When It came time to write the script, I was told by the client that the motivation to build the Galleria was because the city had malled over Main Street and closed it to traffic. Soon shopping came to a halt. People didn't want to park blocks aw ay and walk to a store.
The footage you referenced is an artist's rendering and then interior shots of the Holyoke Mall in Massachusetts, built by the same company. By the way, the opening scenes were shot by the producer/mall manager. He was an amateur photographer and rented a helicopter to fly over the area. Funny! Thanks for your comments.
In 1984, I was a freelance writer working for a video production company called Studio 16, which is no longer in business. The script was for a company called pyramid Management who builds shopping malls. The producer of the project was the manager of a mall in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The video was designed to attract anchor stores for the proposed Poughkeepsie Galleria. So I was given lots of statistic like household income and how little upscale retail was in the area and from that I wrote the script using artist renderings and shots of the Holyoke Mall. U=In retrospect, it is a little over the top, but the producer loved the script and I recall him calling people into his office where he read it aloud! By the way, I've never been to the Poughkeepsie Galleria. But thanks for the comments and the update. Bob McCarthy, theb2bwriter@gmail.com.
@@bobmccarthy4293 I was 16 when it opened and was there from day one till I moved out of the area in '94. My parents still live less than ten minutes away in the same house we'd had since 1980. We weren't an "IBM Family", so the shakedown in '88 didn't really affect us. But I had lots of friends whose parents worked for IBM and were severely affected. Going back to the video, you used effective shots to anticipate what the mall would look like, as there WAS a G Fox (seen @ 7:18), but the signage looked different in the store we had. The store didn't last too long and was quickly replaced by Macy's. In fact, of the original stores, only JC Penney is left from the original stores whcih opened the mall in '87. Many of the anchor stores that had come and gone no longer exist at all in retail (Lechmere, Montgomery Ward, and the aforementioned G Fox), while one of them (Sears) is currently clinging to life support. No doubt, future CZcams watchers will no doubt look back at this comment like "Wow, Sears was still OPEN in 2021?? Just barely. Question - the footage from 7:05 - 7:14, was that an artist rendering of what the finished mall would look like? I ask this because the mall had (and still has) that same ridiculous long-ass stairway in the middle that's shown in the drawing. In its heyday however, the mall was a paradise, and in the first few years, before the South Hills Mall started to feel the sting of the Galleria, it was fantastic to have so many shopping options in such a short space (especially while Crazy Eddie was still open just below). Again, this video is a very interesting time capsule to actually see how the Galleria was originally proposed, and to see how far in advance the groundwork for its creation had begun. Thanks again for sharing this very cool relic!
Evening walk on main street Poughkeepsie, that is a true lifelong memory. not for the faint-hearted though
When It came time to write the script, I was told by the client that the motivation to build the Galleria was because the city had malled over Main Street and closed it to traffic. Soon shopping came to a halt. People didn't want to park blocks aw ay and walk to a store.
The footage you referenced is an artist's rendering and then interior shots of the Holyoke Mall in Massachusetts, built by the same company. By the way, the opening scenes were shot by the producer/mall manager. He was an amateur photographer and rented a helicopter to fly over the area. Funny! Thanks for your comments.
When was this promotional filmed?
It was filmed in the mid-1980s. The mall does have a web site.
It has a production date of 9/14/84 - almost three full years before the Galleria actually opened on 8/1/87.
In 1984, I was a freelance writer working for a video production company called Studio 16, which is no longer in business. The script was for a company called pyramid Management who builds shopping malls. The producer of the project was the manager of a mall in Holyoke, Massachusetts. The video was designed to attract anchor stores for the proposed Poughkeepsie Galleria. So I was given lots of statistic like household income and how little upscale retail was in the area and from that I wrote the script using artist renderings and shots of the Holyoke Mall. U=In retrospect, it is a little over the top, but the producer loved the script and I recall him calling people into his office where he read it aloud! By the way, I've never been to the Poughkeepsie Galleria. But thanks for the comments and the update. Bob McCarthy, theb2bwriter@gmail.com.
@@bobmccarthy4293 I was 16 when it opened and was there from day one till I moved out of the area in '94. My parents still live less than ten minutes away in the same house we'd had since 1980. We weren't an "IBM Family", so the shakedown in '88 didn't really affect us. But I had lots of friends whose parents worked for IBM and were severely affected. Going back to the video, you used effective shots to anticipate what the mall would look like, as there WAS a G Fox (seen @ 7:18), but the signage looked different in the store we had. The store didn't last too long and was quickly replaced by Macy's. In fact, of the original stores, only JC Penney is left from the original stores whcih opened the mall in '87. Many of the anchor stores that had come and gone no longer exist at all in retail (Lechmere, Montgomery Ward, and the aforementioned G Fox), while one of them (Sears) is currently clinging to life support. No doubt, future CZcams watchers will no doubt look back at this comment like "Wow, Sears was still OPEN in 2021?? Just barely. Question - the footage from 7:05 - 7:14, was that an artist rendering of what the finished mall would look like? I ask this because the mall had (and still has) that same ridiculous long-ass stairway in the middle that's shown in the drawing. In its heyday however, the mall was a paradise, and in the first few years, before the South Hills Mall started to feel the sting of the Galleria, it was fantastic to have so many shopping options in such a short space (especially while Crazy Eddie was still open just below). Again, this video is a very interesting time capsule to actually see how the Galleria was originally proposed, and to see how far in advance the groundwork for its creation had begun. Thanks again for sharing this very cool relic!
Wow. Memories of my Wappingers days
The Danbury Mall is/was better.