Fairlane Town Center

[Zacha341]

I like Sears, though I use stamps and the US mail to pay all bills or do it over the phone with my debit card... even before gas prices went zonkers I never understood 'going' into a store to pay a credit bill. Unless I happen to be shopping there and the bill was due.

[D_Town]

BTW, Godiva closed at that mall. But they actually have a few national retailers opening up there.

I hope one day Nordstrom will open at Fairlane since they have 3 stores north of Detroit, but none south of the City.

[Funaho]

I too had my first job at Fairlane, working at the Babbage's from 1990 until 1992 or so. It was just starting to get a little rough back then. There were numerous incidents at the Footlocker across the hall from us, including one rather violent one that involved a brutal beating with a baseball bat.

I used to love that hologram store...can't remember the name. Is it still there?

[DetroitPlanner]

I too had my first job at Fairlane, working at the Babbage's from 1990 until 1992 or so. It was just starting to get a little rough back then. There were numerous incidents at the Footlocker across the hall from us, including one rather violent one that involved a brutal beating with a baseball bat.

How would you get a bat into the mall? By that time Herman's and Schniders were closed and Sear's Sports department had pretty much fizzled into fooseball and weights.

[RO_Resident]

Didn't MC Sports last into the mid 90's at Fairlane? You could have got a bat there.

[rjk]

Did it look something like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu6LUQViYTo

[DetroitPlanner]

Didn't MC Sports last into the mid 90's at Fairlane? You could have got a bat there.

Ahh I forgot about that place! 2nd floor by Lord and Taylor! Maybe so! I seem to remember it being a dunhams though I could be wrong.

[jackie5275]

Ahh I forgot about that place! 2nd floor by Lord and Taylor! Maybe so! I seem to remember it being a dunhams though I could be wrong.

You're right. It was a Dunham's.

[Ridiculous]

Used to love riding the monorail over to the Ponch... Was too little to ice skate.

Oh, and does anyone remember what the name of the hobby shop right by the monorail door was?


How about when Lakeside used to have the indoor waterslide?

[iheartthed]

Didn't MC Sports last into the mid 90's at Fairlane? You could have got a bat there.

Wasn't it called MC Sporting Goods? Is that the same as MC Sports? I haven't seen one in a long time but the MC Sports logo looks different from what I remember.

[Gannon]

Used to love riding the monorail over to the Ponch... Was too little to ice skate.

Oh, and does anyone remember what the name of the hobby shop right by the monorail door was?


How about when Lakeside used to have the indoor waterslide?

Not the Ponch, the Hyatt Regency!


Was it called Lobby Hobby?!


Fairlane used to have a multi-level waterfall, too...not a waterslide, but that didn't keep some from jumping into it. At least twice while I worked there, some jokers put bubble bath or laundry detergent into it...and it foamed like crazy. A few years later, it was shut down and sealed over...



Cheers

[XDetroitr]

Ah... the memories... I sold shoes at the Wild Pair in the early '80s when I was going to school at HFCC. Spent a lot of my earnings at Chess King.

[DetroitPlanner]

Ah... the memories... I sold shoes at the Wild Pair in the early '80s when I was going to school at HFCC. Spent a lot of my earnings at Chess King.

I remember you! You were that guy with the skinny ties, parachute pants, mullet and wearing shirts with epulates!

[D_Town]

I happen to be at Fairlane today and noticed that the mall is doing quite some shuffling of its retail stores. Stores called Love Culture and Charming Charlie are opening huge retail spaces, Finishline and Jorneys are moving by Sears, and I heard the mall is encouring retailers to update their store fronts.

[mallory]

I remember you! You were that guy with the skinny ties, parachute pants, mullet and wearing shirts with epulates!

Nope, that was me. I spent bank at Chess King back in the day. Oddly, I'd love to sport a pair of parachute pants just to see the reaction of people. Hey, bells came back, why not bring back the 'chutes?

[DetroitPlanner]

Nope, that was me. I spent bank at Chess King back in the day. Oddly, I'd love to sport a pair of parachute pants just to see the reaction of people. Hey, bells came back, why not bring back the 'chutes?

I worked at the mall at various stores from 1983-1986. Close to home and school. I can remember shopping at those stores, Teen/Man, Americana Club, D J's.....

[hybridy]

stumbled across a trove of monorail pics. i had no idea there was a larger concept of the monorail...

























also this:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/detro...onorail-2.html

Before it was installed at Fairlane Mall [[which destroyed a significant portion of Henry Ford's former Fair Lane Estate) a test track for the monorail was built at the Ford Farm in Superior Township in Washtenaw County. Some of the concrete areas which made up the test track are still visible to this day. Of course, the monorail didn't live up to expectations--and was expensive to run--so it was disassembled a few years after it was installed.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ri...8c8b32d57dda6c

[GMan]

Thanks for the photo's and links hybridy . I remember driving by the Ridge road setup in the late 80's and wondering what it was for. Someone told me it was a Ford research site but never heard any specifics.

[hybridy]

i find it incredibly fascinating. the whole concept of personal rapid transit is continuing to evolve. part of ford's hq rebuild is still trying to tackle this issue:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_ACT

President Kennedy started the process of creating a federally funded project to study the problem and develop solutions.^[2] A particularly influential work at the time was Donn Fichter's Individualized Automatic Transit and the City. Most mass transit systems, even today, utilize set routes and stops, generally requiring the rider to change vehicles to reach their destination. Fichter suggested that the only way you could coax drivers to use mass transit would be if it offered the same point-to-point flexibility as the car. Several studies followed, notably by RAND and the Aerospace Corporation, exploring a wide variety of people mover systems.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordm...rn-campus.html

Construction begins this month on the new product campus location, including new Design Center; it will be a walkable community with paths, trails and covered walkways as well as autonomous vehicles, on-demand shuttles, eBikes, employee services, high-speed internet and more green spaces