Rochester NY department store Christmas train ride for kids circa 1960 ?? And the Midtown Plaza monorail

The train was a suspended monorail located in Midtown Mall. McCurdys was the anchor store. Sibleys was across the street. It was setup for the Christmas holidays. The Mall is credited with being the first indoor shopping mall in the country. Its since been torn down and is being rebuilt as hotel and office space. Retail will exist but as a minor component. I suspect the train still exists in some warehouse. Who knows, it may reappear.

Pete

Norton posted:

The train was a suspended monorail located in Midtown Mall. McCurdys was the anchor store. Sibleys was across the street. It was setup for the Christmas holidays. The Mall is credited with being the first indoor shopping mall in the country. Its since been torn down and is being rebuilt as hotel and office space. Retail will exist but as a minor component. I suspect the train still exists in some warehouse. Who knows, it may reappear.

Pete

I've seen references to a suspended monorail associated with Midtown Plaza but I never saw that. The train I seem to remember was a more conventional ride-on train for people or kids in a store, and it was before Midtown Plaza was built in 1962.

When was the monorail installed? I certainly would have remembered THAT !!!

I do remember the "Clock of Nations" which is visible in the picture above, center background. It was part of the original mall construction. We left the Rochester area in 1968.

Here is one from Edwards Department Store here in Syracuse NY.

I moved to Rochester in 1969. The mall and train ride were going strong but I know very little about the history of the city before then.

Pete

First two photos (probably from the early or mid 1960's) show Midtown Plaza without a monorail track. That is what I remember.

Following photo shows a monorail track around the same area. "Clock of Nations" feature in all photos.

I last saw this mall about 1968 or earlier, and I couldn't have missed noticing the monorail. Wondering when it was installed.

Ace posted:

I last saw this mall about 1968 or earlier, and I couldn't have missed noticing the monorail. Wondering when it was installed.

There is a good reason you cannot pin down the install date, and why so many references can be found w/o the monorail.

Almost unbelievably, it was a seasonal operation... stored for 10 months and set up for two.

I don't remember a train ride like you describe but I do recall the fourth floor Christmas toy land at Sibley's. It was the best.

Jim McC

I will later post 2003 pictures of my kids on the monorail.

With regard to the train, Edwards in Rochester had a MTC E10 that ran through the back halls, storerooms, & corridors at Christmas time. I loved riding that one!

The ride-on train was indeed a fixture at the E.W.Edwards store on Main Street.  It was set up in the basement at holiday time and traveled through what I remember to be a rather "cheesy" Santa Land...just some storage areas normally out of public view.  The train was a diesel style and I believe was electrically powered through the rails.  Although the "scenery" was nothing special, the indoor ride itself was unusual, noisy, and lots of fun.

Midtown Plaza, designed by Victor Gruen, was regarded as a model of urban planning and development.  In addition to two large anchor stores, McCurdy's and Foremans', the plaza had many specialty stores, a super market (Wegmans), and a street level bus terminal for Regional Transit and Trailways buses.  Below the mall was a three level underground garage with freight loading tunnels accessed from remote locations.  Above the mall was an office tower topped by a hotel and restaurant.  While the mall was demolished, the garage and skeleton of the tower were retained and are being redeveloped.  I believe the City has retained and stored the monorail but its future as a "ride" is certainly problematic.

Sibleys was the leader of the pack in Rochester retailing.  The store itself was reputed to be the largest department store between New York and Chicago.  The fourth floor toy department was a seasonal mecca for train lovers.  There were large Lionel and American Flyer layouts set up each year.  I remember the Lionel layouts as differing from year to year, but the AF layout stayed the same.  It has the distinction  of having survived the disappearance of the company and of the store.  Articles have appeared in rail publications about the Sibley's AF layout.

Rochester is also famous for the Police Athletic League layout at Edgerton Park.  The four seasonal displays have also survived and are periodically open to the public.

Joe S

This is great info, Thanks guys!  I didn't imagine it after all! I must have been on that Edwards Store train once. And it explains why I didn't see the monorail, even though I remember Midtown Plaza. We lived outside the city past East Rochester and my parents didn't take me downtown very often.

ADCX Rob posted:

Ace posted:

I last saw this mall about 1968 or earlier, and I couldn't have missed noticing the monorail. Wondering when it was installed.

There is a good reason you cannot pin down the install date, and why so many references can be found w/o the monorail.

Almost unbelievably, it was a seasonal operation... stored for 10 months and set up for two.

 

Joe S posted:

The ride-on train was indeed a fixture at the E.W.Edwards store on Main Street.  It was set up in the basement at holiday time and traveled through what I remember to be a rather "cheesy" Santa Land...just some storage areas normally out of public view ...

This is a period pic from a little earlier. Me and mom with the first car that Dad bought brand new. Busy New York Central main line right behind the house, plus an abandoned trolley roadbed back there.

