This is our walkthrough of the Oxford Valley Mall in Langhorne, PA from July 17, 2019. This is the mall I grew up with as a child and as such, holds a special place in my heart. I witnessed the magnificence that was this mall in the 1980s as a child, and also its renovation into the bleached Simon whitewash it is now. Check out our ongoing series of dead and dying shopping malls!
Songs used in this video (in order):
Doug Wood - Summer Wind
Piero Umiliani - Skypass
Claude Larson - Airport
Simon Park - Big Mouth
Steve Gray - Wonder Groove
Here is some info from Wikipedia.
The Oxford Valley Mall is a two-story shopping mall, managed and 85.5%-owned by the Simon Property Group, that is located next to the popular amusement park Sesame Place near Langhorne in Middletown Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Its department stores are JCPenney and Macy's as well as H&M as a minor department store. There is a food court on the second floor, which was originally the second floor of a Woolworth. An office building called One Oxford Valley is located next to the mall.
The Oxford Valley Mall was developed by The Kravco Company and opened in 1973. In 1986, the Gimbels store was converted to Stern's after Allied Stores purchased seven Gimbels locations in the Philadelphia area. That same year, Bamberger's became Macy's. In 1989, Sears replaced Stern's after the latter closed several stores in the Philadelphia area. The mall underwent a renovation in 1990. In 1992, a separate, 10 screen movie theater was added behind Sears (4 new auditoriums were added in 2004). In 1995, the mall opened its food court on the second floor, replacing what had been the second floor of a Woolworth store. In addition, the mall replaced the spiral pedestrian ramp and fountain with a glass-enclosed elevator, upgraded the air conditioning system, and extensively renovated the JCPenney and Sears stores. All fountains were eventually removed with only the outdoor one remaining. The same year, Wanamaker's was converted to Hecht's. In 1997, Hecht's became Strawbridge's after its parent company, May Department Stores, acquired the Strawbridge's chain. In 2006, the Strawbridge's store closed as a result of Federated Department Stores acquiring May Department Stores, with Boscov's taking over the former store. The Boscov's store closed in 2008 as part of their restructuring. On October 15, 2018, Sears announced that its store would be closing as part of a plan to close 142 stores nationwide as a result of the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The store closed on January 7, 2019. This left Macy's and JCPenney the only anchors.
On January 13th, 1975, in the parking lot near where the entrance for Gimbels (which later became Sears) was located, 17-year-old Patricia "Patty" Bartlett was fatally stabbed to death. She managed to get to the entrance of Gimbels, where she collapsed. She later died at St. Mary's Medical Center[15]. No signs of robbery or sexual assault were present, which makes this case incredibly hard to solve. Currently, there are no suspects for her homicide. The reason for her being at the mall that night was to buy photo paper and toner, as she was a photographer. She was going to take pictures of the upcoming snow.
0 Comments