Modern Shopping Center, Ventura, CA , 1961
A cool watercolor sky highlights a picture prefect space age suburban shopping center. The spirited sea breeze has blue and yellow plastic pennants swagging and snapping in the wind and a Blue Chip Stamp banner clinging for life on a two-headed lamppost. Red clay brick glows with warmth beside sunshine yellow and snow-white stucco. Flat facades labeled with store names spelled out in fun fonts hover over impressive floor to ceiling plate glass doors and deep-dish display windows. Abandoned shopping carts share the spacious parking lot where colorful, chrome tipped cars parked are on the bias. There is one foreign car in the lot, a British roadster. It doesn’t take up much room. A raised bed of tropical plantings, up front, looks like a feeding trough for vegetarian dinosaurs.
The pure form-follows-function post-and-beam style of this safe harbor of smart shops is as utopian as it is utilitarian. If this isn’t classic mid-century modern I don’t know what is. It looks like countless other neighborhood shopping centers built in the 50s.
Newberry’s was among the most successful five and dime store chains of the twentieth Century. Mr. J.J. Newberry opened his first namesake store in Pennsylvania in 1911. By the late 90s the chain had evaporated. Hundreds of American towns had a Newberry’s store for decades. My hometown, Ontario, California, did. I remember eating grilled cheese sandwiches served with tangy wavy cut pickle chips at the counter there and buying goldfish that always died too soon.
Slides of shopping centers are rare. This one came to me from a fellow slide collector. Immediately I knew it would be this week’s slide. It was marked Los Angeles, 1961. But I wanted to know exactly where in LA. Soon I found out its wasn’t LA at all.
Yesterday I was in Ventura’s hanging out with a friend who happens to be the city’s leading architectural historian. Proud of this rare shopping center slide I showed it to him telling him it was taken in LA but I didn’t know exactly where. He said it looked to him just like the Newberry’s that was in Ventura. Doubtful, I thought since many of them looked similar. But he persisted until he had a vintage postcard in his hand of this shopping center with this exact Newberry’s, Ardens, and Gallen Kamp Shoes proving that this was indeed taken in Ventura, CA.
Next thing you know we were standing right there at the same shopping center nearly fifty years later. Only the parking lot looked the same. The stores and their facades were several generations removed. I stood right in front of the store that now occupies Newberry’s and for the life of me I can’t , one day later, remember what it was now. That either means I’m forgetful or it just wasn’t that memorable. I do, however, remember Newberry’s very well.
Here’s to space age shopping centers, Newberry’s, Ventura and YOU!
Sorry to have come to the party two years late, but my childhood home was literally two blocks away from this prototype strip mall and I was living there when it opened in 1961 (yes, the year is correct).
As was stated in another comment, Gallenkamp’s was a shoe store. Ardens was a ladies’ fashion shop. The “les” is the visible part of the sign for Gales Coffee Shop, which was attached to the not-visible Drug King next door.
The Vons was not across the street (that was a Safeway store that ended up closing not very long after Vons came in … the building was repurposed as one of the first Pic ‘N’ Save stores and was renamed Big Lots along with the rest of the chain over a decade ago). The Vons is actually to the immediate left of the photographer, who was standing in front of a Winchell’s Donut House.
There was a Western Auto and an optometrist’s office between Vons and Drug King, and several steps behind where the photographer was standing was a Pickwick Fish & Chips shop, along with a beauty salon, laundromat, and dry cleaners.
The Vons is still there, 50 years and a couple of remodels later.
I am browsing through the archives and came upon this slide…Newberry’s in San Diego at 54th and El Cajon Blvd. was where we walked to get our water balloons! The lady cashier, Wanda, was still working there when I got a part-time job there at age 16. What a laugh. The building is still there, but the inside hosts many little shops selling cheap chinese clothes and shoes, lingerie, and gang style hip-hop clothes. The store was 2 stories, upstairs was the break room, receiving and management offices. Back in the day when it opened, the sales ladies had to wear dark skirts and peter pan collar white blouses, the official uniform. The weirdest thing sold there were rubber “falsies”. By the time I started working there in 1976, the place was in a deep decline.
