facing in the opposite direction.
I scanned this from a post card I purchased a few months ago, and as you can see, there is a little bit of damage in the center of the card. However, that doesn't stop you from seeing the Hallmark store and the Baskin-Robbins on the first floor. There also was a small Woolworth's in the building, but that of course has since closed, as have the Hallmark and Baskin-Robbins stores.
Fortunately, IDS hasn't been "remodeled" to the point of destruction like City Center.
I'd also add that to this point, I know I haven't really added anything from the traditional malls of the area. Unfortunately, I don't think many companies printed post cards of Rosedale or Burnsville Center, though I'll be happy to upload some more recent photos, once I have taken them.
Ryan
Here's a beautiful photo of Minneapolis' own City Center, back in November or December of 1987. Unfortunately, this photo is from days gone by, and the building has been mostly gutted of retail space and replaced with offices.
In the far back, you can see the now-defunct Donaldson's department store. Donaldson's was the primary competitor to the also now-defunct Dayton's department store. Donaldson's met its end when Carson Pirie Scott purchased Allied Stores Corporation in 1987. Carson's (as it is known to Chicago locals) then rebranded all of the Donaldson's stores under their name. In the early 1990s, Carson's then closed all of their stores in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
The fondest memories I had of City Center was the gorgeous food court on the third floor, decorated in classic 80s mall style, with lots of plants and glass windows. Sadly, this too has been demolished to make way for the Minnesota State Bar Association; as if we didn't need another reason to hate lawyers...
Ryan
Inspired by the great Keith Milford's Malls of America, I've finally launched my own retail blog, focusing (more or less) exclusively on Minnesota's great malls of the past and present.
Now that I have a fully functioning scanner once again, I can finally begin to upload the images that I've collected in books about the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Since I have limited resources, I'm hoping that some of the good people out there also have their own content they wish to submit.
If you have anything, let me know, and I'll put it up on the site!
Ryan
