you could find any kind of doo-dad in GC Murphy's. Another video on the mall mistakenly said the store was a Raleigh's Mens store. For as long as I could remember the land Murphy's occcupied was always a GC Murphy's. It is now a Target.🙂
I was born and raised in D.C. but lived in close proximity to P.G. Plaza; so, I went there regularly. I remember the open-air shopping center and how you needed to take an umbrella if it rained so as not to get wet going from store to store. I was a teenager when it was remodeled in 1977-78 and became an enclosed mall. I spent a great deal of time and have lots of good memories there. There was The Hecht Co. (Hecht's), G.C. Murphy, Wooward & Lothrop (Woodies), Raleigh Haberdasher (Raleigh's), Grand Union supermarket, Bob's Big Boy, Hot Shoppes, Hahn's Shoe Store, Peoples Drug Store, Lerner's, Baker's Shoe Store, Franklin Simon, Barricini Candy and Ice Cream (which closed in the early 70s?) and became Baskin-Robbins. There were many other retailers there. My favorite store was Woodies. I never called it the Mall at Prince Georges. It will always be P.G. Plaza or "The Plaza". 😊
I remember those stores quite well when I was little. Those stores were very classy. I miss the old Hot Shoppes Cafeteria (Marriott). Their food was really good and their prices were fair. You had great people who worked there who knew you some of them knew you for a long time and on a first named basis. We don't have stuff of this quality any more and its heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing Danielle I enjoyed reading what you had to say and it brought back a lot of memories.
You have a great memory, Danielle! You brought me back to the old days. I remember how the wind used to whip through the gaps between the stores around Christmas time. I used to love the donut machine at Murphys. Remember that? Long time ago 😊
I remember there was a High's convenience store, Ledo's Pizza, and a Bob's Big Boy that used to be on the exterior facing East-West Highway. Joon Ree Karate used to be in the lower level...Woolworth's was there at one point also. Roy Roger's too...I get sad when I see how much Hyattsville has changed for the worse. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so I can only imagine how angry the elderly folk who grew up there must feel about their city now.
In 1990s and 2000 this was my childhood mall after the closing of landover mall. My mother managed like 3 stores in PG plaza so i was always there and i remember KB toys
I remember the Woodies, Raleigh's (next to Woodies), Hecht's, Grand Union, G.C. Murphy. My mother lived in Singer Sewing store. The mall stayed extra crowed when Woodies had the harvest sale & Hecht's the red dot. Good memories.
This Mall was spruced up in 2018 or so and is now called "The Centre at Prince George's". Unfortunately, crime is still a problem at this Mall and it witnessed 2 shootings in 2022. If it improved security and added more stores through construction in the rear parking lot, it could begin to compete with Wheaton Mall in Montgomery county. 🤔
oh boy, I disagree. Wheaton Mall has seen better days. It's JC Penney store, a really nice three level affair, is closed and fenced in. I don't know if it's a tear down or to be renovated. Wheaton Mall started out as Wheaton Plaza though it's always had a splendid two level of winding stores and movie theater. PG Plaza started out as an open-air plaza and is now called a mall though it's always been single level plaza status. So go figure.🙂
@@deepseadirt1 the demographics change has affected Wheaton mall. I certainly don't want to sound too un-P.C.. Everybody goes to Tyson's and Pentagon City and those malls still thrive but the rich areas around them influence this success. economic-demographic-population changes usually hurt malls and ultimately destroy them. Look what happened to Landover Mall in the 1990s. Wheaton Mall's only tragedy was those little Lyon sisters disappearing back in the 1970s. The movie theater moved into a second building half a block away and the customers there can get a rowdy. One relative of a friend advised us not to go to Wheaton mall due to crime concerns. This was the first time I'd heard a warning like that . If the Pennys is closed now (I hadn't heard that but I haven't been there in a while either) then that's a bad sign. If Burlington Coat Factory or Marshalls moves in soon then that's and EVEN WORSE sign that Wheaton is in trouble. PG Mall and Forrestville mall still have their Pennies though despite their sketchy environs. Too bad about Wheaton. I loved the food court there and Costco. Great variety of foods. PG Mall has a good food court too...but like I said earlier, two people were shot there this year alone there.....😭. IMO, a stronger police presence in and around PG and Wheaton would deter the crime. Ultimately, the cities hosting these malls and their chambers of commerce need broader strategic action plans to protect their municipal socio-economic interests. Landover in PG, Landmark (where Wonder Woman 1984 was filmed in VA and White Flint in MC didn't do these things or did them too late and lost their great malls. 🤔
The nonsense happening in Montgomery County MD with this crime would have NEVER been tolerated in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and early to mid 90s. This sad story is what caused the Hecht Company (Ellsworth Place Mall today) to close their downtown Silver Spring Department Store (1947-1987).
