Comments on: Modern Shopping Center, Ventura, CA , 1961

By: Kymberleigh Richards

Kymberleigh Richards — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 03:52:11 +0000

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.

By: Lynnie

Lynnie — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:27:37 +0000

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.

By: Moses Mora

Moses Mora — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:29:25 +0000

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.

By: Alicia

Alicia — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:31:43 +0000

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.

By: Scott Pitzer

Scott Pitzer — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 07:08:08 +0000

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.)

By: Merryluu

Merryluu — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:16:14 +0000

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?

By: Carlotta

Carlotta — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:38:14 +0000

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!

By: Rita

Rita — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 19:13:29 +0000

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.

By: Tim Severs

Tim Severs — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:44:49 +0000

I remember visiting a Newberry’s store in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My little sister used to call it Blueberry’s.

By: Gretchen

Gretchen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:23:19 +0000

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