1993 Hawthorn Mall Directory

Last week I posted a directory of Lakehurst Mall that I speculated was from 1990. My logic was based on the relative fullness of the mall, which rapidly emptied-out after nearby Gurnee Mills opened in 1991. Hawthorn Mall, slightly less near to Gurnee Mills, survived a while longer. Hawthorn was more of an "upscale" mall and likely didn't loose many regulars to Gurnee Mills.

I recall Hawthorn Mall doing fairly well up to the 2000s. Like the majority of malls in the US it eventually fell into deep decline. It had already lost many stores before 2020 happened. In 2021 the owners began demolishing chunks of the mall to make room for condos. The remnants of the mall are mostly restaurants now, with just a small handful of stores.

In 1993 this was a very active mall with all the stores expected of the era. The quality of this directory is not awesome. As noted last time, I would gladly post a cleaner version if someone with great editing skills (and copious free time) wanted to tackle that. Here's the upper floor:

The top right corner is the food court. It's near the Aladdin's Castle (530). Most of my visits to Hawthorn Mall centered around this area. Being near Chicago meant being near the Midway headquarters. The Aladdin's Castle in Hawthorn Mall was where I played a buggy Mortal Kombat II beta cabinet. It was maybe a month or two before it appeared everywhere. As I recall that version had very bad AI and at least one infinite combo bug. The Babbage's was also near the food court. For me, there was little reason to venture outside of this corner.

And here's the lower floor:

Next is the directory. I'm immediately struck at how many jewelry stores there were back then.

1993 Hawthorn Mall Directory - store list page 1

1993 Hawthorn Mall Directory - store list page 2

The rest of the stores are pretty standard for 1993. There's not anything too unique. The coin collecting store is a little odd but fits in with the general vibe of Hawthorn Mall. I suppose that shifted to eBay pretty quickly.

Here's the outside of the directory. Due to the size I had to do this in separate panels.