The corner of Oakton Street and Milwaukee Avenue...get it, "Oak""Mill", anyway, not much history found in this mall other than the look of the interior dating back to the 1970's. If this was ever a mall, it definitely died out a long time ago with strong competition from Golf Mill Mall in Niles and the Harlem Irving Plaza in Norridge, IL.
Here are pictures of the mall from June 2013:
If anyone has any pictures or stories, they would be greatly appreciated, so feel free to post and comment below.
Thank you for reading.
You should add that article from the tribune! Any idea what the guy by the mailbox is doing? he he! Very informative blog on this strip mall/plaza :) Women's workout world was here in the 80s and Blockbuster was to the left of Jewel
ReplyDeleteUsed to be known as 'Candlelight Court' back in the 70s and 80s. Originally, Bill Pullinsi, theatre director of Candlelight Dinner Theatre in Summit, IL was supposed to develop this parcel as a north suburban counterpart to the Summit location but the Village of Niles codes were to restrictive so the idea was abandoned and turned inot a strip mall. Golf Mill predated this mall by at least 10-12 years or more.
ReplyDeleteThey originally wanted to develop it to be what ? A theatre?
DeleteWow, I forgot about it being Candlelight Court. I was young, but I seem to recall that it was never completely filled up, and it didn't have a lot of browsers/strollers/window shoppers in there.
DeleteSome places seemed to do okay and lasted a long time, but I think generally people went to one place then would leave.
Places in there I remember:
Maloney's -- an old-fashion ice cream parlor with a player piano.
Drs. Cutler -- two optometrist brothers with an optician named John.
The Flip Side -- for those of you who remember them, they sold records.
Women's Workout World
A hobby store -- maybe it was a toy store. I always remember wanting to go in there to look for trains, but I don't remember them having a lot. Maybe it was geared toward crafts.
A "European" deli. I think Delicatessan Meyer? Maybe Linger? I'd say Central to Eastern European if memory serves.
I think there was a Jewel-Osco at the southeast end. Some grocery store for sure.
And for at least a couple of years, they used some of their extensive unleased space for a live-action haunted house. That was something.
Sorry for posting this twice, but my reply up above looks blacked out on my screen -- even after I previewed it.
ReplyDeleteWow, I forgot about it being Candlelight Court. I was young, but I seem to recall that it was never completely filled up, and it didn't have a lot of browsers/strollers/window shoppers in there.
Some places seemed to do okay and lasted a long time, but I think generally people went to one place then would leave.
Places in there I remember:
Maloney's -- an old-fashion ice cream parlor with a player piano.
Drs. Cutler -- two optometrist brothers with an optician named John.
The Flip Side -- for those of you who remember them, they sold records.
Women's Workout World
A hobby store -- maybe it was a toy store. I always remember wanting to go in there to look for trains, but I don't remember them having a lot. Maybe it was geared toward crafts.
A "European" deli. I think Delicatessan Meyer? Maybe Linger? I'd say Central to Eastern European if memory serves.
I think there was a Jewel-Osco at the southeast end. Some grocery store for sure.
And for at least a couple of years, they used some of their extensive unleased space for a live-action haunted house. That was something.
This was never a "mall" (like Woodfield or even Golf Mill) with anchor stores and a food court. It was (and still is) an indoor strip shopping center that had offices on the second floor and a Jewel-Osco on one end. I got renaming the place from Candlelight Court to Oak Mill, given the intersection. The "mall" part always made me laugh. IIRC, the name change to Oak Mill Mall occurred slightly before Golf Mill's transformation into an enclosed mall was completed.
ReplyDeleteInteresting fact, the store at the top of the escalator (first store you see on the right, directly opposite the clothing boutique store) was a shop called “Big Shots” (around 1978) that had a machine that would convert any photo into a poster. They never really sold many. It was a front for the mob, and they ran prostitution and produced porn in the back (which was 90% of the square footage of the store). True story. Also, Steinberg Bomb was there before the mall (where Avondale savings and loan was on the corner) and you could see the blue and white colors of Steinberg Bomb exterior sill exposed in the back of Avondale savings building. That’s the only structure they kept when building candlelight court (original name). They dug a gigantic hole for the foundation of the mall when building the rest of the building, and we played in the construction site when I was a kid. They never filled the mall with tenants, but I had an account at Avondale, ate ice cream at Malony’s (10 cent cone special first week it was opened and it was packed with people), ate a ton of food from the European deli, had my first kiss and more there, went to the Halloween spook house upstairs next to the Jewel, walked by Salamander Shoes and wondered how they stayed in business, went to the flip side all the time (they had cool magic tricks, magazines, posters, etc) and hung out there as a teen with my friends and smoked inside all day and caused trouble. Nice place.
ReplyDelete