Thursday, February 22, 2007

MOA Galleria - Knollwood Shopping Center


St. Louis Park, Minnesota - Sept. 8, 1955

Powers store looking quite swanky here in this vintage exterior view of the Knollwood Shopping Center in St. Louis Park, Minnesota (though if you look close the signage there says "Knollwood Plaza" under Powers).

This is a very early photograph taken, I believe, around the time the shopping center first opened (as Knollwood Plaza?). And she couldn't look more glorious. Sadly, according to the latest reader-submitted entries over at Dead Malls, this mall is sort of still there today, such as it is, but barely hanging on, a mere ghost of its former self.

(Study image courtesy and © Minnesota Historical Society)



8 Comments:

Blogger Charles Freericks said...

Wow, that could be a twin of the Bloomingdales in Hackensack, NJ. Riverside Square was later build around it.

Thu Feb 22, 07:00:00 PM  
Blogger Charles Freericks said...

All right, it's not as close as I thought, but they are similar. Here's a pic of the Bloomingdales.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/I?gottscho:46:./temp/~ammem_2UEq::displayType=1:m856sd=gsc:m856sf=5a27108:@@@mdb=hh,gottscho,cmns,alad,ncpsbib,gmd,pan,detr,horyd

Thu Feb 22, 07:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Knollwood Mall IS INDEED still there, I drove by it last weekend! It's funny to see what it used to look like!

Thu Feb 22, 07:49:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anybody know what Powers was? I am guessing a swanky department store.

Sat Feb 24, 01:43:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_Dry_Goods

Sat Feb 24, 07:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My grandma used to take me shopping at that Powers in Highland. She lived near there and called it "the village". I always thought it was kind of second best to Dayton's. Powers dissapeared a while ago when it was bought by Donaldson's which was bought by....etc.

Mon May 21, 04:02:00 PM  
Anonymous Bill said...

I grew up less that a block behind this Powers store at Knollwood, from 1954 until our family moved in 1970. The view in this picture is from the shopping center parking lot looking north and slightly to the east. Powers was located on the west side of the shopping center and so in this picture the rest of the stores would be to the right.

Sat Apr 25, 03:19:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Grew up right behind it and played in it's parking lot on Sundays when everything was closed back then. Powers was a 2 story uyscale department store like Daytons or Macys with a hair salon and I think a restaurant, not sure. On the back side of this view, the north entrance, was a sloping (cobbled?) rise to the second floor.

Sun Jun 13, 02:49:00 AM  

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