Monday, February 6, 2012

Tall Timbers Mall

Tall Timbers Mall is located at the corner of General De Gaulle Dr and Woodland Dr in Algiers LA. Tall Timbers Mall opened in the 1970's but I was unable to find out which year exactly. The stores featured here were Grant City which later became a Kmart, a furniture store, and General De Gaulle Storage. The Lionel Playworld opened in November 1980 and Schwegmanns grocery opened in 1973 were two other featured stores. Store spaces from 400 to 15000 square feet were available inside of the mall. The mall was very small and passed between the Grants/ Kmart and Schwegmann store, and the stores were located just past those two entrances. The Schwegmann entrance was located inside of the mall. When Schwegmanns closed in 1998 the mall traffic declined significantly and the mall corridor was closed off when the furniture store closed. The former Grants/ Kmart space is being used as a storage space. This is yet another mall that has very little online information, so any further comments that can help with the history of this mall are always appreciated.

2/8/12 some much appreciated comments from Ryan Smith on the mall.
There was an arcade directly to the left of the entrance to the mall with some games. A video store called "Mr. Video" was located directly across from the Schwegmanns entrance, and was the video store to go to before Blockbuster came into the New Orleans market. Also a Vietnamese store was in the back of the mall that sold food and liquor. There is also a link for the kids week that was held at Schwegmanns during the summer at http://buisness.highbeam.com/4524/article-1G1-6440204/kids-week-videos-play-well-stores
Thanks Ryan for the extra info about this mall.


The former Schwegmanns store
The mall entrance was located behind the bushes between the two buildings.

The Grants/ Kmart store is on the left and the mall entrance on the right.
The Grant/Kmart store
The former Schwegmanns Texaco station closed on an outparcel when the grocery store closed. When Schwegmanns liquidated gas here was less than a dollar even for premium gas!

19 comments:

  1. Wha, a mall with a super-sized grocery store AND a Kmart? I must be dreaming...it would be great if both had kept up to make this truly a one-stop shopping center.

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  2. Schwegmanns in itself was a huge grocery store that had many large stores in the metro New Orleans area. Schwegmanns was similar to the Fiesta chain in the way the stores were set up with small retail spaces inside of many Schwegmann stores. The Tall Timbers and Manhattan stores had a small mall and a Kmart across from the grocery store. Tall Timbers mall was larger than the Manhattan mall (which was demolished). Schwegmanns was the place to shop but the company folded because they acquired too many stores from the National chain that were in New Orleans and the debt was too much. Many stores had to be closed and the chain was taken over by an out of town company Kohlberg and Company LLC that folded in 1999.

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    1. The Chain actually folded because John was too interested in politics, and brought in middle management. Middle management is the quickest way to kill a successful business. Somewhere around 1984, Schwegmanns purchased a piece of land in Mississippi, for use as a camp ground for store supervisors, managers and their families. A well was sunk, and it turned out to be an artisan spring. John decided to bottle the water for sale. Back then only Kentwood and Abita were bottling water for sale in Louisiana. One day, the area supervisor, Mr. Miguel Medina, came up and ask me to fill the water shelves. While doing so, I had an idea that I shared with him, I said, "Mr Medina, the company would be smart to start bottling and selling their water in a single serving size." He replied to me, "Who'd buy it." That's when I knew the company was in trouble, sometime later, I finally quit, after 6 years of loyal service.

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    2. Middle management can add an extra layer of aggravation for employees, especially if they are micro-managed. I read a little bit about John Schwegmann going into politics, but it doesn't sound like he was successful. I remember the stores having inventory troubles in the mid 90's just before the stores were sold off. I went to a lot of closing sales and I wish I had taken photos. The only ones I have are posted here in the blog.

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  3. I think the video store might have been a Major Video. I could be wrong, but Major Video was the big chain in the New Orleans metro area. Are you aware of the Aurora Gardens mall in the same part of town? It was an interesting place that at one time had a good movie theater and some interesting stores.

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  4. I remember Aurora Gardens, but is it the same center as Aurora Village? I remember outdoor corridors with flowing water and a similar layout like a mall but it was not enclosed. The Walgreens was located there and moved down the street, and possibly the K&B was in the same center. Aurora Village is struggling now and has a high vacancy inside of the center. As far as the video store, the name escapes me after all of these years.

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  5. You know, I can't remember the exact name. It was Aurora "something." There was a cinema with six theaters, a cool independent bookstore, and a bunch of boutique-like stores. And yes, it was outdoors and had a lot of wood, plants, and water. Later in the 80s it had a good French restaurant. I looked on Google Maps last night and it seems Aurora Village was built where the place I'm remembering used to be. You can see a footprint of something behind the Winn Dixie.

