For myself and many kids who grew up in the Cicero and North Syracuse areas (in
Central New York), Penn Can Mall was the coolest place to hang out in the 80s.
When someone asked if you wanted to hang out after school, it was a given that
they were talking about The Mall. The only question would be where in Penn Can to meet
- Pavones, Great Games, or THE CLOCK? While this mall was enjoyed by Central New
Yorkers of all ages, I was a teenager during most of my visits. Subsequently,
most of the commentary on this site comes from my perspective at that time.
ABOUT THE
SITE:
When I was a teenager, I brought my video camera to The Mall a couple of times.
Personal video cameras were fairly new back then and it seemed like I always had
mine with me, trying to document all of the important (and not so important)
events in my life. In 2002, I brought my newer, smaller video camera to the site
of the former Penn Can Mall to try and film the building before it was torn
down. I ended up getting a 2 hour tour of the inside of The Mall and got to film
almost every store inside and out. This site started as a way to document both
my old video tapes and the new one from 2002. It keeps growing as more people
check out the site and send me things, or as I find more interesting stuff about
The Mall. So, check back every once in awhile to see what may have been added to
the site, because I don't think it'll ever be completely "done".
SITE UPDATES
-
May 5, 2012 - Special 10th Anniversary Sale for
May, 2012 on the
Penn Can Mall 2002 Dead Mall Tour DVD!
-
September 5, 2011 - Add a news report about Penn
Can Mall from 1976 to the
Video Clips
section.
-
February 17, 2010 -
Added a new review to the
2002 "Dead Mall Tour" DVD section.
-
June 22, 2009 - Added
a new
section containing photos from Jerry Mather's (from Leave It To
Beaver) 1984 Penn Can Mall appearance.
-
May 4, 2009 - Added a new Penn Can Mall
commercial to the
Video Clips
section.
-
March 11, 2009 - The videos on this site are
back up.
-
February 18, 2009 - The videos on this site are
temporarily unavailable. For more information, please
click
here to go to the blog.
-
January 12, 2009 - Added an ad from 1988,
featuring a complete list of stores, to the
Classic
Photos - Page 12 section.
-
December 14, 2008 - A different version of the
NBC Peacock Shop at Penn Can Mall commercial has been added to the the
Mall Related
Video Clips section.
-
August 2, 2008
- I've added a video trailer and a new review to the
2002 "Dead Mall Tour" DVD section.
MALL HISTORY
- History of Penn Can Mall - A detailed history of The Mall from it's beginning until today.
- Penn
Can Mall Interactive Map - Click on any store and see its information
and photos (requires Flash).
- Penn Can Mall
floor maps - Floor maps, with lists of stores, from 1976, 1981, 1986
and
the early 1990s.
- List of stores - From the Dickman Directory, a list of all of the stores in The Mall from a couple of different years.
- Newspaper articles - A history of The Mall as seen thru various Syracuse newspaper articles from 1967 to 2002.
- David Hepp interview - David was the caretaker of The Mall from 1989 to 2001.
- 2007 Update
- I took several photos in February of 2007 to show how The Mall looks
today.
CLASSIC PHOTOS & VIDEO CAPTURES
- Classic photos - page 1 - Classic photos from 1974 and 1976 sent in by Mike Hepp.
- Classic photos - page 2 - More classic photos sent in by Mike Hepp, this time from
1979 to 1993.
- Classic photos - page 3 - More classic photos from the late 1970s.
- Classic photos - page 4 - Classic photos from the 1970s until 1990, including appearances by Ernie, Bert, Susan & Gordon (Sesame Street) and Winnie The Pooh.
- Classic photos - page 5 - Classic store front photos from 1976. The photos in this and the following section are posted "in order", as one would walk thru The Mall.
- Classic photos - page 6 - More classic store front photos from 1976.
- Classic photos - page 7 - Even more classic photos from 1976.
- Classic photos - page 8 - Some classic
photos of the offices and some sidewalk sales from the 80s.
- Classic photos - page 9 - From the 80s - the adventures of Robutler and a fashion show.
- Classic photos - page 10 - Various photos from the 70s to the 90s.
- Classic photos - page 11 - More Robutler photos and some various shots from 1976.
- Classic photos - page 12 - Some outside photos from the 80s and a photo of Hills during construction.
- Jerry Mathers
Mall Appearance - Some photos from the Leave It To Beaver star's 1984
mall appearance.
- Cicero Town Historian Scans -
Great newsletters sent out in 1976 to promote the opening of the mall, as
well as some newspaper articles from the same era.
- Hanging Out At
The Mall - Photos sent in by former mall rat Don Stroup.
- Newspaper archive photos - Archive & aerial photos sent in by the producer of the NBC Peacock Shop commercial (see below).
- NBC Peacock Shop commercial - 11/88 - Video captures from this great commercial of a shop in Penn Can Mall. Thanks to Kelly K. for finding this on an old video tape.
- Ham & Jeff go to The Mall - 12/3/88 - In the next several sections, the video captures were taken from some of my old video tapes and were filmed by kids with shaky hands, so please excuse the quality of some of these photos. This first group is from the Christmas season of 1988.
- Ham, John & Jeff go to The Mall - 6/30/89 - It was summertime,
and we were hanging out at The Mall - it didn't get much better than that.
- Ham & Brian go to The Mall - 11/29/89 - Christmas season at The Mall, this time in 1989.
- Ham & Scott go to Pavones - 10/18/91 - The Mall had started it's decline, and many of the stores were
gone, but we were still hanging out at our favorite pizza place.
- Penn Can Mall Around
The World - Send in photos of yourself wearing a Penn Can Mall shirt
(see above) in front of a local landmark and I will post them on this page.
- Syracuse
Nostalgia Blog - site updates, random thoughts, leave your own comments
-
Syracuse Nostalgia Facebook page - site updates, random thoughts, leave
your own comments
- Guestbook
- Leave your comments about Penn Can Mall or this site.
- Forum -
Share your memories not only about Penn Can Mall, but about the entire
Central New York area.
- MySpace
Group - Join the official Penn Can Mall MySpace group.
- E-mail - Contact me if you
have any Penn Can Mall or Syracuse related merchandise (photos, documents,
video, audio, etc.) you'd like to share with the site, or if you have any
comments or questions about the site.
LOOKING FOR PENN
CAN MALL STUFF:
If anyone has any photos, videos, merchandise or
information about Penn Can Mall or the Syracuse area please send an e-mail to the
address below. I collect anything I can find about The Mall, but if you have
something you don't want to part with perhaps you could send in a photo of the
item for the site. Please check
out my other site,
Syracuse Nostalgia, which includes many photos plus video and audio clips
from the Syracuse area.
UPDATE: I have been searching for a copy of the Penn Can Mall opening day
festivities which were broadcast on WFBL on March 25, 1976. If anyone has a copy
of this, or has any ideas where I should look, please send me an e-mail. Click
here for more information about the opening day events.
