Because the concept of the American shopping mall was still relatively new when Norridge’s first retail hub, Harlem Irving Plaza, opened in the late 1950s, people from all over the Chicago area once flocked to the mall on the village’s main intersection at Irving Park Road and Harlem Avenue.
Harlem Irving Plaza will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the shopping center and look back on the mall’s historic role in the community this weekend with an outdoor party featuring Chicago sports legends including Chicago Bears alumni Dick Butkus and Mike Ditka and Chicago Blackhawks hall of famer Bobby Hull.
Norridge Mayor James Chmura will host a toast at 1 p.m. on Saturday on the second-level parking lot south of Kohl’s to kick off the anniversary party, which will include live music, food, giveaways and an autograph signing session from 1-3 p.m.
“The ‘HIP’ is very proud of their history in the community, so they’re doing it up right,” Chmura said. “They are really an integral part of our community, so having these Chicago sports icons here to celebrate with us will be nice.”
People from all over the Chicago area came to know the mall as the “HIP” when it opened as an open-air strip mall in 1956. With 45 stores, including Fannie May, Lerner, and Woolworth, Harlem Irving Plaza was one of the first shopping centers in the Chicago area, according to Chmura.
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“When you were a kid growing up in this area, whenever you said you were going to the HIP, people knew you were going to Norridge — and that put us on the map,” Chmura said. “It drew people from the city and from all over the suburbs.”
In the 60 years that have since passed since the mall’s debut, the retail center has undergone several major expansions from the addition of a 75,000-square-foot food court in 1996 to the opening of its three anchor stores — Carson’s, Best Buy, and Kohl’s — all of which popped up during the past two decades.
A multi-level Target store was the last to join the trifecta of major stores in the mall when it opened in 2004 as part of a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the mall’s south end, according to Harlem Irving Plaza.
Two years ago, Harlem Irving Plaza revisited its roots as a strip mall when an outdoor expansion was added to the mall that included a 24-hour Xsport gym, a Sports Authority and casual burger chain Red Robin, among other food chain retailers that opened in a new adjoining space along Harlem Avenue.
While village officials welcomed the new influx of tax dollars the stores and restaurants would bring to the community, not everyone was happy with the expansion. Some residents who live on Cullom Avenue, the street bordering the new gym and stores, complained to the police and local officials about vehicles parking on their streets and gym patrons using side streets as shortcuts to Harlem Avenue.
Those problems seemed to have dissipated during the past year, however, after the village implemented new resident-only parking regulations along Cullom Avenue and Xsport posted signs reminding patrons to be mindful when leaving the parking lot late at night.
“Obviously, when you live across from a mall, problems with traffic and parking will arise,” Chmura said. “But we haven’t had any problems lately, and I’ve heard people on Cullom say they’re happy with the expansion now.”
Registration for the sports celebrity meet and greet will start at 12:30 p.m. Only one autographed photo of each sports personality will be available for each guest, and photos aren’t allowed.
Natalie Hayes is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.