Community Corner
Local History: Altman's and Others Highlighted Mall Opening
Charge card of former Mall at Short Hills store is in historical society collection
An advertisement in the May 1962 edition of Suburban Life magazine described the Mall at Short Hills as the Fifth Avenue of the suburbs.
B. Altman & Co. was built in 1956 and was the first store at what eventually became the then-open air Mall at Short Hills. The Suburban Life ad noted that the following stores were open or scheduled to open at the young mall:
“Open now—Altman’s, Bachrach, Barricini, Bonwit Teller, Brentano’s, Garycee Cosmetique, Harrison Brothers, Hayden Stone, Investor’s Savings & Loan, Joan Ruth Shops, Jugtown Mountain Smokehouse, Peck & Peck, Salon di Parrucchiere, Schultz & Behrle, F.A.O. Schwartz, Stouffer’s Restaurant, Whitehouse and Hardy, Wiss Jewelers. And coming soon: Stouffer’s Coffee Shop, Doop’s Furs, Mall Branch, U.S. Post Office, Tepper’s.”
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Not one of the stores listed in the ad appears in the list of stores at the mall today, and Bonwit Teller was purchased from bankruptcy court in 1990 and, according to a Wikipedia entry on the store, Avenue Brands LLC announced in June 2008 that it would open Bonwit Teller boutiques. The charge card appears in the Millburn-Short Hills HIstorical Society's collection.
