newmarket fair mall – saleintothe90s

424. Black Friday though the years (Hampton/Newport News, VA), part 2, 1990-1999

(previously)

A reminder of the movers and shakers and failures of the retail landscape of Hampton and Newport News back then:

Coliseum Mall

Newmarket North / Newmarket Fair Mall

Patrick Henry Mall

Bart is the star of 1990′s coverage. My mom loved Everything’s a $1.00 back then. It felt like we were at the Newmarket location every weekend when I was in the first grade. I found a copy of the Simpsons Christmas book there. K&K Toys was an unfortunate name for a store.

Oh boy, this is the beginning of the end of Newmarket Fair Mall (formerly known as Newmarket North). They had just finished 10 months of remodeling, just to have several stores leave after their leases expired, and one of the anchor stores, Miller & Rhoads closed the year before. This is the final time in Daily Press history that Newmarket Fair Mall is mentioned in Black Friday coverage.

1991

The Fisher-Price Game table! With the commercial where the boys played games on the table all day and half the night!

This was the first year that Kmart decided to be redic. and stay open on Thanksgiving. My mom and I were there that day! This was the thanksgiving that my dad was out to sea, and mom decided that we would just eat at Piccadilly Cafeteria at Coliseum Mall that day and hit KMart later to pick up Home Alone on VHS.

Note that Newmarket Fair wasn’t mentioned!

President Bush bought some Reeboks and slime for the grandkids.

1992

1992′s coverage was sparse. Rollerblade dolls were hot.

1993

Roses got a shout out. This was right before they turned into a dump. Still a dump in 2020! Newmarket Fair which was one foot in the grave at this point, only receiving a quick Sears mention. Above is a Proffitt’s ad from 1996 that shows what the Cracker Jack sale was all about. Proffitt’s didn’t last long at Coliseum, closed in 1997 and then Dillard’s moved in.

1994

This was the first year my paper went to WalMart, which is strange considering WalMart opened around 1991 in Hampton. Took them three years to get there. Maybe the Newport News location was new in 1994. There was a $139 VCR on sale at WalMart if you got there at six am.

The Cracker Jack promo was back at Proffitt’s. I forgot that they had two separate stores in Coliseum Mall, because they took over the old Children’s Palace and Hess’s store. So if you needed women’s clothes and men’s clothes, you had to go clear across the mall for the men’s clothes.

Our Super KMart got a mention too.

1995

1995 feels like the first year that the discount stores beat the malls in popularity on Black Friday. Hills, which had just opened in Hampton was the the star in 1995. By January of 1997, they were toast. The store stayed vacant from 1997-2017 when an At Home store finally moved in.

My mom and I actually went to Coliseum Mall on Black Friday that year. The first time I had ever been to the stores that day. I don’t remember it being that crazy.

1995 was also the last year someone said they were excited to go to Montgomery Ward.

1996

Aw, weeks before Hills closed, and months after we got our first Target. Brenda forgot her shoes! Jeanie got her Tickle Me Elmo! Internet greetings at Patrick Henry Mall! People fought over a dinky gift bag at Target!:

I had that giant B1 from Bananas in Pajamas! I know I was too old for the Bananas, but I loved.that.show. It was so trippy!

The Talkboy was still around in 1996! I got mine the year before after getting a broken one in 1994 and not being able to find one in 1992,1993.

1997

Daily Press didn’t have the 1997 newspaper. So I cheated and used the Sun-Sentinel from Florida. I wonder how Florencia got all those packages back to Argentina.

1998

I saved this paper when I was 15! I’m surprised Montgomery Ward carried Furby.

1999

Barely any mall coverage in 1999, mostly focusing on stores like Toys R Us and the guy who hoarded all those monitors at CompUSA. Check out Carol and her walkie talkie!

