The Phoenix area of the 1960s was a vastly smaller and more intimate community than the sprawling and ungainly megalopolis that now overruns the Valley of the Sun. People maintained a much slower pace in their lives, and the opportunities for pursuing the finer things in life were much fewer and farther between, and thus taken all the less for granted. Major shopping venues were relatively scarce, and they typically lacked the necessary atmosphere and diverse selection of retailers that can lead to long term viability and popularity. Malls such as Tower Plaza, Thomas Mall and the relatively high brow Park Central all prospered to varying degrees at this time, and yet they were simply no match for the pre-eminent shopping experience of '60s Phoenix: Chris-Town Mall. Opened in 1961, Chris-Town was the first self enclosed, air-conditioned mall in Arizona, offering  a superb selection of anchors and smaller shops, a most elegant design and layout, and an absolutely unique character and charm that was conspicuously lacking in the other local malls of the day.
    Named for Chris Harri, a Swiss born farmer who originally owned the land upon which it stands, the mall was constructed at the relatively remote location of 19th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, which at the time was practically the outskirts of town. Chris-Town soon proved to be an eminently accessible facility and one of the most popular places in Phoenix at which to shop and be seen.
    Chris-Town in the '60s boasted a line-up of heavy hitters such as Korricks, Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney, Woolworth, Walgreens and S. S. Kresge as well as smaller boutiques like Hunter's Books, Chess King, Godber's Gifts, Bill's Records, Tony's Shoe Repair, Kerr Sporting Goods, Gallen Kamp, Switzer's, Hanny's and Bob Fox. Arizona Public Service even sponsored a "Gas Appliance Showcase" in the mall at this time, promoting the virtues of gas as an alternative household energy resource. Some businesses came and went, but the overall structure of Chris-Town remained remarkably stable well into the '70s.
    The center of the mall was originally christened the Court of Fountains, an attractive and popular meeting place for shoppers to rendezvous in front of Penneys, graced by sightly fountains usually full of coins. Legions of Phoenix natives can still recall the friendly organ grinder and monkey who appeared for many years in the Fountain Court before disappearing in the early '70s. The Court of Fountains was also the scene of countless special events at the mall, everything from coin shows and concerts to cow milkings and beauty contests.

     At the east end of Chris-Town lay the entrance to the ever popular underground tavern known as Janitors Closet, as well as an eclectic collection of food vendors such as Orange Julius and Pizza D'Amore. This end of the mall in front of Korricks (later The Broadway) also boasted a beautiful garden of flowers and a papier mache statue of Ferdinand the Bull, and was called the Court of Flowers.

     The west end of Chris-Town outside the entrance to Wards featured the popular Court of Birds, in essence a courtyard containing a unique collection of aviary structures suspended around a four-way concrete bridge. This charming little bailiwick offered a remarkable array of winged creatures in colorful pop art cages, some of whom would actually speak to the delight of passing shoppers. The combination of such elegance and variety made Chris-Town Mall absolutely unique and endlessly inviting, so much so that a series of Joan De Arc residents have chosen to work at the mall over the years. Barbie Bueker and Jean Humphries were both employed at the mall in the '70s, to name but two.
    An array of nearby businesses completed the charming character of Chris-Town. Across Bethany Home to the north stood the Chris-Town Car Wash, with its distinctive car-on-a-clothespin sign. To the south, El Rancho market provided a fine selection of groceries and sundries, and to the northeast could be found a truly excellent Piccadilly cafeteria with some lovely indoor fountains of its own. The Chris-Town Theaters were just to the west of the mall (and still are), the scene of feature film presentations and legendary stage shows by Wallace and Ladmo. Chris-Town in the 1960s was simply a sublime realm, a shopping and entertainment utopia in an age just prior to the advent of the soulless mega-malls. Would that this slice of Phoenix could have been frozen in time and preserved for generations to come. Pity.
    Unfortunately, the years since Chris-Town's peak in the '60s and '70s have been less than kind. Two ambitious and extensive expansion projects nearly doubled the size of the mall in the mid '70s, but the inevitable signs of age and wear began to set in, and the '90s witnessed the beginnings of a sad exodus of the major mall anchors. The Broadway closed in 1994, followed by J.C. Penney a few years later, and finally Montgomery Ward passed into history last year.

     Competition from other west side malls such as Metrocenter has been instrumental in the decline of Chris-Town, accompanied by a general waning of the overall socio-economic vitality of the area. Lower end retailers Wal-Mart and Costco have replaced the once proud Broadway and Penney's, while Montgomery Ward currently sits dark and silent. A rather garish paint job of yellowish gold was recently applied to the front of the mall in an attempt to liven up the place, and an extensive remodeling effort has renewed the interior of the mall to a significant degree. Sadly, Grossman Co. Properties, the owner of Chris-Town, has even renamed the place "Phoenix Spectrum Mall" as part of the $10 million overhaul. An era of Phoenix shopping history thus comes to a close.
    Still, with its glory days clearly well behind it, Chris-Town Mall remains a popular place to shop. The parking lot and stores have been absolutely packed in the days leading up to Christmas, and the merchants kept generally very busy. Though now a shadow of its former self, Chris-Town Mall nevertheless retains a certain majesty, and it has long since provided a lifetime of splendid memories for those of us privileged enough to have known it in its very prime of life.

Adapted from

The Joan De Arc Crusader
December 25, 2001
ã2001 by JPB Publishing Ltd.

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