I'm wondering if anyone here remembers details about the Midtown Plaza monorail that ran seasonally up to 2007. I remember Midtown Plaza in the 1960's but unfortunately I never saw the monorail that was only set up for a couple months around Christmas. The photo shows what looks like five overhead conductor rails. Speculating about the power and control setup: maybe 3-phase power and two control wires ??

This video from You-tube shows a small power unit at the back of the train. The cars were quite small, definitely kid-size, with a gull-wing type side door.    Midtown monorail ride 1993

Norton posted:

The train was a suspended monorail located in Midtown Mall. ..... The Mall is credited with being the first indoor shopping mall in the country.

Pete

My memory is that the Southdale mall in Minneapolis is credited as being the first indoor shopping mall in the country. I wonder how that issue can be researched and settled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southdale_Center

Midtown Plaza was the first urban indoor mall in the United States.

ADCX Rob posted:

I will later post 2003 pictures of my kids on the monorail.

Thanks for the photos, Rob.

Midtown Plaza (1962–2008) was an indoor shopping mall in downtown Rochester, New York, the first urban indoor mall in the United States. The site is being redeveloped for a variety of uses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midtown_Plaza_(Rochester)

Big malls seem to be falling out of favor in many locations in the US. Sometimes the common areas become hangout havens for non-customers. Some stores want to set their own hours independent from the main mall, and the common area becomes unwanted overhead expense with possible security issues. Many of the big 'anchor' stores that were commonly associated with large malls have fallen out of favor themselves.

Toronto has a huge underground shopping complex which I suspect remains popular because it facilitates shopping and socializing during long periods of inclement winter weather. I've seen a number of relatively modern mall developments in Australia, some of them in secondary towns, which have the convenience of lower-level parking out of the hot sun, and comfortable climate-controlled common areas connecting the stores.

It would be cool if a large mall could include a miniature railway to tour people around all the stores and to the parking areas ...

Location Location Location. Same owner/builder, suburbs of the same city, both on the East side, same anchors, diametric outcomes:

Wilmorite Irondequoit Mall

Wilmorite Eastview Mall

Our local mall has decided to embrace non-customers. In addition to mall-walkers like me, breakfast groups, etc., they've recently installed a multitude of seating areas with sofas, comfortable chairs, tables, power outlets, USB ports as well as wireless charging pads. The food court now has an outdoor seating area and a new restaurant added an open counter and seating area that looks out over the mall. The mall is now mostly filled with clothing outlets, things that people want to try on and don't usually buy online. I don't know if the new look will work or not, but I think they're trying the right things to keep the mall relevant. It's surrounded by restaurants and other shops and it near a spring training facility, so there is a lot of traffic. I guess time will tell.

Just saw this interesting video

What were America's Christmas Monorails?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uW-AeI4q6Q

@wmcwood posted:

Just saw this interesting video

What were America's Christmas Monorails?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uW-AeI4q6Q

Thank you for sharing!

I remember riding the Xmas Monorail at Wanamaker Dept store during the Xmas season in New York City in the early 50’s. (Lower Manhattan)

Great memories.😀

@Norton posted:

The train was a suspended monorail located in Midtown Mall. McCurdys was the anchor store. Sibleys was across the street. ...

WOW! what a trip down memory lane! I was in Rochester from '66~'74 and I remember this, but probably wouldn't be able to recall it without the pictures. My mom took me and my brother to ride it a few times. Loved it, but it did feel vaguely of 'Ralphie" in "A Christmas Story" waiting in line and getting stuffed into the car wearing my winter coat with kids I didn't know

This has been a great thread, thanks all for sharing. Amazing that the monorail in Rochester lasted as long as it did, for a number of reasons. It is funny, in a sense that monorail ride kind of foreshadowed the latest trend in malls like Mall of America and my non favorite white elephant, American Dream (Nightmare) in East Rutherford, NJ where it is a complex that combines shopping (in the case of American Dream, literally low end to very high end) and entertainment (indoor amusement park, water park, ski slope and movies/entertainment). Standalone malls have been hit hard by online shopping, plus as someone else pointed out the big anchor stores have shrunk or disappeared.

The monorail was preserved, albeit in non-running form in the New York Museum of Transportation in Rush, NY (http://www.nymtmuseum.org/):

And for what it is worth, the Greece, NY (suburb of Rochester) "Chuck-e-Cheese" had a train ride that sounds like like the one that was in the Edwards store. Perhaps they acquired it when Edwards closed?

@BenLMaggi posted:

..."Chuck-e-Cheese" had a train ride that sounds like like the one that was in the Edwards store. Perhaps they acquired it when Edwards closed?

No, it is in private ownership. A friend of mine owned it for a while some years back.

Thank you for the YouTube link. What a great video that was. Being raised in California I had no idea they existed. I did chuckle a few times though at the memories of kids spitting, dropping things, and water squirting shoppers. Kids are kids and I can see why some stores got rid of the temptation.

As a young boy in Southern California, I enjoyed the annual ride on the train in Long Beach at Buffums' Department Store, starting about 1948, when I was two years old and going on for about another 3 years.