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  6. Fond memories there. We lived in TT and were up there almost daily on our bikes. Schwegmann's had an ICEE machine at their customer service counter and we collected the NFL cups. There was also a shoe repair business in the mall. the owner was cool, he talked sports with us whenever we stopped by.

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  7. Thanks for sharing your experience at the mall. Has anything new happened at the property since early 2012 (my last visit)? I would like to see the mall reopened with a new grocery store, but it is unlikely with the length of time that property has been sitting there. You never know though the Canal Villere on Lapalco and Terry Pkwy. sat vacant for over 15 years and the property was renovated and brought back to life.

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  8. Unlikely, the area is unsafe to say the least. Sadly the westbank and especially Algiers has declined signifigantly over the years. That hurts to say because that was my home for many years and I have so many fond memories there but it will NEVER be the same. Too bad.

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  9. I did not know about the decline in the area. I moved away in the late 90's from New Orleans and I thought the area was doing better with all of the nearby commercial development on Gen De Gaulle and Behrman hwy in the past 15 years.

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  10. That area was so busy and happening when i moved to the neighborhood in 1977. There was never a fear for your safety, we walked up there or rode our bikes daily. It was a wonderful community and seeing it now it hardly seems like the same place we hung out at as children. I rode down Woodland by the side enterance to Tall Timbers and the streets haven't been repaired since the day they were poured. Sad.

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    1. The property has been largely abandoned for years and I was surprised that the old Texaco building was still standing. When they closed the Schwegmanns chain, they lowered the gas prices at this station and Gentilly to 79, 89, and 99 cents. I wish gas could be found for this price at least once a year, lol.

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  11. Which one of these was the Lionel Playworld?

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    1. I am not sure if there was a Lionel Playworld located here. The Schweggmann's was an original anchor and was never replaced after closing in the late 90's. The other anchor was a Grant's, later a Kmart, and a furniture store. I was unable to find the date of the Kmart closing but it was more than likely in the late 80's. I between the Kmart closing and the furniture store operating there in the early 90's I am not sure what the space was used for. The only Lionel Playworld store that I ever visited was on Airline.

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  12. I worked at Tall Timbers from 1979 till 1985, There was a Vietnamese Jewelry shop, a Shoe Repair Shop, and a small video arcade on the same side as Schwegmanns. As well as Schwegmanns Snack Bar, and vault room, where customers could cash paychecks, Social security Checks, Tax Returns and buy money orders. I remember when they use to page Ms. America to the garden supplies, all the men would be looking every which way to catch a glimpse. Ms. America was in actuality an older short Hispanic lady. Then, there was a bagger named Ms Bich.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your memories of the mall. I bet there was a lot of confused customers when those ladies were paged over the loudspeaker. Small malls like this one are basically what a Walmart is today.

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  13. For a time, I was the Gas Station Super Visor, it could be a dangerous place to work. It got so bad for a while, that one of my workers was beaten up during a daylight robbery. The workers refused to work unless I was there. So I was paid for about 3 weeks to sit on the hood of my station wagon and make sure my guys were not harassed. At the pumps, we had no phone, no radio, no pager, not even a panic button to let the store know if we had an emergency. We didn't even rate a Duty Officer! There was a red trash can on wheels chained to the roof upright, that contained a drop safe. Attendants were not suppose to keep more than $80 in bills for change. And we were not to take any bills larger than a $20. And had signs to that effect on the pumps and shacks. Yet, some jerk would always have to pull out a fifty of a hundred, then we had to shut down half the pumps and run inside to make change.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your memories of the gas station. I worked at a few gas stations in the city in the late 90's myself. We had the same policy of no $50's or $100's unless it was a large purchase. A couple of the stations I worked at had auto bays so we did get large tickets there. One of the stations I worked at was in a dangerous area so we would lock the doors at dark. The Ez-serve around the corner was constantly getting robbed and then our store started getting robbed in the day. Fortunately nobody got hurt in the robberies that I know of. That gas station flooded in Katrina and was eventually rebuilt as a quick service oil change place. I was able to leave that line of work thankfully after a couple of years. I was always scared especially on the weekends when we did not have the service bays open, and I was there alone. It is crazy to think that employees did not have any form of communication back in those days. That system of changing large bills sounds dangerous as well, that was not a quick walk from that station to the inside of the store.

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