For the person who asked what Ardens was, it was a girls and women’s clothing store. I worked there after school in the mid 1960′s, 2 hours a day, sweeping up and wrapping packages.
I lived in Buena Park as a child (1963-1973)and spent alot of time at the Newberrys looking at all the things I didnt have money to buy. For a real treat each summer my Mom would take me to lunch there. I remember having cottage cheese on a pineapple ring set on a lettuce leaf with grated cheese on top! Yum! Now I serve my hubby that quite often
When I met my boyfriend in high school, I bought him a key chain at Newberry’s and had it engraved. He still has it. We ate lunch there alot I think it was called the California Room…lots of bleached wood booths and plastic plants. I thought it was ELEGANT!
There was also a Grants 5 & Dime on Lincoln Blvd that was such fun to shop in! Mom would buy fabric from bolts and made all my clothes. Later there was a TG&Y on Valley View and Ball and I spent hours in that store. I really miss the old 5 and dime stores. The 99 cent stores today just dont cut it. Mostly junk from China, and nobody that speaks english to be found. Glad I was born in 1955 so I could experience America in its heyday.
My mother and grandmother would shop at Buena Park Center, which had “diamonds in the sidewalk.” And a Sears (my dad worked for Sears)… plus Newberry’s which had a full cafeteria adjacent. I remember the fish patties served under a plastic dome. And simple custard pie was as good as, if not as colorful as, any of the jello varieties offered. I think the cafeteria went independent later… “Captain Jack’s” maybe? I mainly remember my grandmother buying plastic flowers in the store.
In Norwalk the Newberry’s had a simple lunch counter, which I admired a bit, but never got to patronize. The store had five or six entrances, which were gradually eliminated as sales and staff decreased, while shoplifting increased. (Same thing you find at Sears now.)
I loved the picture also, Charles, however, I wonder at how well you screen comments. Perhaps Judy White’s (Judy!Judy!Judy!)comment regarding the “mexicans who stole her parents’ blind” could have been rephrased or omitted. (Why do we have to read about her parents lack of business savvy on top of a racial slur at a website dedicated to photographic nostalgia?)
Will this get through?
A co-worker here in Ventura remembers this shopping center well from around 1958-9. She and her friends would walk from the Ventura pier to this shopping center and have lunch after their fun in the sun on the beach. That’s quite a distance – must have built up quite an appetite after that walk!
I attended Buena High School in Ventura in 1961 and remember this Newberry’s well. Buena had a closed campus but one day my friend Sandy and I skipped out at lunch and drove to Newberry’s. We bought as many goldfish as we could with our lunch money. As I recall we got about 20. When we got back to school we went to the swimming pool and dumped the fish. We next went into the gym and “suited up” for our next class which was swimming. We couldn’t wait to see everyone’s reaction when they found the fish in the pool. On arrival at the pool Sandy and I found everyone staring at the dead floating goldfish. We never let on that we had anything to do with it and blamed the “boys” along with everyone else.
I remember visiting a Newberry’s store in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My little sister used to call it Blueberry’s.
I appreciate this postcard since I was born in Ventura in 1956. My parents bought me shoes at that Gallenkamp and I often shopped for toys in the Newberys. The Vons market was where the photo was taken and yes it is the shopping center on Thompson. The cheese sandwich rememberance was a good one and I do remember eating one at Newberrys.
Thanks Charles
I don’t remember Newberry’s around the Detroit-Metropolitan area. The closest to a 5&10 that I do remember is Kresge’s, they’re all gone too.
This space-age shopping center reminds me of Crowley’s department store (also forever gone,) that was located at the favored local mall of my youth.
Thanks for the memories, Sir Charles!
I wonder if someone in the future will have the same nostalgia for the snapshots of today. Was it a simpler time back then? Will the passage of time make our life’s seems more appealing?
Newberry’s is a fond memory. When I was a little kid, it was the place for
Romper Room toys. I remember buying punch balls and eating pie at the counter.
