The Fashion Center: Paramus, New Jersey on DeadMalls.com

THE FASHION CENTER: PARAMUS, NJ

Victor Moldovan's Commentary

Posted December 13, 2005 (user submitted)

The Fashion Center, in Paramus NJ was affluent Bergen County's first upscale mall. Completed in 1967, it was Paramus? 3rd shopping mall in 10 years, capitalizing on the proximity of New York City and New Jersey's exemption of sales tax on apparel.

Bergen County's first enclosed mall was small by today's standards at 480,000 square feet. Anchor stores were a 150,000 3-level Lord & Taylor on the north end and a 3- level 175,000 square feet B. Altman on the south end. The single level mall was tenanted to become a miniature Fifth Avenue. Stores in the mall included W&J Sloane (a high-end furniture retailer), Andrew Geller shoes, Rogers-Peet (later Brooks Brothers), Georg Jensen, Schraffts (a Fifth Avenue restaurant), Peck and Peck, and Ann Taylor (before its mass-market makeover).

The interior of the mall was chic and modern. Chandeliers of 14 karat gold chain punctuated the length of the mall. The center's small center court featured a fountain with an elegant curved staircase surrounding it that accessed the parking deck above the mall area.

The department stores in the mall were special as well. Lord & Taylor, in its pre-May Company era featured an up-market furniture department, home store and a restaurant all housed in an unusual dart-shaped building (see aerial view). B. Altman mirrored its landmark Fifth Avenue building with polished hardwood floors on the main level and a large chandelier in the center. The 2 upper floors housed men's and children's collections, extensive home store departments, a community room, bakery and a re-creation of it's famed Charleston Gardens restaurant on the 3rd floor.

In 1971, venerable Best & Company, another Fifth Avenue landmark began building a 2 story 60,000 store on an out-parcel near B. Altman. Before its completion, the chain went bankrupt and was replaced with a Britt's department store which lasted less than 2 years before closing its doors. Altman's moved its furniture and design studio into this building in the late 70's until its demise. The mall prospered until the late 80's when the B. Altman chain closed. For decades, Altman's operated with a special tax-exempt status as profits from the chain's operations were rumored to be passed to the Archdiocese of New York. Altman's suffered when the tax-exempt status was removed and closed shortly after.

Competition included the late 70's construction of upscale Riverside Square in neighboring Hackensack flanked by an existing Bloomingdales and a new Saks Fifth Avenue along with an assortment of 70 upscale stores. Further south along Paramus? Route 17, Paramus Park was opened in 1973 with an Abraham and Straus (now Macy's), Sears and Fortunoff. Even further south, the vast Garden State Plaza complex was enlarged and renovated to over 2,000,000 square feet and included Macy's (one of the chain's largest stores), Nordstrom, JC Penney, Neiman-Marcus and yet another Lord & Taylor.

The Fashion Center's slow demise as a destination center came with the re-tenanting of the B. Altman building. Bed, Bath & Beyond moved into the main floor and new escalators accessed the second level which now houses TJ Maxx. The former home store building was re-constructed as a Toys R Us. Meanwhile, W&J Sloane closed, and most of the other upscale tenants followed suit. The south end of the mall was further desecrated when it was removed to house Best-Buys that now runs the width of the mall.

The Lord & Taylor store still exists in its location, but several years ago closed its mall entrance. It can now only be accessed from the parking areas. Now owned by Federated Department stores, its future is questionable as Federated ponders the fate of the once-venerable chain.

Dan Jackson’s Commentary:

User submitted Apr 2008

2 parts to this.. the first part is what I could find on the net, the 2nd part is my own recollection about this mall.

Part 1)

Hollywood Fashion Center was a shopping mall located at the corner of Pines Boulevard (Florida State Road 820) and US 441 in Hollywood, Florida. The mall opened in 1972, and had four anchor stores. (The mall is often mistaken for being the location from where Adam Walsh was abducted in 1981.. that was actually the Sears in Hollywood Mall a few miles away).

With the opening of Pembroke Lakes Mall in nearby Pembroke Pines, Florida in 1992, most of the anchor stores in the Fashion Center moved to the bigger stores at Pembroke Lakes Mall. The mall closed in 1993, but for a brief period from 2002-2004 it served as an indoor flea market until it was discovered many of the booths were selling stolen wares. It has been closed since then. However, the building itself still stands today.

Part 2... my own thoughts)

This mall used to be the place where most of my friends and I would hang out as kids. Some of the stores I remember this mall containing were (among many others) Giggles (a joke store, closed in the lat 80's), Barefoot Mailman (same deal.. sort of a cross between Giggles and Spencer Gifts.. I think this store opened briefly after Giggles closed), a Spencer Gifts (which opened after Barefoot Mailman died a quick death), Jordan Marsh, Burdines, JC Penny, Sears, an Orange Julius, a Waldenbooks, and my favorite hangout, Alladin's Castle, a small but venerable video arcade that lay at the mall's old west main entrance, facing Hollywood Blvd.

I also seem to recall this place having a food court that was less than appetizing to eat in.

I had moved out of town in the early 90's, but would occasionally come back to visit friends, and it was sad watching this mall slowly die... I think one of the last things to remain open in the mall was the Alladin's Castle... aside from that and one or 2 other stores, the place was a ghost-mall for a while.. it was actually kinda creepy walking through that place toward the end, until finally they closed the doors for good in 1993.

Directly across from the mall was a shopping plaza that contained, among other things an old abandoned movie theater (closed in the early 80's, went unused for years), a Circus Playhouse (sort of a low rent Chuckie Cheese knockoff, closed in 1991 or 2) and a bowling alley, a pawn show (gone), a highly dubious and unkempt drug store (long gone), as well as a Toys R Us (also closed now). Most of this area of Hollywood died, along with the mall, in the early 90's as more and more people (with higher incomes) moved further and further west, to Pembroke Pines and finally Weston, as Broward County pushed further and further toward the everglades, leaving may Hollywood retail areas to wither.

The mall was abandoned for about 10 whole years, then was converted to a flea market... I only went there once but it depressed me enough to never go back there. I barely recognized the place, as the interior stores had mostly been ripped out and replaced with cheesy flea-marketeers. I recall the entrance of the new "Flea Market" had a very weird and out of place life size statue of the Blues Brothers right at the entrance (in front of where the arcade used to be).

Anyway, it looks like the mall is destined to be abandoned again for an indefinite time again. Perhaps it's time to finally demolish the site and put the place out of it's misery.