Southwestern Ohio's Dayton Mall

The original DAYTON MALL logo, circa-1970.

Graphic from the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation

The grand entry into the Gem City's gargantuan DAYTON MALL. Going through its glass doors, one came upon two sweeping semicircular stairways that ascended to a Mezzanine Level.

DAYTON MALL has been a poorly-documented shopping center. No vintage photos are available, so I created some images from memory. The mall's Center Court had 2 levels and fronted on Rike's. As originally built, DAYTON MALL was a spartan, no-frills structure with few interior embellishments and no natural lighting of any kind. The wavy ceiling treatment, spanning Center Court, was made of strips of paper.

The south-facing facade of Rike's. Two exterior entries brought customers into the Budget Basement Store (which, obviously, wasn't in a basement). The original store included The Amber Lantern, an upscale restaurant.

The Penneys, which anchored the west end of the 1970 mall. It featured a coffee shop restaurant, beauty salon, lawn & garden center and freestanding Penneys Auto Center.