We also had a grocery store called DeFalcos and they had a soda fountain.
The Oscar Mayer weinie mobile made a yearly appearance and we were always so
excited to get a whistle. Stores were so much fun when we were kids and fifty
cents went a long way at the counter back then!
You werte looking at JoAnns Fabrics. Which is now going out of business. to the right of the Newburys on the oposite side is a VONS, which both my wife (Toni) and I worked at. It has been remodeled a couple of times since I managed the store.
What a great picture. IMy mom used to take me to Newburys in Santa Barbara where she would buy parakeets!
Greetings from Ventura.
I live right around the corner from the old Newberry building (which now houses a Blockbuster and a [now closed] Jo-Ann’s Fabrics).
When I showed this picture to my two sons they now understand why the stairs on the side of the building say Newberry on them.
I too remember going to Newberry’s in Granada Hills, CA growing up.
wow! that’s the mall of my childhood memories. my mom and step dad grew up in ventura, but for my part – my grandma lived about a two blocks away from that mall and every visit we kids used to hop a fence (by the HUGE avocado tree) and go to the mall, hitting the ‘thrifty’ for a cylindrical scoop of ice cream first. I remember my mom taking me shopping there and telling me that before they created that mall, the family had to do all their shopping at different stores around town (such a strange idea to a kid having only grown up around malls). the mall was considered ingenious and convenient and is very much a part of our family memories.
thanks, that was cool!! I’ll pass it on to my mom, she’ll love it.
Dear Mr. Phoenix,
You wrote:
“I stood right in front of the store that now occupies Newberry’s and for the life of me I can’t , one day later, remember what it was now.”
It’s now a Blockbuster location.
I grew up a few blocks from that center, and I remember when I was a little kid being so proud the first time I bought christmas presents for my family there with my very own money. LOL I know it’s silly. I can still remember what I got, and I can remember admiring this little red fake patent leather make up purse with a mirror inside and somehow Santa Claus knew how much I liked it, and put it in my stocking that year.
Thanks for all your slides. I really enjoy all of them, but this one, of course, was extra special to me.
Michelle Combs
Oh what bliss , weekends here, your a teen and where do you go, yep the shopping mall. We had so much fun just hanging out, flirting with the guys as they drove around to check you out.But the real fun was mom had to drive you to the new shopping center, because that is whear the action was, yes indeed, I am talking sock hop! Some of the parking lot was off limits for parking, Do you remember the old wooden horses that were used for barriors> Cones had yet to appear. Then finally you were 16, drivers license in hand and nothing could hold you back. The world was yours for the taking. As always with love, Lynn
We didn’t have a Newberry’s in Fullerton at the Orangefair Mall, had to travel all the way to the Buena Park Mall to find one. I remember I bought my 6th grade teacher who I had a big crush on an engraved keychain at Newberry’s for Christmas back in 1966 or ’67. Remember when you could get all kinds of things engraved at the 5 & dime?
OOOO Man, I guess I will need a time machine to shop there. Sure looks fun.
Dearest Charles,
Thank you for including this lovely slide of mid-century Ventura into your “Slide of the Week” showcase! We at the Ventura Visitors and Convention Bureau feel so incredibly honored that you accepted our invitation to be a keynote presenter at the recent California Cultural & Heritage Tourism Symposium recently here in our classic city! People are still raving about you, because you were and are a smashing success! Please come back and visit us again, as our city is a treasure-trove of wonderful history, culture and architecture! Plus, we do have some of the finest vintage boutiques and thrift stores around. As promised, I will keep my eyes peeled for old slides to add to your fabulous collection.
Charles, the building that WAS Newberry’s is now Blockbuster Video and Joanne’s Fabrics. Joanne’s has vacated the building, so who knows what will come next… I was wondering what was in the building on the left side of the slide with the overhang. Anyone????
Charles – Great slide. As Mike Klaus commented, I wonder if this might not have been before 1961 due to the cars. At any rate, when I was 5 my Grandmother gave me my very own table top white artifical Christmas tree. We went to Newberrys to get the ornaments.
