The Quaker Bridge Mall was developed by the Kravco Co. and opened in 1975. With two floors and over one million square feet of retail space, it was (and continues to be) one of New Jersey’s largest indoor shopping centers. The original anchors were Sears, JCPenney, Hahne’s, and Bamberger’s, and an AMC theater was added in 1977. The Bamberger’s department store was renamed Macy’s in 1986, and in 1988, Hahne’s closed and was replaced by Lord & Taylor, which closed their store at the Quaker Bridge Mall in 2020. Sears closed its store at the mall in 2018, but Macy’s and JCPenney are still open at the time of this writing. The mall was renovated in 1989, removing many of the original fountains, and again in 2010. It currently is the home of the WKXW New Jersey 101.5 radio station.

Today, the Simon Property Group owns Quaker Bridge Mall, and despite the closure of two of the mall’s anchors, it appears to be doing well. The tenant vacancies are well-hidden, the atmosphere is clean and welcoming, and there are over 100 stores for guests to explore. One of my favorite parts of visiting an indoor mall is finding the ways that designers have made the interior distinct, and Quaker Bridge’s large, skylight-crowned two-story atriums with off-center circular patterns on the floors beneath them provide a sense of spectacle and scale that is both unique and comfortingly familiar. Even on a Monday afternoon, there were dozens of patrons, and the stores are well-kept and have imaginative displays to command your attention. 

Indoor shopping malls are a swiftly vanishing bit of Americana and offer an experience that online shopping can’t match. Trying on clothes before you buy them, people-watching in the food court, and talking with sales staff who are knowledgeable about their products seems a bit luxurious now. We may not have the opportunity to do so in the future as the retail landscape changes, but it’s nice to see a few bastions of brick-and-mortar commerce continue to thrive.