Northgate

Today is the 60th birthday of the Northgate Mall, Seattle's first suburban shopping mall. In 1950, the area around 105th was mostly farms. I'm not much for malls, but Northgate does have some fond memories for me. Since it was just a quick jaunt down 15th, it was someplace my mom would go, besides the Mayfair. Mom didn't drive on the Freeway in those days. I remember there was a Woolworth, that had that Woolworth popcorn smell about it, thanks to the lunch counter, I guess that's one of those age things now. Most younger folk don't know what a Woolworth is or for that matter what they smelled like. I remember they had a great toy selection, and big bags of green plastic army men. I remember my mom purchasing "art" there for our black and white room. In those days there were two toy stores in the mall, one on each end, I can remember spending a great deal of time in each of the two stores, trying to decide how to spend my tooth fairy money. We moved north into SnoCo. and began frequenting the Aurora Village and later the Alderwood Mall, they weren't the same, Northgate was just better. When I was 19, worked in the mall for a bit, I started at Christmas time and can remember the Salvation Army band, that would play by the Bon, they would warm up for 30 or 40 minutes, then belt out two incomplete carols and disappear for a hour. The place has changed a lot over the years and we don't get out that way much at all anymore, but still Northgate will always be the only mall for me.

I don't have pictures of Northgate which is a good thing, I think. So how to throw a photo or two in for tonight, I guess, it will be photos of stuff from 1950, like the house warming for my grandparents. So there in honor of Northgate's 60th year, a picture of a house built 60 years ago and the house warming that followed.

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Dan