Willowbrook Mall is a one-level shopping center with a partial second floor located in Wayne,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

, United States. It is near the intersection of New Jersey Route 23, U.S. Route 46, and

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one ...

in the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass, at , and one of the list of most populous metropolitan areas, most populous urban agg ...

and is situated close to both

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

and Morris counties near the

Passaic River Passaic River ( ) is a river, approximately long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, ...

. As of 2022, the mall is anchored by

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wi ...

Bloomingdale's Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a di ...

Dave & Buster's Dave & Buster's is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's has a full-service restaurant and a video arcade. As of October 2022, the company has 151 locations in the United States and tw ...

, and Shopper's Find. The mall also features brands such as

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancest ...

Banana Republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring c ...

Athleta ''Athleta'' is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Volutidae ''Volutidae'', common name volutes, are a taxonomic family of predatory sea snails that range in size from 9 mm to over 500 mm. They are marine ga ...

, H&M, M.A.C.,

Sephora Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. Featuring nearly 340 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora Collection, Sephora offers beauty products including cosmetics, skincare, body, fragrance ...

, and Zara. The mall also features dining options such as the previously mentioned Dave & Buster's,

P. F. Chang's P. F. Chang's China Bistro is an American-based, casual dining restaurant chain founded in 1993 by Paul Fleming and Philip Chiang that serves Asian fusion cuisine. Centerbridge Partners owned and operated Chang's until acquired by the private e ...

, Blaze Fast Fired Pizza, and

The Cheesecake Factory The Cheesecake Factory Incorporated is an American restaurant company and distributor of cheesecakes based in the United States. The company operates 219 full-service restaurants: 206 under The Cheesecake Factory brand and 13 under the Grand Lux C ...

. The mall opened in 1969 and was expanded or renovated in 1970, 1988, 2006, and 2015. It has more than 165 retail establishments and a leasable area of . It is the fifth-largest shopping mall in New Jersey. With

blue law Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, Sunday trade laws and Sunday closing laws, are laws restricting or banning certain activities on specified days, usually Sundays in the western world. The laws were adopted originally for religious reasons ...

s in effect in neighboring

Bergen County Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Paramus Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...

, Willowbrook Mall has benefited from the spillover of shoppers on Sunday. The mall and its surrounding access roads and parking areas are prone to flooding in rainstorms. The

flows near the mall and one of its tributaries, the

Pompton River The Pompton River is a tributary of the Passaic River, approximately long, in northern New Jersey in the United States. It is formed south of the borough of Pompton Lakes by the confluence of the Ramapo and Pequannock rivers. It flows south, ...

, runs behind it.

History

Construction of Willowbrook Mall began in 1966 with the groundbreaking of a

Bamberger's Bamberger's was a department store chain with branches primarily in New Jersey and other locations in Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. History 1892–1912 Newark was known for m ...

store. and by 1968 the construction included an

Ohrbach's Ohrbach's was a moderate-priced department store with a merchandising focus primarily on clothing and accessories. From its modest start in 1923 until the chain's demise in 1987, Ohrbach's expanded dramatically after World War II, and opened numer ...

and a

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

. The mall was originally planned as a 110-store indoor shopping mall, encompassing . It opened on September 24, 1969. A second phase opened on August 12, 1970, consisting of 47 specialty stores on two floors, and a

Stern's Stern's (originally Stern Brothers) was a regional department store chain serving the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The chain was in business for more than 130 years. In 2001, Stern's parent company Federated Departmen ...

department store. Upon its opening, Willowbrook Mall become the largest enclosed shopping mall in the world. In 1993, Willowbrook Mall became one of the first malls in New Jersey to ban smoking on mall grounds. The Bamberger's store has been open without interruption for the mall's entire existence, but was rebranded as

in 1986 after its corporate parent decided to rebrand its entire northeastern United States operation under its namesake marque. Ohrbach's came under new ownership and was rebranded as part of the Steinbach chain, which went out of business in 1996. The building was gutted and expanded for its new tenant

Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as ...

