31 December 2007

Forgotten Lloyd Center

I'd seen pictures and heard about the creepy abandoned part of Lloyd Center, but I'd never been able to find it until tonight. Just downstairs from the Dollar Tree and the Barnes and Noble is this old extension of the parking garage that only a few folks seem to still park in.

Things down here seem to be relatively unchanged since the place was built, like this awesome tile wall that reminds me of my elementary school.

This abandoned Newberry store front is just below street level, in a spot that never sees daylight, making it almost impossible to get a decent picture of, and also making it strangely unsettling to hang around. Portland doesn't have a lot of abandoned stuff like this, even in the most ghetto parts of town, and especially in the city's most famous shopping mecca.

An awesome number 16 from an unkempt section of Lloyd Center's labyrinthine parking garage.
Lloyd Center was built as the world's largest mall, a title which it soon lost. It was designed by a firm called John Graham & Associates, a name which I find amusing. They were also the folks behind Southcenter in Tukwila and the Tacoma Mall, as well as a few other malls of North America. I never actually went into Lloyd Center tonight, I usually avoid it except for those couple days in the summer when dealing with the mall is better than dealing with 100 degree heat. Oh, and when I get that random Arby's craving. My nearest Arby's is in the food court...



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was just thinking about that spot the other day and was wondering what happened to it. I have a vague recollection of that part of Loyd Center when I was a kid and that Newberry's was still open.

I also remember the ice skating area being uncovered without a roof back in the late 70s?

Anonymous said...

John Graham & Associates designed not only several major shopping centers, but numerous large hotels and office buildings, especially in Seattle, where their headquarters was located. Their most famous structure is undoubtedly Seattle's Space Needle.