"Every town has the same two malls: the one white people go to and the one white people used to go to." - Chris Rock

By the time my family moved to the Chicago area, Lakehurst Mall in Waukegan was the latter of these. Hawthorn Mall in nearby Vernon Hills was the former. Today Lakehurst Mall is gone, replaced with a Walmart and perpetually unfinished casino. Hawthorn Mall is being converted into some kind of condo community. For a while in the 1980s and 1990s they generally fit the premise of this joke.

The joke is not a perfect description of the situation though. Of these two malls Lakehurst was a much friendlier teen hangout location regardless of race. It featured more stores that appealed to younger shoppers. It had few dining options and they mostly served junk snacks that again appealed to teens. Mall security had long conceded on any anti-loitering rules that may have existed. Over 4 years of high school, that spanned the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s, it was a common afternoon destination for me and my small friend group.

The other day I found this directory at an estate sale for a cool $1. Thousands were given away for free, nearly all thrown away, except this one saved by an anonymous dead person. They also had old directories for the aforementioned Hawthorn Mall, look for those scans soon. I thought this Lakehurst directory would be fun to scan and talk about so here we are.

I didn't do anything to clean this up, I know it looks old and it is. Later on I'll determine that it was likely 35 at the time I found it. Someone with better editing skills could clean it up maybe. I would gladly repost a nicer version. Here are the thumbnails, click for a larger version:

I have a larger version available for download too. The full size scan is >6000px wide and ~50mb. If someone asks really nicely I will share it with them.

I again have a larger version available for download. If you absolutely can't stop yourself from hotlinking to these from a forum please use the smaller version or thumbnail.

There may be some stores in this directory that visitors are unfamiliar with. In order of appearance, I think they would be...

• Baskin Outlet: Regular Baskin was a clothing store in Chicago. I never went into this outlet store but can assume it was overstock & outdated business attire. Yes, same family that owned Baskin-Robbins.
• Belvidere Blues: Urban clothing store, they still have at least one location in the same general area.
• The Gift Tree: They sold band t-shirts, incense, and other novelty items. They were like a family-owned Spencers.
• Xia Gifts: Mall ninja store.
• Video Concepts: This was a chain but as I understand it did not have many locations. It sold TVs and VCRs.
• I think for anything else the name is obvious enough. It's a little tough to remember what was a national chain vs Chicago area chain vs single location. Like Corn Dog for example, it could have been any of those. You know exactly what they sold based on the name.

Let's try to date this directory, there are a couple clues. Most of the phone numbers are only 7 digits but the front of the directory lists two with 708 area codes. So this would have been around the time that the northeast corner of Illinois changed from 312 to 708 and started requiring 10 digit dialing. That means this directory was made after November 11, 1989. This area would shift to the 847 area code 7 years later. The mall is still mostly occupied in this directory. There is a dead zone that was always that way from what I recall. That means this must be from before when Gurnee Mills opened on August 8, 1991. After Gurnee Mills opened Lakehurst quickly became the mall no one goes to. It was a very steep decline. Stores that had locations in both malls were the first to go, then the anchors, then everything else.

All this makes me believe this directory is from 1990. Lakehurst was still a busy mall that hadn't gotten around to adding 708 to all the phone numbers. Scanning old newspapers for major store openings & closings might lead to a more precise date.

I only have anecdotal evidence for why Lakehurst died so quickly:

1. Gurnee Mills was much larger and was nearly fully occupied when it opened. Therefore it had a wider variety of stores including the "new to me" variety that drew people in. It also had two full food courts vs the zero in Lakehurst.
2. Gurnee Mills featured a lot of the same cheaper stores that appealed to the teenage regulars at Lakehurst. Again anecdotally, Gurnee Mills became the after-school hangout location practically overnight.
3. The whole reason my family ended-up in this area was proximity to the Army & Navy bases (the former is long gone). The Navy base had shuttle buses going to Lakehurst and a non-trivial part of the customer base was young recruits. Those shuttles started going to Gurnee Mills instead. Losing two major groups of shoppers is too much for any mall to survive.

I could share dozens of Lakehurst memories. I assume that is boring to everyone so I'll pass this time.

I initially planned to set my first game demo in Lakehurst Mall over the 1989 xmas season. This directory reinforces why that would have been impractical. Trying to re-create all these stores would have taken forever, going with a much smaller mall was the right call. Also I originally started it as an Inform 7 game before realizing how bad I am at describing things. There's a non-zero chance I will consider this idea again.

Until I stumble into another directory this is my farewell to Lakehurst Mall. Thanks for the memories.

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