Northway, Mohawk, and More

[d_fife]

Albany is overmalled they have 5 malls (crossgates mall in guilderland on the albany line, colonie centre, rotterdam square mall, clifton park mall and latham circle mall, and from what I heard had mohawk mall and northway mall). WHY ARE THERE 5 malls. well Albany has 95,000 people, troy has 55,000 people and schenectady has 61,000 people and there is niskayuna with 17,000 people, guilderland with 32,000 people, rotterdam with 22,000 people, scotia, glenmont, greenbushes. but troy and schenectady were dumpy cities. Another reason why Albanyt is over stored is because it is the capitol and it is on the crossroads of 87 and 90 (which go to Buffalo/syracuse/rochester/cleveland heading west, boston / worcester / springfield heading east, new york city heading south and montreal heading north).

HERe is how I rate the Albany malls in order as best to worst.

1. Crossgates mall (THAT IS BIG ANd has a lot of good stores, I know that it draws people all the way from 150 miles) but it has JC PEnny, macy's, a now closed filene's, a closed lord and taylor, macy's that was Jordan marsh,  dick's is in the first filene's, best buy that is the former Caldor, a 18 screen cinema and a former 12 screen cinema, Coeh's in the first filene's and was nobody beats the Wiz, a coming soon borders in from what I head the old TJ MAXX, pizzeria uno, Old navy, H&m, BAily's Fitness Center and has 230 stores and got expanded 10 yeras after it opened and does anyone remember crossgates first 10 yeras. The disney store here is classy. I hope something is done to the old lord and taylor and the divesture of the filene's/macy's merger. I heard it was built in 1984 and expanded 1984 and 80-100 more stores got added, the mall must have been remodeled and I heard JC penny was expanded. they have a huge big box plaza across the street. I HEARD THIS MALL WAS GOING TO BE EXPANDED TO BE the 2ned largest mall in the US, but that idea was done away with.

2. Colonie Centre (That is  big and classy, but not as big as crossgates, but it has X-mas tree shops and I heard it was the first mall around albany, but they have kept up unlike other malls). it has sears, macy's, x-mas tree shops, a HUGE FYE WITH A CLERANCE CENTER, boscov's, steve's sportswear and 120 stores and I heard it will get a cheesecacke factory, a cinema and a relocated barnes and noble and this will be the mall's 2nd expansion and I heard there was an original macy's and a steinbach. THIS MALL IS 3 miles from crossgates and both have macy's. why 3 miles apart and both colonie and crossgates are 2 levels, but crossgates is bigger than colonie.  iheard it was  built in 1966 and this mall is surounded by a lot of national chains and restuarants that started in their first locations around albany.

3. Rotterdam mall. (this mall is moderate) IT has the 80s design, but it has decent stores and it said coming soon hot topic when I went. I heard it was built in 1988. it has K-mart, FIlene's that was Hess' and will become Macy's, Seasr and TJ maxx. the mall has like 80 something stores. This mall is OK, but not as good as crossgates. This mall is like 15 minutes from crossgates.

4. Clifton park center (this mall is getting on the pathetic side). IT had ROWS OF VACANT STORES adn a vacant anchor. I asked someone what that vacant stoer is and I was told STeinbach, which closed in 1999. This mall is 10 miles from colonie. IT still has a food court and fye. It has a modernized boscov's from what I heard was Caldor, JC PEnny, mega marshalls. I heard the mall was epxanded in 1984 a little and got remodernized in 2000, but it seems the REMODELING DID NOT HELP as there are still many vacant stores and I know the KB here is gone.

5. LATHAm circle mall (THIS MALL IS BY FAR THE WORST IN THE ALBANY AREA) There is no reason this one should exist. It has many vacant stores and many lackluster stores. The mall has a funny smell and the way to get in is confusing. It has a Lowe's from what I heard was caldor, ground round and gold's gym, a small JCPEnny, burlington coat and a cinema. But this mall is like 4 miles from colonie centre!!!!!!! the mall is in latham which is sa part of colonie and the colonie centre is in colonie. I wonder what will be done to this mall. it is 7-8 miles from clifton park too and why do both have JC PEnny.

