The Orange Plaza was the once-great mall of the Middletown area. It was THE place to go. Sadly, times changed and bigger and supposedly better things came to Middletown. This is a look back at our first mall, The Orange Plaza.
The Orange Plaza was the mall of my childhood. It was anchored by JC Penney and Sears on either end, with Sullivan’s, Greene’s, & Steinbach scattered throughout. The mall was mostly on one brown & orange -clad floor, with JC Penney and Sullivan’s having their own downstairs sections, and a small downstairs mall section featuring Burger King, the Black Forest Restaurant, and Jay Joy, amongst others. The Orange Plaza had no bathrooms except for those in the department stores. The Orange Plaza also had no food court, with only small offerings scattered throughout, including the illusive Orange Julius and every child’s delight, the Dutch Cookie.
Among the other stores I remember taking up space at the Orange Plaza are B. Dalton, Thom McAnn, Middletown Savings Bank, Woolworth (with snack bar), Mama Brava, and Baskin Robbins. Many residents who were but youngsters in the mall’s heyday remember the teal/blue coin-operated car whose hydraulics sounded like a chronic smoker’s cough and the Fannie Farmer kiosk. Remembered are the orange and brown floor tile, the doors with the yellow and blue OP on them, the spinning windmill on the Dutch Cookie sign (and all the begging for the parents to buy their children a cookie), and the lonely stairwell off in the corner next to JC Penney.
When the Galleria opened in the early 1990s, the Orange Plaza took a major hit. Sears, Steinbach, and JC Penney moved to the new mall. Within a few years, almost every tenant at the Orange Plaza had gone. Sullivan’s and Greene’s, two local stores, went out of business. The Orange Plaza sat dormant for years until they knocked down the Sears building and built a K-Mart. Eventually, the rest of the mall came down too. Wal-Mart now stands at the JC Penney end, and Kohl’s, Burlington Coat Factory, Panera Bread, and a few others round out the first floor line-up. Bed Bath & Beyond, Staples, Modell’s, Bath & Body Works, Joyce Leslie, and others line the lower level.
The new (or now not-so-new) Galleria holds no importance to most area residents. It lacks the character and the homesy feel of the Orange Plaza. Many boycotted it in its early days. The Orange Plaza was OUR mall. Before the Galleria, before Wal-Mart, there was the Orange Plaza, and it was distinctly ours.
