Speaking of department stores, downtown and the suburbs...

The J. L. Hudson Co. Department Store on Woodward Avenue in downtown Detroit (top) in 1952. Opened in 1911, the store grew to 25 stories by 1928, when Hudson’s was America’s third largest department store, after Macy’s and Marshall Field’s. Two years after this picture was taken, Hudson’s opened its first suburban store (bottom), at Northland Center in Southfield. The downtown store was closed in 1983 and the building imploded in 1998. (From Automobile in American Life and Society, University of Michigan. Photos from Wayne State University, Detroit.)
Northland Shopping Center, Southfield, Michigan. One of the first shopping centers constructed in the United States, often referred to, apparently incorrectly, as the first suburban shopping center in the United States (although I learned from Alex Wall's talk a couple weeks ago that this wasn't so). Designed by Victor Gruen.

Index Keywords: sprawl