In the years following the Second World War, North America was growing and evolving fast. New technologies, a baby boom, and an increasingly globalised economy were changing where people lived, how they moved around and communicated, and even where they went shopping. Join Sean at Fairview Mall in St. Catharines, Niagara’s first covered shopping centre and one of the oldest in Canada. This is History from Here: a video series presented by the St. Catharines Museum and Welland Canals Centre. 

Fairview Mall opened on April 6^th, 1961. Though sometimes touted as Canada’s first covered mall, there are earlier examples in Vancouver, London, and other cities. But Fairview is significant because it was built in a recently agricultural, newly suburbanized area, far from the city’s traditional commercial core. This was an ultra-modern shopping experience that was arguably the first of its kind. Unlike earlier examples, the shopping centre that opened here in 1961 would still pass for what we consider a mall in the 21^st century. 

Previous boom periods had resulted in downtown densification, providing growing populations with places to work, shop, and live all within a few square, walkable blocks. If you had reason to go a little further, you could take a streetcar. But this time a different approach was taken, and it was largely thanks to the automobile. Cars were becoming the dominant form of transportation in Canada by the 1930s, and related infrastructure was popping up everywhere. People quickly got used to the convenience and freedom of cars, but downtowns simply weren’t designed for them. So when the modern city of St. Catharines amalgamated on January 1^st, 1961 and the time came to plan new developments between the old villages, they were designed around the car. Fairview Mall, opening just a few months later with an unheard-of 17-acre free parking lot, is a prime example of this new approach to urban design. 

When Fairview Mall opened, it featured 27 stores, including Woolworth’s, Reitman’s, Zeller’s, and the Right House Department Store. Though these names are recognizable as suburban big-box stores, they had all, up to that point, done business primarily in downtown store fronts, including in St. Catharines. The move indoors at Fairview was a radical, potentially risky shakeup, but a sign of things to come. When the mall was being constructed, there was some concern in city council about what this development would do to St. Paul St. The fears ended up being founded, with most department and grocery store chains abandoning their downtown locations over the next few decades.  

One of Fairview Mall’s most memorable early features was a large bird cage in the main hall. This two-story aviary showcased almost 100 exotic birds from around the world. It was later moved to a greenhouse in Welland and was most recently spotted at an antiques shop in Vineland. The mall also featured palm trees, floral gardens, and a duck pond and fountain. The fountain was once temporarily filled with milk as a promotional stunt put on by a dairy company! The churning motion of the fountain turned the milk into butter and a pitchman’s dream into a plumber’s nightmare. Another costly blunder happened in November 1972 when a six-metre-tall Christmas tree came too close to electric lighting and caught fire. The fire was contained but skylights had to be knocked out to let smoke escape. Santa Claus had been scheduled to arrive by helicopter the following day. 

Probably the most notorious story about Fairview Mall happened just a year after it opened. In July 1962, teen signing sensation Fabian visited the mall for an autograph signing and CKTB interview, drawing a crowd of some 5000. The interview was cut short when there was a loud crash. In the surging crowd, four kids had become pinned against a glass window fronting the Zellers store. The pane was broken by the force and all four were sent to the hospital for stitches. While waiting for the ambulance, the kids were brought to a vacant store where Fabian came in for a private visit. 

Fabian was not the only celebrity to visit Fairview Mall. William Shatner dropped by a few times in the 1970s in his capacity as Loblaws brand ambassador. Soap opera star Jeanne Cooper was there for the mall’s grand re-opening after renovations in 1989. There were local stars too, with popular St. Catharines rock bands the British Modbeats, the Morticians, the Druids, and others playing Saturday night concerts at Fairview in the 1960s. 

Since 1961, Fairview Mall and its surrounding neighbourhood have undergone several redevelopments. The mall does, however, still have two original tenants: the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Fairview Lanes Bowling Alley. Fairview Mall may seem small and unexceptional when compared to the many thousands of other suburban shopping centres that now dot North America. In St. Catharines, however, its arrival signified a paradigm shift in urban planning, refocusing priorities from industry to the modern family. And Fairview Mall continues to serve as a commercial and social anchor of St. Catharines’ North End today.