Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A Closer look at Ivey's/Dillard's


That's probably not the very best picture on earth of Carolina Circle Mall's Ivey's/Dillard's, but it'll do.

Anyway, on to business. Carolina Circle City has been online for over two years now and I've yet to do a tribute to Ivey's and Dillard's.

Ivey's at Carolina Circle Mall opened on August 4, 1976 which was also the same day the mall opened. An interesting aspect to this store was that it was Greensboro's first Ivey's store.






I don't remember Ivey's. I was born the same year Dillard's bought them out, but from what I heard, it was basically a standard department store.

The Carolina Circle store featured many unique designs, many of which remained when it became Dillard's in 1990. As you can see in the above two pictures, the entrances were shaped in a somewhat spherical shape. The interior colors included many many colors, most of which reflected the 1970's.

But in my opinion, the coolest part of the store was the elevator which lasted till the store's demise in the late 1990's. It was a glass elevator in the middle of the store and included an orange border with standard light bulbs sticking out. When I was little, I thought it was one of the coolest things.

The store was downgraded to a clearance center in the mid 1990's and went out of business in 1999.

And just for kicks, I leave you with this unique early '90s picture of me visiting the store.

1 comment:

Jake Nelson said...

That elevator does sound cool. The closest thing we ever had in the Triangle was the one at North Hills Mall from 1994 or so until 2003. It was almost completely glass, you could see the machinery. The mall only had elevators in the department stores until then.