"This
place has got everything." - Jake Blues
ÍIf you have never seen the blues-musical-comedy movie, "The Blues Brothers" then you have never truly lived! It doesn't mean that you won't enjoy this report, but it will have just a little more significance, if you've seen the movie. So...go out and rent it now!
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You see, they closed down the Dixie Square Mall round about the time that they filmed there in 1979. The Blues Brothers are chased by some cops and end up crashing through the north entrance on a wild chase scene throughout the mall and various stores within. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but I believe the scene occurs somewhere within the first half an hour of the flick.
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Sitting on 57 acres of land, the (now very visible and abandoned) Dixie Square Mall was one of the first regional and enclosed shopping malls in the country. The place was shut down and boarded up in 1979 just prior to the filming of "The Blues Brothers". On the west side of the mall you will find the City of Harvey police headquarters and jail. On the southeast side you'll find the local fire station. (There's a spectacular view of the "cop shop" from a window on the 3rd floor of the JC Penny building, but walking on the roof is highly discouraged. A valve weighing about 7 pounds was tossed out onto to it and it fell right through!)
The mall has had a bad rap not only as a hideous blight upon Harvey itself, but as a dangerous place. Back in July of 1993, Raymond Eaves gagged, raped, strangled and murdered Denise Shelby there. According to various news sources, the incident took place in the JC Penny's building on the northeast side of the mall. Just outside entrance to Penny's, inside the mall, we found a rather large wooden cross, perhaps placed there in remembrance of Ms. Shelby's brutal and untimely death. Raymond Eaves was justly sentenced to life in prison in September of 1997.
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Upon initial entry of the place we met an odd old fellow, who thought we might be the cops. He said that he was collecting cans from inside and asked what our interest was in the place. We told him that we were urban explorers only interested in seeing the place and taking some photographs. Remarkably he had heard of "urban explorers", and was very kind, yet odd when it came to being questioned.
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Remnants of fire, debris and sponge-like acoustic tile littered the floors. There was significant physical evidence that wild dogs and local homeless people at times, had sought shelter there. There was some graffiti and tagging visible on the walls and paneling of various stores. Most shops had been stripped of electrical equipment leaving various wires hanging from the ceiling. On the floors, only hideous carpets of horrible psychedelic colors remain visible beneath the debris. Very little seems recognizable save the odd store sign. Junk has been hauled out and hauled in to the place. Outer docks and surrounding property has been used as dumping grounds.
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The future of the place is uncertain. Developers seem to have been arguing what to do with the abandoned space for the past two decades. Recently discussion has thrown about the idea of turning part of the place into government offices and the JC Penny building into condos. (Hopefully this will include leveling of the building itself as I would sincerely doubt the structural integrity of the building not to mention it's complete lack of fireproofing on the rusty old steel beams and columns.)
RELATED LINKS
More photographs of Dixie Square Mall with movie stills
http://students.millikin.edu/~eraffenetti/mallJuly 20, 2002 -- Abandoned Mall -- Harvey, Il
http://entropy.in-flux.org/roadtrip1/020720/
The Ultimate Blues Brothers Web Site
http://blues.squidly.org/
Click on Thumbnail
for Larger Image. (Must have JAVA - Scripting enabled.)