the albany area has 7 kmarts (Scotia, rotterdam, clifton park, colonie, latham, glenmont and rensealler), 8 wal-marts (halfmoon/clifton park, north greenbush, troy, latham, albany, scotia, rotterdam, glenmont) and 5 targets (colonie, latham which is new and 3-4 MILES FROM THE COLONIE ONE!!, north greenbush, niskayuna on the schenectady line and 6 miles from the colonie one! and halfmoon/clifton park).

but latham is a part of colonie and there is a shopping strip in both colonie and latham, meaning colonie technically has 2 targets and 2 kmarts and 2 malls and 2 staples and 3 officemaxs. I saw 2 officemaxs within two miles in colonie and a closed one in latham.

here are malls that were aroudn albany:

mohawk mall and I wonder what thas like and I heard it waas the size as clifton park, but what was northway like?

[Caldor1999]

albany is a big city thats why theres alot of malls amagney how many mall new your city must have or Los ageles or Chaigo

[d_fife]

Originally posted by Caldor1999
albany is a big city thats why theres alot of malls amagney how many mall new your city must have or Los ageles or Chaigo

but albany only has 95,000 people. manchster nh does not have that many malls.  syracuse with 145,000 people only had 3- carousel (Which was the same as crossgates) great northern and shoppingtown. it only had 2 targets around the area, 4 wal-marts and 3 kmarts.

my town plymouth nh has none. I do not know how many LA or chicago do have but I know that they probably have a lot. I realize NYC has a lot and 2 huge ones 3 miles from each other: palasides and naunet mall, and it has yonkers, white plains, lots in the city, jefferson valley, garden city, valley stream etc.

[powersbt]

Originally posted by d_fife

Originally posted by Caldor1999
albany is a big city thats why theres alot of malls amagney how many mall new your city must have or Los ageles or Chaigo

but albany only has 95,000 people. manchster nh does not have that many malls.  syracuse with 145,000 people only had 3- carousel (Which was the same as crossgates) great northern and shoppingtown. it only had 2 targets around the area, 4 wal-marts and 3 kmarts.

my town plymouth nh has none. I do not know how many LA or chicago do have but I know that they probably have a lot. I realize NYC has a lot and 2 huge ones 3 miles from each other: palasides and naunet mall, and it has yonkers, white plains, lots in the city, jefferson valley, garden city, valley stream etc.

Just a couple of comments here. First off, Syracuse had more than 3 Malls. It was Carousel Mall mostly that drove the other ones out. One Mall in particular Penn-Can Mall was one of these. Now a Car Auto Mall, it was a big Deal during the early 80's. There were 2 or 3 others. So yes, Syracuse had quite a few Malls.

Also, it seemed to me when I went to Clifton Park Last year, that it was a distance from Albany. Not too sure why you counted it as an Albany Mall. But anyways, if Albany can support the Malls, then population numbers doesn't mean much.

[amesman]

Actually, Albany has six area malls. You forgot Wilton Mall. And, Albany is not overmalled by any means. You should've seen Syracuse about 6 years ago. 7 malls. And Syracuse is smaller than Albany. Plus, Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs are all part of the Capital District, and there's about a million people living in the capital district. There used to be 9 malls, but three of them closed and were converted to shopping plazas(Mohawk, Northway, and Saratoga Malls).

[d_fife]

Originally posted by amesman
Actually, Albany has six area malls. You forgot Wilton Mall. And, Albany is not overmalled by any means. You should've seen Syracuse about 6 years ago. 7 malls. And Syracuse is smaller than Albany. Plus, Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs are all part of the Capital District, and there's about a million people living in the capital district. There used to be 9 malls, but three of them closed and were converted to shopping plazas(Mohawk, Northway, and Saratoga Malls).

but wilton mall is like 25 to 30 miles from albany and that is far enough away to not count as a mall around albany. I also went to the Aviation mall twice one 2 years ago and once last summer. clifton park mall is like 15 miles and that is the borderline of not counting. I went to the wilton mall and it was medium sized. WHAT WAS THE SARATOGA MALL LIKE? and the mohawk and northway malls like?

how overmalled was syracuse?! I would love to know. I bet the carousel mall did drive did drive the others away. IT IS AN AWESOME MALL!!!

