Shopping Can Be Fun (1957)
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- 1957 public domain PR short, "Shopping Can Be Fun: A New Concept in Merchandising", that chronicles the Hillsdale Shopping Center in San Mateo, California.
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I Was Born In 1957, Grew Up In San Mateo, And Foster City. My Dad Was A San Mateo Fire Fighter Who Is Now; 83! Thanks For This Post!
joe cutietta my best friend dad was fire chief in San Mateo... He'd probably be close to 90 .
I was born in 1960, and lived about 3 blocks from the Mall,it was THE hangout for me from about age 11 to 15 or 16, and they added a Round Table Pizza next to Mayfair. I LOVED the indoor slide at Melarts!My Nana and Pa used to walk that mall every day,I don't know about the "fine cuisine from all over the world," lol, but the Chinese was always pretty good. Newberry's & Leed's shoes got plenty of my babysitting money!
Woah, I’ve lived here for all 16 years of my life and everything looked so different back then. How my city has changed. I really wish I could go back in time to see all these amazing attractions!
same
Oh YESSS...the slide at Melarts toys! I forgot!! Too bad everyone goes sue crazy now a days. I never saw anyone get hurt there, but this would be impossible to have today!
Wow...I can almost see the colors of the walls when you got down there!
avalleygirl just an FYI.... That golden memory of a slide STILL EXISTS! It's apparently in storage under the mall where melarts used to have a downstairs!
WOW!
I was born in Sep 1959 and my family moved into the Hillsdale Garden Apartments in early 1960 before eventually settling into Foster City in 1964.
I remember the slide at Talbots, Archie Martin's butcher shop in the Farmers Market, QFI, See's Candies, etc. Most vividly, I remember the giant toys displayed during Christmas...they seem so HUGE when you are two years old.
Also, buying 'Frampton Comes Alive' for $4.44 at Banana Records in early 1976!
Great video!!!
Greater memories!!!
OMG!!! I grew up there.. thats MY mall!!! I LOVED the holidays with the giant toys, the displays with moving toys and such, the live bunnies in the little kiosks... omg, I cried thru this!!!
Born in December 1961 and grew up in San Mateo til I married in 1980. This made me cry... For all the amazing memories, for how great it was to live in that time and in San Mateo, and for all the loss I've had connected to San Mateo. What I wouldn't give to go back to that time..... Wow
My neck of the woods!!!
Went down the Melarts slide many times!!!!
I grew up there too! Went to Knolls, Abbott, Hillsdale High.... yeah, farmers market... the fountain... the Bufano statues! Do you remember the slide at Melarts and JJ Newberries??? Good times... GOOOOOD times....
I was born in the 90's and this video is a trip!!!!!
I moved to San Mateo from the Philippines in 1973 (was 3 years old then). Melart's toys was the bomb with the slide. I miss Vince's Seafood. Love the crab they had there. JJ Newberry, got denied by a server behind the counter when I ordered a Large Coke and all I had on me was a penny. Sears use to have that candy/nut counter where I'd tap the glass with a quarter to get the attention of the employee posted there. I'd love to see an archery demonstration at Hillsdale now.
What memories! A shoplifter's delight!
Oh my Gosh, I lived so close by there in San Mateo. Just down from the hill from our house. Loved shopping ther!! :-)
Sears closed and the old building was torn down. Sears re-opened a few years later in the old Emporium Capwell building. Now rumors are circulating that Sears will be closing again and Target and a 890 seat movie theater will take over that building. Another rumor I heard was the food court will be on the second level.
Great video! I was born in 1954 and remember San Jose's Valley Fair and Mountain View's Sears in 1957 (See my Valley Fair 1957 home video).
Looking at Hillsdale Center in the fabulous fifties, was there actually an improvement by converting it into a mall? I don't think so. Things look so much more orderly then and offered reall fun in the outdoor setting, vs the cold indoor echo chamber of the current configuration.
I am born in 1983 and I find this video really interesting. The 50's was a completely different time.
Fun memories here. I was in high school when this video was made and I lived on Arrowwood Lane ajacent to the mall. We went to the Farmers Market and when I had children, their grandmother walked them there every visit for fried rice. My kids all say they had never tasted such good fried rice again!! I remember Sam, the greeter. How cool is this!
I had forgotten and I am grateful for the memory jog! Are the Bufano statues still in the mall? Does anyone has info about other San Mateo videos?
Great find.
I typed in my birth year--and this popped up. I was born in San Mateo--how strange to see this film of the place, and time, of my beginnings. No doubt my parents shopped here.
I wonder where the toys are nowdays too!!! Wouldn't that be cool to find out?? And yeah, Hillsdale Cinemas... used to go there all the time as a kid! We'd go to Mayfair Market across the street first for penny candy!!! Woww... memory lane... *sigh*
This short needs a Rifftrax commentary, STAT!
I remember the food court from the 80's. I found this video on San Remos' website. San Remos was in the food court up until Hillsdale remolded to food court in the mid-1990s. San Remos might not be at the mall, but they are still around. Right down in San Carlos. I wonder if any other tenant who's left the mall, opened up shop somewhere else. Anybody know? I'm talking about McDoanlds either.
Best times in America; it was safe!
WE DIDNT GO UP AND DOWN THE MALL BUT RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. THE FOOD COURT IS ESSENTIALLY UNCHANGED, AS ARE THE STONE ANIMALS.
I was a proud offical hilLSDale Mall Rat. Alumni 1968. Leroy would throw me out of Farmers Market
"One of the gayest attractions in Hillsdale is the fabulous farmer's market, which draws throngs of people day and night".. Hilarious how much different the context of this statement is today as opposed to 1957
The great canned production music from Captiol Producioton music, and the fact that this was done back in the late fifties, not the late sixities, makes it great...even by the early seventees innocence was something the Fat Albert network CBS tried to wreck and I never DID take kindly to the condescending attempts, like on Scooby-Doo, o take something from the late 50s 'innocence of young people] and cheapen and exploit it..plus by the ealry 70s the memorable produciton music was gone..
Born San Mateo 1950 Mills Hospital. Was Great place to Shop . Get a fresh warm Glazed Doughnut
Doughnuts at Farmers Market
worked at QFI there back in 1981
neotrogg my sister worked at QFI too! Karen Ingle
never a mickeydees @hillsdale.....the first mcdonalds in the area was in belmont in 1961
"Only Macy's remains in Hillsdale."
Well at least they know not when to quit!
+Christopher Sobieniak The See's Candy and Kay Jewelers stores are still there as well.
Rob Chapman That's interesting.
As seen on VICELAND's ABANDONED, Episode 1.
Capitalism's creator tought that consumism was no good, he was right.
"There is enough for everyone's need, not for everyone's greed" Ghandi
farmers market was the gayest attractions