In the Wake of The Blues Brothers: Dixie Square Mall

A monument of American film lore still stands in Harvey, Illinois. The struggling municipality just south of Chicago city limits still attracts movie buffs, abandoned urban explorers, youth impelled by high school or college dares – and even Americans who have some basic familiarity with the film – to the sprawling complex along Dixie Highway between 151st and 154th Streets.

Opened in 1966, and initially anchored by retail powerhouse Montgomery Ward, the mall represented, in many ways, an apex in suburban development. Dixie Square Mall remained viable until late 1978. Since then, many ideas have bandied about as to future use – some leading to false starts, convoluted questions of property ownership, liens, and legal battles – one of which in 2008 devolved into a criminal charge when a property owner, obviously frustrated over this seeming eternal impasse, allegedly threatened a lienholder with brass knuckles and a pistol. Southside Chicago ethos remains undaunted within this crumbling ruin.

Dan Aykroyd, an unabashed car buff (a motorhead, as he has been called by colleagues), hatched the mall scene in painstaking detail in his three hundred plus page first draft of The Blues Brothers script. The already abandoned mall was restocked with perhaps the most elaborate movie property undertaking of the time, using real merchandise provided by and decorated by local vendors (from neighboring malls). Candied glass panes were installed, and a meticulous stunt route was devised. The mall lot was even filled to the brim with new cars hauled in from a bevy of local dealerships.

The scene lives on in movie history, as those two iconoclasts clad in cheap black suits and sunglasses tore through the Dixie Square Mall, followed by an entourage of state troopers, bursting over kiosks, and scattering extras posing as shoppers busily going about their affairs. A perfect swansong to an aging mall. Too bad that was in 1980.