As I type this, Statesville’s Newtown Plaza is pretty much history. Next door, Signal Hill mall has been gutted and will likely meet the wrecking ball soon as well.
It’s not my intention to detail the entire history of the mall and Newtowne, but to share various clippings and photos I have accumulated through the years.
Newtowne has been home to lots of different businesses through the years. I remember it mostly as it was in the 90’s. Village Inn Pizza, El Tio’s restaurant, Newtowne Theater, the mini golf place behind them all, and the various incarnations of the building that would eventually house J.R.’s before it moved to Mooresville.
Village Inn was a favorite for me as a kid. It was right next door to the theater so a Saturday night show followed by a pizza buffet in the old A-frame building was a natural progression. The building was showing it’s age when I was going there. Part of the dining area was on stilts hanging out over a ditch between the restaurant and the interstate and it always weirded me out hearing the floor creek as you went back into that section. Another fond memory was begging for quarters to play the “cocktail table” arcade machine they had in the main part of the building. I think it was Mrs. Pac-Man if I recall correctly.
The food was always good, and remained pretty cheap while it was open. I probably ate there last in 2012 while out taking pictures around Statesville.
Newtowne Cinema sat empty for a long time before it was finally demolished. It opened in 1967 and finally shut down in 2000. I believe a church used the building for a short while after that but not much else was ever done with the property.
Signal Hill was the shopping mecca in Statesville for many years. It’s where we went for school clothes, to see Santa Claus during the Christmas season, where we got family photos taken at Olan Mills, where we went to shop for toys when we had a couple dollars burning a hole in our pocket, and where we went to pet puppies our parents wouldn’t let us bring home. There were Halloween costume contests and trick or treating, bridal shows, live music on the stage near JC Penny’s, and tons of other things that brought people in. All of this started to die in the late 90’s as Wal-Mart took business away from the mall’s stores and the building started to show it’s age. It was a slow decline, and mirrored the death of malls in many other small towns.
I have so many good memories of the mall it wouldn’t be feasible to talk about them all, but there are some stand outs.
My grandmother worked for a time at one of the iterations of the snack bar that was in the middle of the mall and I vividly remember the smell of cookies baking there. It filtered through the entire mall. I think it was called Sweet N Nutty before it finally closed.
Kay-Bee Toys was the place to go for Christmas and birthday presents. And mostly for looking at things we couldn’t afford. But just about every member of my family at one time or another took me there when I was a child.
It wasn’t a mall trip if unless you begged for a penny or two to throw in the fountains. Sometimes, certain members of my family would fish out other people’s wishes so they could throw them back in.
The arcade was always off limits for us. It seemed to cool and dangerous. Dark, loud, full of teenagers. We never had quarters so we could never play any games anyway.
In later years the various iterations of the book store and the music store were where I ended up, and I bought lots of used CD’s and new books. The bookstore was one of the first places I ever applied for a job, but ended up taking one somewhere else.
Below are some pictures and ads related the the various stores that called the mall home through the years.
And as it appeared during it’s last years.
And just for fun, some Halloween ads.
I know there’s lots of you out there who remember Signal Hill and Newtowne fondly. I’d love to hear your favorite memories.
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