For the vast majority of readers, the New Sudbury Shopping Centre was the centre (pun intended) of their lives.
As “A Fading Mirage” commented on Sudbury.com, “Malls were an experience.” And, whether for shopping, browsing, gathering in the food court; whether going on a date, with friends, or being dragged by mom and dad, it was known far and wide as the place to be.
Although the mall as a whole is an important memory in the lives of our readers, there were a few locations within it which drew the most nostalgia into the present day.
One of these places was the restaurant adjacent to the Woolworths/Woolco store, known by at least two different names over the years.
Henriette Dauphinais remembers visiting the restaurant with her mother and sister, “going to see my aunt and her second husband who worked and operated The Town and Country Restaurant … in the 1950-1960s.”
Ryan Bowerman recalls when the restaurant went by the name “Golden Griddle” as it was the place where “my grandfather would sit in and drink while my grandmother would do her Christmas shopping.” While Renee Zulich still (all these years later) cannot believe that “it was so dark in there for a breakfast place.”
Reader Dan Oeschler has memories of this restaurant that also tie to memories of the annual fishing pond in Centre Court.
“I remember one night that we were having a few ‘pops’ at the Town and Country and walked through the closed mall and the fish pond was set up. Well it's a good thing they kept the net handy because we took a scoop and away we went with our booty … Good times and nobody got hurt.”
Of course, there were many other locations within the plaza where one could eat. Jackie Thoms grew up in that area and “remember(s) that there was a large Chinese restaurant in the (post-fire) rebuild area” which was very important within her life. “In fact, we had our wedding breakfast there.”
Brent Grimard recalls eating at the Sears restaurant while shopping with his mother. While Terry Dupuis “remember(s) when the mall first opened, there was a country bar called the Golden Nugget. (A performer named) Terry Roberts used to be one of the main acts there.” For those trying to picture it, he added that it was on the end of the mall, closest to Lasalle, and recalls that it was “quite the spot.”
When the food court was added to the eastern end of the mall in the 1980s, it became the new hang out area for many students. As Rona Campbell recalls, “We spent alot of time here, especially during exams.”
Apparently, the food court was also the scene of physical altercations with the newly installed furniture. Reader Dan Moncion asked the question “anyone else get their fingers caught in those green mesh seats?” (Even your author had to raise his hand, with bent fingers, to that one.) While Dan Oeschler lauded them as the “best seats for cracking your back.”
Prior to the renovations to the New Sudbury Centre that brought a new coniferous logo, forest green colour scheme and brighter non-smoking environment, Steven Vallarsa “loved that swirly (orange) New Sudbury Shopping Centre logo. As well as the (wooden) bench areas with the plants and the sand ashtrays.” And, he asked “weren’t there a circle of orange plastic logo signs hanging over those areas?”
A bunch of our readers had certain very specific memories of another location within the mall, “Winnie’s Pet Store.” It was, as Nic Davies remembers it, “the pet store with the shark.” Bill Shelegey, in his recollection added another animal to the mix, “my brother remembers the shark AND octopus.”
Carol Gaudar “was mesmerized by that shark when I was little.” To which she added, in a sign of changing beliefs towards animals, “it’s kind of cruel to put it in such a small tank when I think of it now.” As a similar aside related to the same store, Dan Oeschler recalls that “you could pay for a gold fish and they would feed it to the piranhas … Wouldn't have that today.”
For those who remember this store, but not this location, when the mall was remodelled, Winnies Pet Shop moved into the strip mall located on Lasalle Boulevard next to New Sudbury Volkswagen.
Though it was only mentioned once amongst peoples’ memories, one single recollection by a reader brought this writer all the way back to the 1980s, trying on copious amounts of shoes until the right one was found. And that recollection, from Renee Zulich, “OMG, I can smell Kiddie Kobbler from here!”
Reader Donald Lawrence presented us with memories which show that his family not only had ties to the plaza but the surrounding property as well. As an 11-year-old living on nearby Attlee Avenue, he remembers the 1969 fire well. In addition to that, he added that his father, post-Second World War, “was offered the chicken farm from Kingsway to Gemmell & Falconbridge (less Palm Dairies) but my mother would not live on a farm, so he built the house on Attlee. My mother would ride her horse down the Kingsway and keep her in the stables behind A.L. Green’s. She worked at the Ministry of Education that was on the second floor above the bowling alley and Loblaws.“
Ruth Laakso’s first memories with respect to the New Sudbury Centre led to a longtime romance.
“On our first official date in Spring 1974,” she wrote, “my husband drove me in from Chelmsford to see the mall. My lasting impression is of traveling miles and miles of rural road before reaching the lights of the mall. I was not impressed because I had been shopping in Barrie, Ontario, where we had several strip malls.”
Another area of the mall that drew a decent round of memories from readers was “Rue La Ronde.” As William Fisher wrote, “It was one of the best places to browse and shop. I think everyone loved the ambience in that section of the mall.”
Reader Kiersty Gross added to this point that it “feels like you are walking down a street and all the shops with nice windows along the way.” For William Da Silva, “It was magical-looking as a child,” adding that he remembers most that (as seen in one of the photos attached to the previous article) “there was the light store with (all) the latest lamps.”
Allyson James was even able to spot her mother's store, LaSalle Fabrics, in the same photos. She added that while in college she worked at the fabric store, after working at Sears during high school.
