I’ll admit, this post is mostly for my own nostalgia. But a couple weeks ago (by the time this posts, more like a month), I was listening to a podcast where one of the hosts, who is also from the Chicagoland area, mentioned Woodfield Mall – which is located in Schaumburg, IL, and is the mall of my childhood. Now, this was not just any old mall. This place was one of a kind. (I know, I know – “I bet you say that to all the malls.”)
In the podcast, the host mentions that this mall was the largest under one roof (in the U.S.), and that was what I was told as a kid, too. Whether that was actually true or not at the time it was built (it opened in 1971), I can’t say for sure – but it’s definitely not anymore if it ever was. But the comment made me curious, and I may have done a deep dive – and learned even more about this place I spent so many hours as a kid. (Like, it’s currently the sixteenth largest mall under one roof in the U.S. at 2.15 million square feet. Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN, is currently the largest at 5.6 million square feet.)
There is very little I remember about the shops in this mall (though I do recall there being a Fannie Mae Chocolate shop) – it’s everything else that sticks out to me.
For one, there were fountains (and a waterfall) – which, as a kid, we of course wanted to play in. And throw coins into them. Which, people did throw in coins (and many other things they shouldn’t have), and on this mall rabbit hole, I learned that every six weeks weeks or so, the coins would be removed, dried, and packed into milk crates – which would then be picked up and cleaned (a process that took three or four days, necessary because the coins became corroded from the chlorine, and the bank wouldn’t accept them this way) and then donated. From 1993 to 2004, those coins amounted to a $100,000 donation to the United Way.
But the BEST feature of this mall? The aquarium tunnels and how when you took the glass elevator down to that level, you could see the fish through the elevator walls. My sister and I still talk about that experience, even though I honestly couldn’t tell you the last time we witnessed it – the aquariums are long gone by this time. (The waterfall and fountains are gone by now, as well.)
In my deep dive, though, I learned about the music – which I’m not sure I remember, but through the magic of the internet, I was able to find. Before the mall opened, the developers commissioned a musician by the name of Suzanne Ciani to compose music (supposedly, according to an interview she did, there had been a recent law that required new shopping centers to provide artistic enhancements to their spaces) that would play in the tunnels with the aquariums. Using a synthesizer, she composed music that mimicked the sounds of fish swimming, which would play on a loop. You can listen to it here:
It’s been a long time since I’ve wandered through this mall, and I’m not sure if I want to see it – I imagine it looks completely different (it went through a big renovation about twenty years ago). Some memories perhaps need to stay in childhood – but also, I doubt the new version could ever live up that 1970s vibe (which by my childhood was already over a decade old).
Ami Maxine 