Retail center changed the way people shopped, and it’s still changing
Peabody — Fifty years ago, when the Northshore Shopping Center was dedicated on Sept. 12, 1958, 50,000 people showed up.
The palatial Jordan Marsh, gleaming William Filene’s and Sons and host of other shops beckoned the throngs.
“It was the largest shopping mall from Maine to Rhode Island,” said Barbara Doucette of the Peabody Historical Society.
It was a landmark event for the North Shore, changing the way people shopped and marking the beginning of the end of local downtown retail districts. Over the years, however, the mall, too, has changed. Once an uncovered shopping plaza, it has evolved into a multi-million-dollar mecca of high fashion, high tech and upscale dining.
Today, the mall nears completion of swanky department store Nordstrom, a new retail wing and upscale Chinese eatery P.F. Chang’s.
“Nordstrom is going to add a whole new tier of retail and service to the North Shore, and I’m really excited about that,” mall General Manager Mark Whiting said.
When the mall was dedicated, Peabody Mayor Phillip O’Donnell called it, “a symbol of the confidence of the merchants and backers in the future of New England.”
His words ring true today.
“What’s old is new in a sense,” said Whiting.