Rue La Ronde was also the centre of activities prior to the creation of the Centre Court area. Mario Peloso “remember(s) in this area they had breakdancing competitions” which for kids like him made “that mall so much fun back then.” On the other hand, Dan Oeschler “still remember(s) when this was part of the open concept and we used to ride our bikes around the mall on Sundays and this area was like a race track for us.”
For Ruth Cox, her family “would go into town from Levack every two weeks when (she) was a kid in the early ’70s (and) the Rue La Ronde was (her) favourite spot!”
While, on the contrary, for Darren Dubois, “On shopping trips as a little fella, I'd ask to go down that way because it was such a different aesthetic that you could sort of see from the main hallway. The adults would always say ‘Maybe after we're done at Woolco’…Yeah, that never happened...”
Speaking of Woolco, as one of the two anchor stores for many years, it held many memories for our readers, both as shoppers and employees.
William Fisher’s memories could almost be ripped from the pages of a coming-of-age novel as the daily comings and goings of a group of young New Sudbury boys. “As kids,” he wrote, “we walked past the mall every school day to access the railroad tracks to take a short cut to Churchill Public School. Then on the way home, if we had a bit of change, it was a stop at the bowling alley to play a little pinball, then off to the Red Grill in the Woolco Department store to meet up with more friends and have a cup of ‘Swamp Water,’ a shot of all the soft drinks from the drink dispenser, as the lady at the cash register referred to it as. Then the music department to see the CHNO hits of the day.”
At the opposite end of the spectrum, Scott Turnbull’s strongest memory of Woolco was that other yearly coming-of-age routine, heading there “every year for most of the ’60s for back to school clothes.”
Cynthia Matthews’ father worked in the credit department in the back of the store around 1964-69, so she spent a lot of time there. “I was just a little kid but remember things like going to the Red Grill and looking in the toy department. Those were the days when we could be left in the toy department by ourselves with ‘look but don’t touch’ while our mom shopped elsewhere in the store.”
Barbara Rochette began working at the Woolco cosmetic counter when the store opened in 1962. She “loved it and wish(es) it was still around, we had more fun with $1.44 days and old-fashioned days, I’m sure people don’t have that kind of fun we had.”
Another reader Paul Taillefer has similar feelings of being employed at the mall. “While I was at university, I worked part-time at Claude Courville’s Gentlemen’s Apparel in Rue La Ronde and moved to Tip Top Tailors when it opened. The retail staff was like a large family — very friendly and welcoming. Good memories!”
A few other readers have memories of working at the New Sudbury Centre with varying degrees of success. Richard Katerynuk “worked for the D&D Hobby Shop in Rue La Ronde and really enjoyed my experience there for many years with them.” While Rob St. Jean “also worked there during high school. I would sweep the sidewalks and parking lot in front of all the stores from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., go home for breakfast then school for 9 a.m. Earned my first pay cheque there.”
William Fisher, on the other hand, had more difficulty than the others. “Aside from my paper route, my first job was working at A.L. Green’s! I got a job try out in January of 1971. They had me wash the store windows outside! (It was) hard to keep the water from freezing without the methyl hydrate to keep the water fluid! I did get it done, but I didn't get the job!”
And possibly the most difficult situation of them all comes to us from Maureen Clements Hannah who started working at the Woolworth’s store in 1969: “I think I worked three shifts before the fire.”
After the fire, the businesses at the New Sudbury Centre that were able to held fire sales in order to offload any merchandise that they could. Robert Kennedy “can still remember the smell of smoke on the towels (his) mom bought at the sale after the fire.” While Michel Roussel, a boy of 13 at the time, “remembers going to check it out after the fire (and) bought a bunch of Hardy Boy books from Zellers (which were) heavily discounted because they smelled like smoke.”
Whatever could not be salvaged or sold ended up in the garbage in preparation for the future plans for the site. Of course, this was a boon for the youth of the neighbourhood who were looking for free goodies. Gordon Wainman, who lived with his family behind the mall on Peel Street, had a “great time dumpster diving (and he) decorated (his) treehouse with some of that smokey gold.”
William Thomson’s most vivid memory of the mall is (unfortunately) tied to a fire of a different sort. “As an early teenager, my parents' home burned to the ground on New Year's eve/day 1962/1963 (The family joke was that our fire lasted an entire year). I remember us all going to the New Sudbury Centre when it opened on January 2 to buy all those essentials — toothpaste, clothing, school supplies, towels, whatever — that had been lost in the fire.”
Of course, we could not have a series of reminiscences without some lamentation for what has been lost along the way, both in the distant past and the much more recent times . In reference to the many large-scale events taking place in the Centre Court area, Vanja Williamssom states that it “used to be fun there with all these little extras to draw people in.” When Rachelle Desneiges “was a young child in the mid-70s, Christmas was a magical experience at the mall (and) I think often about how much I miss that charm.”
Todd Guthrie “remember(s) the Shopping Center like it was in the pictures (dated from the 1970s … (I) remember the grocery store, arcade, bowling alley, etc. Those were fun days.” And, to Eric Legendre, “the mall has changed so much over the years! My favourite stores as a teen used to be Randy River, Thrifty's and Foot Locker. All long gone now. Miss Second Cup, Daffy Donairs and Treats that used to be in the food court, too.”
Well, dear readers, the mall is closing in 15 minutes and we have come to the end of another round of memories. You have proven, as reader William Thomson wrote, that “the mall has certainly been a shopping focal point for many decades — and I imagine will continue to be for many more.” See you back here in two weeks for another trip down Memory Lane.
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Memory Lane is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.