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jonrev.com
[jonrevProjects]
@jonrev.com
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Observer of obsolescence. Photographer & printmaker on Lake Wazzapamani. Infodumps about dead malls/esoteric history/things on wheels/whatever... www.jonrev.com 🖕🇦👁️ & 🧊
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📍 the jonrev projects encompass 20+ years of exploring, digitally preserving and infodumping about dead malls, commercial architecture, abandoned buildings and other such places of memories.

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blog ➡️ jonrev.com
prints ➡️ ko-fi.com/jonrev/shop
photog ➡️ flickr.com/jonrev
more ➡️ jonrev.com/dir/
Alright who's pulling off the ultimate urbex challenge?
2spooky4sears

Now printing...
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Popping-up at ArtWauk tomorrow night in downtown Waukegan. I made a bunch of first-run prints not currently in the shop... drop by, help me make decisions. Free show.

Abandoned malls and other crimes -- 115 N. Genesee Street, 5-9pm.
That *was* Lincoln Mall. Died in 2015, demolished two years later.
Coincidentally, at the turn of the 1990s the Westridge name was applied to a new SFH subdivision built on the other side of 355 from where the mall was to be built.
The problem there, of course, is another Fiero would turn into another obsession.

My Charger should cross 200k by 2027; I bought one of those lifetime extended warranties back in the day, so regardless I'll keep milking that until something happens where Stellantis taps out.
If I didn't live where other drivers are MENTAL and we salt roads like McDonald's does fries, I'd be content daily driving another Fiero (manual Duke for those mpg's). It honestly became (more) my ideal car once I added a Bluetooth receiver to the stock radio last year.
New cars adding AI and infotainment screens serving ads just make a case for my next vehicle being an imported kei truck.
What a wild couple of weeks for Pennsylvania malls.
...and may soon be harder. The developer planning to raze Exton Square is now under contract to buy and demolish Berkshire Mall.
Westridge was ultimately never built. Methinks the project collapsed when Randhurst caught wind of the land grabs that would become Stratford Square; and/or when Wieboldt's jumped ship.

Commercial and industrial buildings now stand on the site that would've been Westridge Mall.
Five minutes directly west of the Westridge site, that property in Bloomingdale would rise to fruition as Stratford Square Mall -- a 1.3-million square-foot center developed by Urban Investment & Development Corp. that opened in 1981 and served the community for 43 years

Wieboldt anchors this mall.
At this point, unfortunately, the Westridge trail goes cold -- there is no further mention of the development in the Trib archives.

Meanwhile, Marshall Field & Company's 1973 annual report first notes their own land acquisition in neighboring Bloomingdale for a future a shopping center development.
By 1973 however, no groundbreaking has taken place. Wieboldt mentions the Westridge development in its annual shareholder report, with that store's tentative opening now pushed to August 1975.
The architect, Sidney Morris & Associates is named -- previously involved in designing Chicago's Lincoln Village shopping center, recently-opened Lakehurst Mall in north-suburban Waukegan (with Gruen Associates), and Northwoods Mall to open in Peoria the following year.
By May 1972 site prep and other studies are taking place, and the name of the mall development changes to Westridge. The mall take aim competing directly with Yorktown Center in Lombard, and Woodfield in Schaumburg.
By August 1971 the development was known as the Medinah Mall and described by Randhurst as likely to mimic the design of its namesake in Mount Prospect: a bilevel, million square-foot, triangular-shaped center anchored by Carson's, Wards and Wieboldt's.

Groundbreaking is slated for fall 1972.
First revealed in July 1970, voters that October approved $3m in bonds to finance infrastructure improvements in support of the Addison mall.

By April 1971, Randhurst's W.W.C., Inc. (Wieboldt's-Ward's-Carson's) closed on all land acquisitions for the site, and targeted opening the mall in 1974.
Randhurst Corporation - a joint-venture with fellow Chicago retailers: Wieboldt Stores, Inc. and Montgomery Ward & Co. - was originally formed to build its namesake shopping center in north-suburban Mt. Prospect, that opened in 1962. The three department stores also anchor this center.
The location for the proposed mall was a 100-acre site on Lake Street, directly south of the Medinah Country Club, and west of Swift Road.

The mall was to be built by the Randhurst Corporation - the real estate development and management arm of the Chicago department store, Carson Pirie Scott & Co.
Concept artwork, dated 1970, from a promotional flyer leading to the opening of Lincoln Mall in Matteson, Illinois.

Except this concept art doesn't depict Lincoln Mall... it was recycled from the developer's stillborn project in Addison, which was known as both the Medinah Mall and later Westridge.
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I think this is why I've always liked the way the Illinois Nazis are portrayed in The Blues Brothers. It shows them for what they are: spiteful little weirdos who are ineffective and deserve no respect.
It’s funny how the old media depiction of Nazis was always that they’re evil but dignified gentleman and now they’re openly just like “Hello. I’m the Anime Pedophile”
In Amboy, 95 miles west of Chicago: the building which housed the original Carson & Pirie Co. store still stands, now functioning as a bar. There is still a plaque, placed in 1954 by Carson Pirie Scott & Co., commemorating the company's 100th anniversary.
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wiebolt's department stores (RIP) first store was at 1832 w grand and i was surprised to see that it's still there