I remember Big Boy restaurant, and Miles shoes. I wanted a pair of GoGo boots and had saved my babysitting money for months for the $5 to by them. (It was 1966). The Saturday I was supposed to go to the store, my mother said that there was a fire at the Plaza, and I couldn't go. I verified that by listening to by transistor radio, station WPGC. I never did get my GoGo boots!
Just a little info: Prince Georges Plaza opened in 1959 with three anchor stores: The Hecht Co. (1958), Grand Union (1958) and G.C. Murphy (1959). Woodward & Lothrop was built and opened at the Plaza in 1966. It was located at one end across from Grand Union. The 1977 renovation enclosed the mall; the 1990 remodel added a food court. Woodies closed in 1995. G.C. Murphy closed in 1999, 30 years after opening there; it remained vacant until Target was built on that site. There used to be a Bob’s Big Boy near the entrance to the Plaza; however, in later years, it was moved to the front parking lot before closing. Now, there are Olive Garden and Outback restaurants in the front lot. Metro’s Green line, a Home Depot, and a Giant were built directly across the street, facing the Plaza.
PG Plaza benefits from sitting in an ideal spot. There's residential, the three large Metro government buildings, more recently University Towers dorms, Northwestern HS, the University of Maryland up the road and the main thoroughfare of East-West Highway feeding traffic to it. What could be better? In the 70s it was like Capital Plaza, it was open air with a sea green paint job.
Eric, Thank you for the history video ! As a kid I watched PG PLAZA being built. I worked at Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant in 1965-66 as a busboy. At Christmas time, the parking lot would be packed with shoppers. Thanks to THE GREATEST GENERATION. Use to be a very upper class mall, then the trash moved into PG COUNTY turning the county into a cesspool of ghetto trash.
My mother worked at the G.C. Murphy's as a bookkeeper from 1974 to 1981. Mr Belcher was the manager of the store for most of that time. The Murphy's store had two escalators that went up to the main floor in the middle of the store. Evelyn was working at the snack bar. I was always playing the bronco pinball machine nearby at the side entrance where the metro busses would stop. Mrs Gibson I believe was the assistant manager. Laura Gershanic was a good friend of my sisters. She worked in the music department. I remember when it was still an open plaza. I also liked going to the antique store located on the outside going towards the grand union. You had to go down some steps to get to it. Across from that was a dry cleaner place. I spent quite a bit of my time with my sister there waiting for mom to get off. Looking out to the plaza from Murphy's on the left was Hot Shoppes. A furniture place was on the right. Hot shoppes didn't always have the best food. Murphy's has a nice diner. So did Peoples and Woolworth's. I spent a lot of my time in Music Time, a record store right next to Peoples. It then Became Musicland around the time of the enclosure in 77. Nancy Coty, Melanie, and Randy worked there. I would usually spend my allowance there. Beckers, Hallmark cards and gifts, Spencers was always fun to walk through in those days. Big Boys was good and Knights Inn restaurant nearby was very good. The busses use to stop at Big Boys during the early 70s then it moved down to Murphy's. Yes they had that big Big Boy statue there too until they closed. My sister always liked going into Norman uh something or other and tried all different kinds of nail polish on me, lol. Took forever to get off. I always like slidding down that outer staircase on the side of hecht's and knocked on the trash can at the end. It was orange and white. It was good times there around 74-81.
Really nice place to hang out in the 1960s. Hot Shoppe was a great place to have lunch with their giant balloon rolls. Big Boy had the best hamburgers and milk shakes. Capitol Sports and Hobby had great toys and trains. A Soviet contingent came to see the Grand Union. Murphy's had nice little tasty Hoagies. Worked at Woodies in the mid 70s. Haircuts at the Plaza Barber. Now the Mall is very sterile.
K B kid store was there in the 90s. That was my favorite back then
that's awesome, thanks for watching
Mine too
Same here
@@zacharythomason7359 KB Toy & Hobby.
i grew up at prince georges plaza i can remember when the center of the mall had all wooden islands in it
That G.C Murphy was still there when I attended Univ. of Maryland in the 90s. I used to love to go in it.
