By Laura Hand
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 6:57 p.m.
Great Northern Mall celebrates its 20th anniversary this Friday---the public's invited to the celebration, complete with cake and prizes, at 6pm. And as we look at that milestone, we look back at another icon in the local mall landscape:
Penn Can Mall was built in the mid seventies, and survived as a mall until just a few years ago, when it became Drivers' Village. It has a huge sentimental following, including from people who were teens when it was in its prime, and that is no accident: . Then TV3 Total News reporter Johnny Bowles (Syracuse TV's first Black reporter) did a report in December, 1976 on how Penn Can was among the first malls to have a teen recreation area, and mall managers worked conscously to attract teens, in hopes that as adults they would shop there---it was a new concept in marketing in the mid seventies. We also have pictures of the mall in its prime (including the clock, and the NBC Peacock Shop) There is a website, www.penncanmall.com with lots of pictures and nostalgia....
