A second Burlington mall? Hell yes!

RWF

4 years ago

One mall ain’t enough, so here comes Burlington Mall number two, just four years after the first mall opened, and just a half-mile down the Turnpike, on the Burlington/Lexington border.

Size: 300,000 square feet
Number of stores: 25-30
Parking spaces: 1,500
Developer: Martin Bernard
Land owner: Realty Development Corp. of Burlington
Targeted opening: Summer 1973

Before

THE PITS on the Burlington/Lexington line the early 1960s.

FUTURE MALL ENTRANCE — Form in Teak became Metropolitan Furniture and now Furniture Consignment Gallery. That little adjacent house was serving as a weigh station for trucks carrying sand from the sand pit behind it.

After

THE SECOND MALL on Middlesex Turnpike. It was called Burlington Village for a while, and also Burlington Arcade. Here are some ads from the second mall:

And now

It’s been de-malled and turned into Middlesex Commons, a plaza with no connecting “mall” hallway.

In other news from 50 years ago this month —

Cable TV started with 30 homes in the Winnmere section (that’s the neighborhood near Sammy’s Deli and Morandi’s Barber Shop) and would soon expand under the town’s supplier, Continental Cable Vision.
A town traffic committee recommended left-turn-only lanes for Bedford Street and Cambridge Street at their junction near the common. Bedford Street has them even now.
Lightning struck the home of Sal Turco at 267 Cambridge Street and burned it while the family was away on vacation.
Residents near Winona Road and Rahway complained to the Board of Health about this abandoned house on the corner:

These residents made the local news in June of ’72

Adele Nunno embarks on a trip to Italy, part of the Community Ambassador program. She’ll spend the summer with an Italian family. Waving goodbye are Ed Doyle, Lucia Fulco, Gayle Rubin and Phil Young. Looks like the young ambassador is experiencing something less than a rush of excitement.

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