, which opened in 1997. Stern's closed its doors in 2001 after its parent company,

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (originally Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American conglomerate holding company. Upon its establishment, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus, Filene's, and Shillito ...

, retired the brand; the store was converted to its sister brand,

, which opened in late 2002. In 2015, it was announced that the mall would undergo a two-year, $23 million renovation. The renovation entailed new ceilings in the Sears & Macy's wings, an overhaul of the food court, new flooring throughout the mall, additional seating, and a two-story streetscape theme for the Bloomingdale's wing. Later that year,

Sears Holdings Sears Holdings Corporation was an American holding company headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. It was the parent company of the chain stores Kmart and Sears and was founded after the former purchased the latter in 2005. It was the 20t ...

spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Willowbrook Mall, into a new company named Seritage Growth Properties. In 2017, Sears shrunk its square footage and subleased the unused portion to

, which opened on Valentine's Day 2018. Seritage closed and demolished the Sears Auto Center for a

Cinemark Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (stylized as CineMark from 1998 to 2022 and CINEMARK since 2022) is an American movie theater chain that started operations in 1984 and since then it has operated theaters with hundreds of locations throughout the America ...

movie theater, becoming the second movie theater within the mall area limits (after a 14-screen

AMC Theatres AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (d/b/a AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC and known in some countries as AMC Cinemas or AMC Multi-Cinemas) is an American movie theater chain fou ...

, formerly Loews Theatres). On July 15, 2019, Sears announced that it would be closing its store at the mall in mid-September 2019. The store shut down on September 15, 2019. In August 2018, Macy's added a Macy's Backstage outlet in a portion of its store. A P.F Chang's opened within the Bloomingdale's store on January 22, 2019. The Lord & Taylor location at the mall was closed on February 27, 2021 as part of the liquidation of the company, leaving Bloomingdale's and Macy's as the only traditional anchors. Later that year, a Shopper's Find opened in Lord & Taylor's former anchor location. In October 2020, it was announced that

BJ's Wholesale Club BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., commonly referred as BJ's, is an American membership-only warehouse club chain based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, operating on the East Coast of the United States in addition to Ohio, Michigan, and Indi ...

would plan to open a warehouse store and gas station. The warehouse store would open in the former Sears, while the gas station would be north of the mall's parking lot.

Public transportation

The mall and its parking lots serve as a transportation hub for the surrounding area. A

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit, and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey, along with portions of New York State and Pennsylvania. It operates bu ...

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system ( ...

facility, opened in 1974, provides bus service to and from the

Port Authority Bus Terminal The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving about 8,000 bus ...

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildi ...

. The buses serve the mall.

In popular culture

Willowbrook Mall was the site of the

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...

comedy ''

The Adventures of Pete & Pete ''The Adventures of Pete & Pete'' is an American comedy television series created by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi for Nickelodeon. It centers around two brothers, both named Pete Wrigley, and their humorous and surreal adventures in suburbia ...

'' special episode " What We Did on Our Summer Vacation", in which Ellen's photo booth was located in the parking lot of the mall.Milici, Lauren
"''The Adventures Of Pete & Pete'': Paying Tribute To A Quirky Nickelodeon Classic The legendary show gets its due."

Birth.Movies.Death. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is an American cinema chain founded in 1997 in Austin, Texas, which is famous for serving dinner and drinks during the movie, as well as its strict policy of requiring its audiences to maintain proper cinema-going et ...

, June 12, 2017. Accessed September 19, 2019. "The photo-booth-turned-command-center that Ellen worked at in the 'What We Did On Our Summer Vacation' special was housed in the parking lot of the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, NJ."

References

External links

*
International Council of Shopping Centers: Willowbrook Mall
{{Brookfield Properties Shopping malls established in 1969 Shopping malls in New Jersey Buildings and structures in Passaic County, New Jersey Tourist attractions in Passaic County, New Jersey Wayne, New Jersey Shopping malls in the New York metropolitan area 1969 establishments in New Jersey Brookfield Properties