[powersbt]

Originally posted by d_fife

Originally posted by amesman
Actually, Albany has six area malls. You forgot Wilton Mall. And, Albany is not overmalled by any means. You should've seen Syracuse about 6 years ago. 7 malls. And Syracuse is smaller than Albany. Plus, Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs are all part of the Capital District, and there's about a million people living in the capital district. There used to be 9 malls, but three of them closed and were converted to shopping plazas(Mohawk, Northway, and Saratoga Malls).

but wilton mall is like 25 to 30 miles from albany and that is far enough away to not count as a mall around albany. I also went to the Aviation mall twice one 2 years ago and once last summer. clifton park mall is like 15 miles and that is the borderline of not counting. I went to the wilton mall and it was medium sized. WHAT WAS THE SARATOGA MALL LIKE? and the mohawk and northway malls like?

how overmalled was syracuse?! I would love to know. I bet the carousel mall did drive did drive the others away. IT IS AN AWESOME MALL!!!

Well, I think a list of the Malls that are/were in Syracuse was in order.

Just a little tidbit of info. The first and only time I went to Great Northern mall in Clay was on 9/11. It was after I got off of work, went up there with my gf at the time. Talk about weird. 2/3rds of the stores shut down because of it, and in the stores that did remain open, the employees were not too enthused to be there.

Now that I think about it, once the news broke about 9/11 at work that day, they set a TV up in the breakroom, and employees were huddled around it all day. Most people on the clock there, pretty much did nothing during their shift, and nobody cared that they did. Just one of those things that you'll always remember where you were and what you were doing on that day.

[amesman]

Originally posted by d_fife

Originally posted by amesman
Actually, Albany has six area malls. You forgot Wilton Mall. And, Albany is not overmalled by any means. You should've seen Syracuse about 6 years ago. 7 malls. And Syracuse is smaller than Albany. Plus, Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs are all part of the Capital District, and there's about a million people living in the capital district. There used to be 9 malls, but three of them closed and were converted to shopping plazas(Mohawk, Northway, and Saratoga Malls).

but wilton mall is like 25 to 30 miles from albany and that is far enough away to not count as a mall around albany. I also went to the Aviation mall twice one 2 years ago and once last summer. clifton park mall is like 15 miles and that is the borderline of not counting. I went to the wilton mall and it was medium sized. WHAT WAS THE SARATOGA MALL LIKE? and the mohawk and northway malls like?

how overmalled was syracuse?! I would love to know. I bet the carousel mall did drive did drive the others away. IT IS AN AWESOME MALL!!!

Wilton Mall is in Saratoga Springs, which is the northern "anchor" city of the capital district, or Albany Metropolitan area. As Saratoga is its own city, it is still commpnly referred to as part of the Albany area.

[BillyGr]

See diagram - Diagram is not to scale, but gives a general idea of positions.

Northway was a fairly simple mall (at least the main part).  There was a main entrance at the center which lead into a hallway that went straight in.  It then intersected a hallway across, which to the right ended at Wards and to the left the other end (no large store - would have ended about where the dots are).  Later on the left end of the mall was added, when first opened it was called an "Off Price Center".

Had the Wards, Woolworth (which was one of only two in this area (that I know of) to have a separate restaurant - the rest mostly smaller stores (Anderson Little next to Wards at one point, later on there was Kids R Us taking the whole "inside" part of the left end end.  No food court, the only eating places were Woolworth's and an Ario's (pizza) place in the main hallway (1/2way in on right).
Of course there were all the separate buildings (the Chuck E Cheese(now Staples), the Silo (now David's Bridal), the movie theater and Alpert's Furniture (Later Lechemere, both currently vacant and ready to be demolished for Lowes).
By the way, the mall was basically "flat" across the front - I don't really remember the left spot (marked by *), but the right had a couple storefronts that had only exterior access (one was a pet place for a while, the other a dentist office).
Another unusual part was that next to Wards was a small chapel, which still exists today (they moved to the Wolf Road Shoppers Park when the mall was being closed & demolished).
All parking for the mall was in front (and a bit at the end of Wards where their auto center was located) - there were (and still are) some marked spots behind the mall, but they were rarely used, probably only by employees at busy times, as there was no mall entrance from back there.


On the other hand, Mohawk was a much more complicated building.  Here, you could park all the way around.

