It's been a productive month on eBay for the South Belt Digital Archive!
I purchased a magazine ad that was for Lennox Air Conditioning because it had three color photographs of "Almeda Mall and Northwest Mall, twin shopping centers in Houston, Texas."
They aren't quite identical twins, though. The Northwest Mall logo is a compass with the NW portion of the star darkened. The Almeda Mall logo is the azalea petals.
The central and largest photo on the page had those iconic blue awnings (eyelids, fingernails, or elephant toes, depending on who you talk to) and the yellow canopies over the mall entrances, but the logo was NW's.
The small top photo had a color photo of center court, with the fountain lit up.
so, with a bit of sloppy photoshopping (which I intend to work on when I have time), I could scan the original ad and "fix" those awnings for us.
having the hard copy and scanning at 600dpi means we can enjoy the details! Look at the lights from the floor of the fountain! And all that greenery. They must have had a full time gardener on the payroll.
The third photo at the bottom is of the Foley's end of the mall, with Foley's behind us.
and I got a bonus I wasn't expecting!
The hard copy is actually a three page spread, mostly copy about how Lennox air conditioning has changed the way people expect to shop in comfort, and a lot of technical detail on their systems and install options. But the boring roof photo at the top of page two gets interesting if you zoom past most of the roof and check out the view.
there's the Almeda logo!
Which means we are looking at what existed across the street, where the giant slide, and trampoline store, and Target, and Homer's, and Burger King, and the VW dealership, and the Monterrey House, and Cactus Office Supply, and Brown Sugar's BBQ, and Wolfe Nursery, and Toys R Us (and on and on) are not there yet.
(Also, if anyone ever runs a google search for vintage South Sound Shopping Center of Lacey, Washington and shows up on this page: I have two photos of your place to share from this advertising spread!)
Also purchased from Historic Images this month:
Final touches on the center court the week before its grand opening included the install of this 3500 lb. ficus tree.
And, also Northwest, but identical Pineapple Center Fountain, from 1980:
I'm saving two others that arrived this month for December's Christmas posts!
If you're irritated that the southbelthouston watermark is on each of the above photos, I get it.
But balancing the money I spend on acquiring things for the Archive, I really need people to know where the first digital copy originated so they can trace their way back here and, perhaps, just maybe, contact me if they have additional vintage photos of the area to share.
I learned early on, after I traveled to Houston, spent hours at the HRMC downtown, poured over the light box with a magnifying glass to view negatives, selected them, paid for them, and signed an agreement that their purchase was solely intended for a home on the South Belt Houston Digital Archive and associated social media, that people are more than happy to share photos with bigger sites, reaching more people, with absolutely zero attribution. When you see your hard won photo of Almeda Mall shared on Traces of Texas by someone who took it off the blog (the only place it was published) and it gets thousands of likes, that might have led people to you if only someone had mentioned who found it and who really, really wants to find more, it kind of stings.
So from that point forward, I started watermarking any photos purchased for the Archive in the hopes that when people shared it, it would leave the breadcrumbs back to here.
As always, hope you enjoy the findings and thanks for the continued support!
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