Midtown Plaza Mall (1963)

I took the original 1963 Jam Handy industrial film short, "Rochester: A City of Quality", and edited out all but the Midtown Plaza shopping center footage, for use on my mall blog.

Visit the MALLS OF AMERICA vintage mall blog for more retro retail goodness! http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com

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  Travel & Events

[RochesterFICS]

Good old Rochester. I wonder what the people who made this video would have said if someone had told them that 47-48 years later the building would be torn down. I LOVE ROCHESTER

[871yt]

Well in 1964 the blacks took over downtown Rochester and burned it down.

After that the city collapsed. Unemployment went from 1.8% to 15%. Whites

abandoned their businesses. Blacks extorted more welfare from stupid whitey.

Drugs, and crime took over. By 1980 the city was a shell. Thats what happened

[Jeffrey Rust]

I moved in 2009 and have only been back once since.

[Mike Dempsey]

Silly posts..racist sad posts for the most part...very little was burned down in the 1964 riots...my last trip to Roch was a sad one...Kodak, Xerox, Bausch, Frenchs..mostly gone...people fled the city for the suburbs...downtown after dark is now fairly ...frightening....its what america does..leaves its downtowns for dead...while Europe rebuilds their city centers like they are museums...I moved out of Roch in 1979,,saw the handwriting on the wall

[Ceil Hook]

Thanks for the memories. I miss Midtown Mall..

[871yt]

Do you remember the black riots of 1964 that burned downtown Rochester? I hear they

were very special too.

[871yt]

Good ol Rochester was less than 2% black in 1950, It had a unemployment rate of 1.8%.

Everything worked. Prosperity was universal. Then the first blacks appeared.

Blacks went from 7000 in 1950 to 50,000 in 1970. The inevitable black riots began.

In 1964 they destroyed downtown Rochester the fires lasted 3 days and the National Guard was called in. Whites fled, Downtown business fled. Crime skyrocketed. Drugs, Unemployment became the norm. Thats what really happened to Rochester

[670Kiester]

a darker closer look at victor gruen and your malls vimeo,com/44030235

[NYKID10014]

A shame it was all torn down, looks fierce! What stands in it's place now? SLC just spent $5 Billion on a new downtown mall. I'm sure in 40 years it will be bulldozed.

[CarlosFinch]

The mall has been demolished along with much of what was McCurdy's. The skywalks entering the mall have also been demolished. Very little retail remains downtown.

[iraleecantellia]

It was the first URBAN indoor mall. The first indoor mall, Southdale, opened in Minnesota in 1956. That one's still there, on account of it being built in the country (which eventually turned into the classy suburb of Edina).