The two main entrances were from the front (left & right) - at the "left" entrance you had Price Chopper (which later was divided into Fays(Eckerd) and Paper Cutter).  A little further down was Present Company (a catalog showroom like Service Merchandise) - this left early on and was never filled (at least not on a permanent basis).  In the "back corner" was a Bradlees (they also had an outside entrance to the back parking lot).  This one closed about the same time as the others in the area (Latham & Troy - HVCC).  If you came in the "right" entrance, most of the space to your right was a Wards store.  The left side had a Ground Round (I think) and further down a hallway that led to restrooms & offices in the "unused" space that would occur bewtween wings.
At the corner was a small theater, I believe (wouldn't have had many screens - maybe 6 at most?).

Connecting these hallways was a lateral hall - in the center of this (shown by the multi-sided spot in the middle of the diagram) the hallway stopped abruptly, you had to go left or right, then another right (or left) which would take you up (or down) a ramp (up coming from Wards, down coming from Bradlees) and then make another right left (or left right) to get back to the straight hallway.  You could also take steps through the court (unless they had holiday decor or something there).  On both sides of this court were two more anchors, one bieng the Boston Store (later Media Play) - this was toward the "front" of the mall.  The other is a mystery store, into which Marshalls later moved (from the small plaza next door).  Both of these were the last tenants when the mall was demolished, and the rest of the mall was torn down around them, then Marshalls moved to a new storefront (MP closed about this time) so they coulkd finish tearing down the mall.  Just above the court was Woolworths (which happened to be the other one with a separate restaurant).

The rest of the spots were filled with normal small stores, including in later times a couple (REX comes to mind) that had only exterior entrances on the front parking lot.  They also didn't hava food court, just the Ground Round, the Woolworths, an Arby's (I think) - in the left entry hall, a McDonalds at one point (at the corner so labelled) and a late entry, Hot Dog Charlies and something else (on the opposite corner from McD's, which was gone by then.  Also, can't forget the snack place in the middle of the hall.


While having Northway & Colonie Center across from each other seems odd, it really wasn't (of course Colonie was much smaller at one point also, only Sears, Macy's and smaller shops, the mall itself extending just from where the "front" of Sears is to the front of Macy's, which would have been about where the lower level restroom hallway is (not too far past Friendly's).  And Colonie had Sears/Macy's while Northway had Wards/Woolworth.

Again, with Mohawk & Rotterdam, the stores didn't overlap (Mohawk with Woolworth, Wards, Bradlees, Boston Store and Rotterdam with Kmart, Sears and Filenes).  One (probable) reason that Mohawk and Northway fell apart and the other two didn't is that they both lost their anchors (due to the chains going out, not moving or whatever).

Here's a story that shows what the plans are for Clifton (Country Mall) Park Center by the new owners.

http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2006/04/17/story8.html?hbx=e_sw

Saratoga (the original) had Wards, Jamesway, Service Merchandise and others I don't remember - again it was the older mall (in this case right next to) the Wilton mall and lost the anchors (some fairly close in succession).  That area is kind of on the edge of being considered Albany area - not that folks might not go down to Crossgates or something, but probably not regularly (they have most of the same stuff there, especially in other stores like Target, WalMart, grocery, drug stores, etc.).

[amesman]

wasn't the two "X" locations on the Northway mall diagram the old  Marshalls and the old Jo-Ann Fabrics?

[BillyGr]

Originally posted by amesman
wasn't the two "X" locations on the Northway mall diagram the old  Marshalls and the old Jo-Ann Fabrics?

No, and maybe (probably).

Marshalls was in the far back left corner (as far as I remember) from when that part of the mall opened until it was closed.  They were "absent" for a bit until they re-opened in the new strip (unlike Mohawk where they demolished "around them".

Jo-Ann may have been (now that you mention it, I think was) in the spot marked by the right hand X at one point - later on they moved into a corner of the front of Wards (kind of at the far right end of the building) and had both exterior doors and an entrance from Wards.  That was probably when that part was turned into the pet/dentist office.  They also had a temporary store in the back end of the Staples building (it's now a 99 Cent store) during the remodelling until their current building was ready.

Thinking again, I believe there was some kind of (local, not chain) restaurant to the left of the main entrance with only exterior access - but can't remember what it was.  Had forgotten about that one.

