Midway Mall Third Anniversary – Sept. 1969

Fifty years ago this month, Midway Mall was celebrating its Third Anniversary. Above is the full page ad making the announcement that ran in the Journal on Sept. 17, 1969.

And here's an article about the big event, which ran in the paper the same day.

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It's strange thinking how big an impact Midway Mall had on our daily lives. While it was fun to shop there in the 70s and 80s, it all came at a cost.

It basically sounded the death knell for most Downtown Lorain businesses, and later, the O'Neil - Sheffield Shopping Center. And today, Midway Mall itself has been ironically supplanted by shiny new planned shopping and residential developments like Crocker Park and Legacy Village, which are pretty much fake versions of what they replaced.

In my opinion, Midway Mall hasn't been helped by the modifications to the highway there, especially the removal of the 49th Street Bridge and the Cloverleaf. It takes forever to get around with all the traffic lights. 

And for westbound traffic on State Route 2 during the evening rush hour, the Route 57 interchange has become a major bottleneck with nightly backups. Without the Cloverleaf (which allowed for a continuous flow of vehicles moving on and off the highway), traffic consequently builds up at the traffic light entrance to westbound Route 2, until the light changes, turning loose dozens of vehicles all trying to squeeze their way onto the two-lane expressway at the same time.

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Click here to bring up all of my posts about Midway Mall in chronological order. (If you scroll all the way to the bottom, then be sure to click “Older Posts” (on the right) and it will continue to bring up the rest of the Midway Mall posts going back to 2010.)