Shopping Before Malls

Remember the world before malls? When I was growing up, we bought many things at small, local stores in Watertown. Between several independent drug stores and a couple of five and dimes, we could find much of what we needed right in here in our hometown, and several chain discount stores were just a short drive away. But when any of us had to do more serious shopping, particularly for clothes, we'd "go in town." That meant going into Downtown Boston where the large department stores were located.

Jordan Marsh and Filene's, the major stores, were located across the street from each other, and there were entrances to each from the Washington subway station underground. (That is the station now called Downtown Crossing.) When you needed new clothes, those were the places to go. These stores were so well-known and popular that when Jordan's Furniture was new, its commercials always said, "Not to be confused with Jordan Marsh." Ironically, the furniture store is still there; the department store is not.

When I was little, my mother and I would take the bus to Harvard Square and catch the train into town. I was never sure why, but my mother preferred Jordan's to Filene's, so we usually went there. For some reason I always enjoyed looking around in the Notions department; I don't know if stores even have those anymore. Jordan's had a restaurant on the top floor and we'd always go there for lunch, with me insisting on having one of their delicious pieces of chocolate cake.

Of course the original Filene's Basement was the best place to get bargains. I don't recall going there with my mother back then; for some reason she preferred Jordan's basement. But when I was in high school and college, I went there frequently. There were no dressing rooms back then; if you wanted to try something on, you had to do it out in the open right on the selling floor. When we went shopping there, my girlfriends and I would wear leotards as tops so we could still get an idea of how something would fit when we tried it on over one.

Then malls came along. Yes, there had already been malls for a while, but not that many and not that close to Watertown. Shopper's World in Framingham was actually one of the earliest malls in this country, but it was not a fully-enclosed mall.

The first time I was ever in a mall was one weekend in high school when I went camping with a friend and her family in Connecticut, and on Saturday afternoon they drove us to Springfield to a mall. At the time, it was an amazing thing to see. But the first mall I remember shopping at is the Burlington Mall, which I believe opened when I was in junior high. I remember when it was a new mall and we were excited to go there. I always found that mall to have a lot of good stores, but a car's needed to get there from here.

Then a mall came to Watertown. The Watertown Mall opened when I was in college. Though I wasn't in Watertown much during my college years, it was still great to have a mall so close to home. Though it was small, it was anchored by Bradlee's and Stop & Shop. Bradlee's seemed to have higher quality items than some other discount stores, and I was able to find many things, including clothing, there. Walgreen's was next to the supermarket and it was  great to have both a major supermarket and a drug store in the East End. (Since they moved out a number of years ago, we have neither.) The smaller stores in there have come and (mostly) gone, and now the Registry of Motor Vehicles takes up a big chunk of the mall.

In 1983 the Arsenal Mall opened right across the street in some buildings that were once a part of the Watertown Arsenal military facility. There was a huge Ann & Hope discount store that carried most anything you'd be looking for, and Marshall's and Filene's Basement were great off-price stores.

As the years have gone by and the retail landscape has changed, the malls in Watertown have been losing a lot of stores and are not what they used to be., With the possible exception of  Target, they tend to just be convenient places to pick up a few things rather than being destinations. For serious shopping, folks tend to go to the larger malls in the 'burbs, and in recent years more people have been enjoying the convenience of online shopping. I don't know if anybody "goes in town" anymore.