Thanks for sharing your memories
you could find any kind of doo-dad in GC Murphy's. Another video on the mall mistakenly said the store was a Raleigh's Mens store. For as long as I could remember the land Murphy's occcupied was always a GC Murphy's. It is now a Target.🙂
I was born and raised in D.C. but lived in close proximity to P.G. Plaza; so, I went there regularly. I remember the open-air shopping center and how you needed to take an umbrella if it rained so as not to get wet going from store to store. I was a teenager when it was remodeled in 1977-78 and became an enclosed mall. I spent a great deal of time and have lots of good memories there. There was The Hecht Co. (Hecht's), G.C. Murphy, Wooward & Lothrop (Woodies), Raleigh Haberdasher (Raleigh's), Grand Union supermarket, Bob's Big Boy, Hot Shoppes, Hahn's Shoe Store, Peoples Drug Store, Lerner's, Baker's Shoe Store, Franklin Simon, Barricini Candy and Ice Cream (which closed in the early 70s?) and became Baskin-Robbins. There were many other retailers there. My favorite store was Woodies. I never called it the Mall at Prince Georges. It will always be P.G. Plaza or "The Plaza". 😊
thank you for sharing those nice memories
Or both just saying.
I remember those stores quite well when I was little. Those stores were very classy. I miss the old Hot Shoppes Cafeteria (Marriott). Their food was really good and their prices were fair. You had great people who worked there who knew you some of them knew you for a long time and on a first named basis. We don't have stuff of this quality any more and its heartbreaking. Thank you for sharing Danielle I enjoyed reading what you had to say and it brought back a lot of memories.
You have a great memory, Danielle! You brought me back to the old days. I remember how the wind used to whip through the gaps between the stores around Christmas time. I used to love the donut machine at Murphys. Remember that? Long time ago 😊
@@echang1976
Don't know WHY I'm just seeing this a year later...but you're very welcome! 😃
I miss it😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢
sorry to hear that, thanks for watching
@@echang1976 ty n yvw
Have not been there in years but I loved when PA palace was there !! Use to be in the middle of the mall
PA Palace was in Capital Plaza, located in Landover Hills.
And pg plaza!
I remember there was a High's convenience store, Ledo's Pizza, and a Bob's Big Boy that used to be on the exterior facing East-West Highway. Joon Ree Karate used to be in the lower level...Woolworth's was there at one point also. Roy Roger's too...I get sad when I see how much Hyattsville has changed for the worse. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, so I can only imagine how angry the elderly folk who grew up there must feel about their city now.
In 1990s and 2000 this was my childhood mall after the closing of landover mall. My mother managed like 3 stores in PG plaza so i was always there and i remember KB toys
I remember the Woodies, Raleigh's (next to Woodies), Hecht's, Grand Union, G.C. Murphy. My mother lived in Singer Sewing store. The mall stayed extra crowed when Woodies had the harvest sale & Hecht's the red dot. Good memories.
This Mall was spruced up in 2018 or so and is now called "The Centre at Prince George's". Unfortunately, crime is still a problem at this Mall and it witnessed 2 shootings in 2022. If it improved security and added more stores through construction in the rear parking lot, it could begin to compete with Wheaton Mall in Montgomery county. 🤔
thanks for sharing your knowledge of the mall.
oh boy, I disagree. Wheaton Mall has seen better days. It's JC Penney store, a really nice three level affair, is closed and fenced in. I don't know if it's a tear down or to be renovated. Wheaton Mall started out as Wheaton Plaza though it's always had a splendid two level of winding stores and movie theater. PG Plaza started out as an open-air plaza and is now called a mall though it's always been single level plaza status. So go figure.🙂
@@deepseadirt1 the demographics change has affected Wheaton mall. I certainly don't want to sound too un-P.C.. Everybody goes to Tyson's and Pentagon City and those malls still thrive but the rich areas around them influence this success. economic-demographic-population changes usually hurt malls and ultimately destroy them. Look what happened to Landover Mall in the 1990s.
Wheaton Mall's only tragedy was those little Lyon sisters disappearing back in the 1970s. The movie theater moved into a second building half a block away and the customers there can get a rowdy. One relative of a friend advised us not to go to Wheaton mall due to crime concerns. This was the first time I'd heard a warning like that .
If the Pennys is closed now (I hadn't heard that but I haven't been there in a while either) then that's a bad sign. If Burlington Coat Factory or Marshalls moves in soon then that's and EVEN WORSE sign that Wheaton is in trouble. PG Mall and Forrestville mall still have their Pennies though despite their sketchy environs.
