Click on any photo to see an expanded version.



The Ka-Tiki Village had pretty much anything and everything.  The Village was a group of smaller stores including the following:

The California Shop
The I Love You Shop
The Village Soap & Bath Shop
The Kitten Shop
The Weeds & Seeds Shop
Wicker Shop
Candle Shop
Gaga & Games
Sign Alley
Polynesian Shop
Scents & Scenes Shop
The Playboy Shop

Like I said they had pretty much anything from gales, to candles, to wicker furniture (it was the 1970's) and issues of Playboy in the Playboy Shop.



Here you have the Aisle 5 gift shop, one of the entrances to the Old Chicago Beer Garden Restaurant, and the House of Schiller in the distance.



Unfortunately for the businesses that signed up to be a part of Old Chicago this is what it looked like most of the time with empty streets with no one there to shop. 



They expected the amusement park to be the big draw to bring people into the mall.  The problem is the amusement park drew teens and young adults while the market for most shopping centers are women 30+.  With the park not bringing in the mall's target market stores in the mall started to close and with no one heading in there to shop the amusement park started to suffer leading to a steadily worsening situation. 

Another problem in the mall was there were several stores with the exact same merchandise on sale.  I mean what shopping center needs two glass blower shops? 

Old Chicago tried to remedy the situation by moving stores around and grouping similar stores together in an area but that didn't bring more people in.  In reality there is a reason why malls have anchor stores like a Sears or a JC Penny is because those would bring shoppers in to visit all of the stores. 

Next let's take a look at one of Old Chicago's more unique stores:  Marshall Brodien's Magic Shop.



Marshall Brodien's Magic Shop

Old Chicago Index

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Paul B. Drabek