[amesman]

I remember driving in front of this mall when I was about 7 years old. That was 10 years ago now, but I remember Marshalls, Jo Ann Fabrics, and Wards very clearly, and seeing the main entrance with the inner hallway inside. If my memory serves me correctly(which sometimes it doesn't..hehe), I remember the Marshalls and Jo Ann Fabrics both having exterior entrances. I also remember seeing Lechmere too. It was at night also, which was cool.

[BillyGr]

Originally posted by amesman
I remember driving in front of this mall when I was about 7 years old. That was 10 years ago now, but I remember Marshalls, Jo Ann Fabrics, and Wards very clearly, and seeing the main entrance with the inner hallway inside. If my memory serves me correctly(which sometimes it doesn't..hehe), I remember the Marshalls and Jo Ann Fabrics both having exterior entrances. I also remember seeing Lechmere too. It was at night also, which was cool.

Jo Ann would have worked in either site, as they had exterior exntrances in both locations.  I don't remember Marshall's being anyplace else, but I can't be totally sure (as I can't rembmer what was on the side where Kids R Us wound up - I know it was 2 or 3 stores prior to that).  Also, it seems that they may have, at some point, put up signs on the front to show some of the stores that were farther in, and Marshalls certainly would have been one of those - so maybe if there was a sign, even over that left hand entryway, it might have looked as though it was a direct entrance into the store, even if it wasn't?

A couple other thoughts that have come up - just to the left of the main entrance was some kind of bank (I think on the right side also) which had an entry from the outside as well - still seems like there was a restaurant as well, but can't think of what.


So, from left to right - Famous Shoes, mall entrance, other store (later KRU), restaurant, bank#1, main entry, bank #2?, JoAnn (later pets/dentist), Wards, later JoAnn (or something like that).

[amesman]

yeah, I must have saw the left entrance with the Marshalls logo over it, and mistook it for a Marshalls entrance instead of a mall entrance.

[BillyGr]

Another thought to add - while the malls mentioned here (Crossgates, Colonie Center, Rotterdam Square, Clifton Park Center, Wilton Mall plus the (now) former Latham Circle, Northway, Saratoga and Mohawk are all in one of three counties (Albany, Schenectady or Saratoga), to get the full picutre you need to look at the surrounding areas.

Rensselaer County (where Troy is) has no mall of any sort.  Neither does Columbia County (south of Rensselaer), Greene (South of Albany) or Washington (north of Rensselaer).  All have stores, but no "Mall".  In addition, many residents of these areas work in or near Albany, which gets them used to heading that way and they continue to do so for shopping as well.
While some parts of those have other mall options (Southern Columbia & Greene may go towards Kingston or Poughkeepsie, parts of Washington may head to Queensbury and Aviation Mall or towards Rutland, Vermont) the general tendency is to head towards the Albany/Schenectady/Saratoga areas for the mall shopping, which adds quite a bit to the population that accesses these malls.  Rotterdam may also gain a bit from the west (Amsterdam area) as well. 
Thus these malls serve a much larger area than just the counties they are in (unlike some other areas where malls are much more frequently located around a city or state).

Albany is overmalled they have 5 malls (crossgates mall in guilderland on the albany line, colonie centre, rotterdam square mall, clifton park mall and latham circle mall, and from what I heard had mohawk mall and northway mall). WHY ARE THERE 5 malls. well Albany has 95,000 people, troy has 55,000 people and schenectady has 61,000 people and there is niskayuna with 17,000 people, guilderland with 32,000 people, rotterdam with 22,000 people, scotia, glenmont, greenbushes. but troy and schenectady were dumpy cities. Another reason why Albanyt is over stored is because it is the capitol and it is on the crossroads of 87 and 90 (which go to Buffalo/syracuse/rochester/cleveland heading west, boston / worcester / springfield heading east, new york city heading south and montreal heading north).

Actually, Albany has six area malls. You forgot Wilton Mall. And, Albany is not overmalled by any means. You should've seen Syracuse about 6 years ago. 7 malls. And Syracuse is smaller than Albany. Plus, Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs are all part of the Capital District, and there's about a million people living in the capital district. There used to be 9 malls, but three of them closed and were converted to shopping plazas(Mohawk, Northway, and Saratoga Malls).