Too bad about Wheaton. I loved the food court there and Costco. Great variety of foods. PG Mall has a good food court too...but like I said earlier, two people were shot there this year alone there.....😭. IMO, a stronger police presence in and around PG and Wheaton would deter the crime. Ultimately, the cities hosting these malls and their chambers of commerce need broader strategic action plans to protect their municipal socio-economic interests. Landover in PG, Landmark (where Wonder Woman 1984 was filmed in VA and White Flint in MC didn't do these things or did them too late and lost their great malls. 🤔
The nonsense happening in Montgomery County MD with this crime would have NEVER been tolerated in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and early to mid 90s. This sad story is what caused the Hecht Company (Ellsworth Place Mall today) to close their downtown Silver Spring Department Store (1947-1987).
I remember Big Boy restaurant, and Miles shoes. I wanted a pair of GoGo boots and had saved my babysitting money for months for the $5 to by them. (It was 1966). The Saturday I was supposed to go to the store, my mother said that there was a fire at the Plaza, and I couldn't go. I verified that by listening to by transistor radio, station WPGC. I never did get my GoGo boots!
So sad 😥
Just a little info:
Prince Georges Plaza opened in 1959 with three anchor stores: The Hecht Co. (1958), Grand Union (1958) and G.C. Murphy (1959). Woodward & Lothrop was built and opened at the Plaza in 1966. It was located at one end across from Grand Union. The 1977 renovation enclosed the mall; the 1990 remodel added a food court. Woodies closed in 1995. G.C. Murphy closed in 1999, 30 years after opening there; it remained vacant until Target was built on that site. There used to be a Bob’s Big Boy near the entrance to the Plaza; however, in later years, it was moved to the front parking lot before closing. Now, there are Olive Garden and Outback restaurants in the front lot. Metro’s Green line, a Home Depot, and a Giant were built directly across the street, facing the Plaza.
thank you for the information
PG Plaza benefits from sitting in an ideal spot. There's residential, the three large Metro government buildings, more recently University Towers dorms, Northwestern HS, the University of Maryland up the road and the main thoroughfare of East-West Highway feeding traffic to it. What could be better? In the 70s it was like Capital Plaza, it was open air with a sea green paint job.
Eric, Thank you for the history video ! As a kid I watched PG PLAZA being built. I worked at Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant in 1965-66 as a busboy. At Christmas time, the parking lot would be packed with shoppers. Thanks to THE GREATEST GENERATION. Use to be a very upper class mall, then the trash moved into PG COUNTY turning the county into a cesspool of ghetto trash.
thank you for watching
My mother worked at the G.C. Murphy's as a bookkeeper from 1974 to 1981. Mr Belcher was the manager of the store for most of that time. The Murphy's store had two escalators that went up to the main floor in the middle of the store. Evelyn was working at the snack bar. I was always playing the bronco pinball machine nearby at the side entrance where the metro busses would stop. Mrs Gibson I believe was the assistant manager. Laura Gershanic was a good friend of my sisters. She worked in the music department. I remember when it was still an open plaza. I also liked going to the antique store located on the outside going towards the grand union. You had to go down some steps to get to it. Across from that was a dry cleaner place. I spent quite a bit of my time with my sister there waiting for mom to get off. Looking out to the plaza from Murphy's on the left was Hot Shoppes. A furniture place was on the right. Hot shoppes didn't always have the best food. Murphy's has a nice diner. So did Peoples and Woolworth's. I spent a lot of my time in Music Time, a record store right next to Peoples. It then Became Musicland around the time of the enclosure in 77. Nancy Coty, Melanie, and Randy worked there. I would usually spend my allowance there. Beckers, Hallmark cards and gifts, Spencers was always fun to walk through in those days. Big Boys was good and Knights Inn restaurant nearby was very good. The busses use to stop at Big Boys during the early 70s then it moved down to Murphy's. Yes they had that big Big Boy statue there too until they closed. My sister always liked going into Norman uh something or other and tried all different kinds of nail polish on me, lol. Took forever to get off. I always like slidding down that outer staircase on the side of hecht's and knocked on the trash can at the end. It was orange and white. It was good times there around 74-81.
thanks for sharing those memories
I didn't know the Spencer store was in that mall 🤔🤔🤔
Thanks 😎😎😎💎💎💎
It brings me to tears to see what's happened to Prince George's plaza and the malls of the suburbs. I remember when things were better.
Sam goodys
Really nice place to hang out in the 1960s. Hot Shoppe was a great place to have lunch with their giant balloon rolls. Big Boy had the best hamburgers and milk shakes. Capitol Sports and Hobby had great toys and trains. A Soviet contingent came to see the Grand Union. Murphy's had nice little tasty Hoagies. Worked at Woodies in the mid 70s. Haircuts at the Plaza Barber. Now the Mall is very sterile.
And potentially dangerous 🤔