412. Escalator Accident at Newmarket North Mall, May 8, 1989

I’m absolutely terrified of escalators. I don’t like the “up” escalator, because you’re going high up in the air, under no control of your own, you worry about falling over the side, even if you know you’re far too big to fall over the side. The “down” one scares me even more, seeing those all those little teeth on the edge of the stairs, ready to stab your body if you stumble while getting on the step. I know, I still have the scar on my knee from when I stumbled getting on a stair at the old Sears at the old Newmarket Fair Mall in ‘99.

Speaking of Newmarket, this is where this entry started. During this quarantine, I’ve been working on reviving my retail history blog. I have access to Proquest, so I’ve been getting newspaper articles about my two dead malls in the town I grew up in. I found one article about Newmarket that made me incredibly sad, realizing that I had walked by the site where a girl was killed because she was playing on an escalator so many times growing up.

(Daily Press, May 9, 1989)

This was before the mall was renovated into “Newmarket Fair” in 1990. I was five when this accident happened, so I didn’t even know there was a set of escalators there until I found the article.

(from my blog)

The escalators were replaced by a large glass paneled elevator and stairs during the renovations. Newmarket Fair stopped being a mall by the late 90s, and the anchor stores, and then eventually the smaller stores became offices in the early 00s. The building is now called Netcenter.

260. My not so average scares (inspired by The Purple Stuff Podcast)

A few days ago, I listened to the podcast that Dinosaur Dracula & The Sexy Armpit does, The Purple stuff. In this episode the two were discussing their not so average scares they had growing up in the 80s and 90s. I mentioned on twitter that it had me thinking about my own not so average scares, and sexy armpit said I should go for it.

The Viacom “V” at the end of syndicated programming.

Unfortunately, the Viacom “V” now belongs to the groups of people who obsess over closing logos. Before all that, there was this consensus online that this “love boat font” V was scary stuff. The downstairs bathroom at the house I spent most of my childhood in had this exact color scheme when we moved in. The previous owner tried doing some wall art, which involved this giant “V” shape in dark blue on a light blue wall.

The local “Crime line” segment on WVEC Channel 13.

I would be playing with my toys in the living room while mom and dad watched the news, during the week. I always had to run out of the room during the crime line segment. I think its called something like, “1-800-LOCK-U-UP” now, or crime stoppers? At the end, this “jail cell closing and locking” sound effect would play and it would scare me so bad that I would get a lump in my throat!

I’m mad I can’t find the actual clip from the 80s. All I found was a 1995 clip.

The glass railings at the old Newmarket North Mall in Hampton, VA.

(Daily Press, 1985)

I remember right before our family vacation to Ohio when I was six, mom was at Sears buying clothes, and dad and I were walking around the mall as we would. The mall was going through the renovations that would eventually kill it, and half of the railings were the new metal ones:

(my picture, 2005)

and I would get way too antsy when the new railings would end and the old all glass ones began. I didn’t like being able to see directly below into the first level. I was scared that I was going to fall! Either that, or I would think about what it would be like to fall down to the first level of the mall. A staircase was also installed where you could see through it and that also terrified me.

When our old dog, Thumper would leave chicken bones around the house.

Number one, why did mom give our dog Thumper chicken bones? It’s dangerous, and Thumper was like 14 years old. Number two, why did he hide them all over the house?! They reminded me of human bones, teeny tiny skeletons. All up in our study.

The dinosaur choir in the “give dough to the Ethyl show” scene on Dinosaurs.

Just the whole cut and pasteness of it all, and how they’re all moving in sync.

The broccoli backup singer in Cookie Monster’s “Healthy food” music video. Which is, by the way, one of the greatest songs of all time.

Look at her clinched face. Look at it.

Special Reports.

Breaking news graphics and the music still scares me. I included a screencap from a clip of the special report for Pan Am 103, the first big news story I have in my memories.

ABC’s early 80s special report graphics look like fire and death. (special reports or Air Florida Flight 90, which is also nightmare material).

20. The Most Horrifying Rescue 911 segments

I apologize if this entry looked “janky”, Tumblr’s rich text editor is not working right now, it will not let me save posts, so for this and the last post, I’ve had to type it all out in HTML to get it to save. HTML. Like it’s 2002.

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