Even though all the stores have changed, I INSTANTLY recognized that shopping center as the one around the corner from my house. The Newberry’s is now a Blockbuster, but you can still see the Newberry’s logo in the flooring at the old side entrance off Borchard.
Another evocative time capsule! Is there a name for the font used in the Newberry sign? It looks similar but not exact, to the “Mel’s Drive In” font in “American Graffiti.”
Where in Ventura is this? It looks suspiciously like the Vons shopping center on Thompson Blvd. If this is the one, its mid-century glory had been erased long ago, and it’s too bad that, when it was remodeled about 5 years ago, it wasn’t put back the way it had been in its early days!
Glad Charles visited Ventura, and I hope that his local guide showed him that old hotel by the mission that was opened for the first time in years, like a time capsule from the early 1900′s.
Great story & great detective work!
Brings back memorable shopping excursions
with Mom–A very good slide selection for
the slide of the week!
Just noticed I spelled Chouinard wrong in the previous comment.
My first real job was at the brand new Newberry’s in the Pomona Mall in about 1956. It was a wonderful job for a high school student/ artist. I decorated the windows and painted signs. I even had an office in the basement all to myself except about once a month when the “professional sign painter/window decorator” came to town. I left in 1957 to go to The Chouinart Art Institute in L.A. They actually found another job for me at Newberry’s on Wilshire Blvd. so I was able to continue working while going to school. I became an advertising art director partly thanks to Newberry’s.
I was also thinking, “Why no early 60′s cars?” but then this being Ventura… I can understand it. Most Venturians still have 5 year or older cars! We call Ventura, Bakersfield by the Bay, or Ventucky here. Sorry, no offense to Bakersfield, Kentucky, or my hometown and birthplace Ventura. There still are a few of these modern stores on East Main and East Thompson. A few are vacant right now, but in good shape.
As a Pasadena native now living in the wilds of Oregon, this slide is very soothing. By far one my favorite so far! Another time, another place!
I just love seeing photos of commercial buildings and signs from the 50s and early 60s. The architecture was so much more creative and fun than the new buildings and signs are today.
Dear Charles–I continue to delight in these weekly submissions. I forward them off to people who will totally “get it.” We met at the Denver Modernism Show.
Great slide! I grew up with the JJ Newberry’s in Alhambra. My mom used to take my sisters and me there regularly to buy fabric to sew clothes. What a blast from the past – I’d all but forgotten about that store. Thanks,Charles, for another fun memory.
This slide brought back memories of going to the Newberry’s in Garden Grove when I was little. I remember GallenKamp Shoes. What was Arden’s? And the yellow and black sign with the “les” next to the shoe store looks familiar, but I can’t place the store. Does anyone know?
Being born in Oxnard in 1961 I remember this shopping center well. They were beautiful back then, simple and uncluttered, these strip malls are SO UGLY today.
The Ventura Shopping Center slide is a HOOT!! I’m glad you sorted out where it was located, but I think the year “1961″ was also incorrect. The latest model car in the lot looks like a 1956 Oldsmobile. By 1961, cars five years or older would be rather unusual, rather than prolific.
Could the shopping center picture really be from 1956? That would make it a very early shopping center indeed!
Fantastic!! I remember getting cherry cokes at the Newberry’s in Palos Verdes in the 50′s. I also remember getting a small turtle with a cool little environment to live in. And Gallen Kamp shoes! What a blast from the past. Thanks so much.
I fondly remember – from the 1970s – the Newberry’s at Green Acres Shopping Mall On Long Island! I loved the Toy department, and would always drag my mother down there. How sad I was to hear of that Xmas trampling death at Wal-Mart in the same mall.
Ah, eating at the counter at Ontario’s Newberry on Euclid Aveenue! I remember it had that broad staircase right in the middle of the store that most people used, unless you knew the semi-secret side staircase near the back door (that got you closer to the downstair bathrooms). Fond memories–the store, not the bathrooms!