The Main Mall was an outdoor pedestrian shopping plaza in downtown Poughkeepsie, New York

Poughkeepsie (city), New York

Poughkeepsie is a city in the state of New York, United States, which serves as the county seat of Dutchess County. Poughkeepsie is located in the Hudson River Valley midway between New York City and Albany...

, which was in existence from 1973 until 2001. A urban renewal

Urban renewal

Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...

 project designed with the intention of stopping the decline of the central business district of downtown Poughkeepsie, the mall was created by blocking off a section of Main Street (from Market to Catherine/Academy Streets) to automobile traffic. The growth of Poughkeepsie's immediate suburbs, along with the decline of the City of Poughkeepsie, doomed the project not long after its construction.

Early years

The Main Mall was the centerpiece of a project which also included the improvement of US 9 in the Poughkeepsie city limits to a freeway-standard highway and construction of The Arterial, a combination of Routes 44

U.S. Route 44

U.S. Route 44 is an east–west United States highway that runs for 237 miles through four states in the Northeastern region of the United States. The western terminus is at U.S. Route 209 and New York State Route 55 in Kerhonkson, a hamlet in the Hudson Valley region of New York...

 and 55

New York State Route 55

New York State Route 55 is a state highway in southern New York, running from the Pennsylvania state line at the Delaware River in Barryville to the Connecticut state line at Wingdale...

 into two one-way, three lane highways a block to the north and south of Main Street. At the time of the project, downtown Poughkeepsie was faced with the competition of the Poughkeepsie Plaza Mall on Route 9 as well as Dutchess Mall

Dutchess Mall

Dutchess Mall was an enclosed shopping mall in Fishkill, New York, United States. Currently, the former mall property is the site of a Home Depot, as well as two vacant buildings , with the rest of the property awaiting further redevelopment. Dagar Group manages the shopping center. R.C...

 ten miles south Route 9 in Fishkill

Fishkill, New York

Fishkill is an upscale village within the much larger town, Town of Fishkill, one of the fastest growing towns in the region, in Dutchess County, New York, USA. The village population was 1,735 at the 2000 census...

. In the first years after its opening, many ceremonies, promotions, and festivals took place on the mall, with it also being the site of many United States Bicentennial

United States Bicentennial

The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to the historical events leading up to the creation of the United States as an independent republic...

 festivities as well. These occurrences softened the sting of Dutchess Mall's presence in the early years of both venues. The moving of the de facto bus station and the transfer point for the then-fledgling City of Poughkeepsie Transit

City of Poughkeepsie Transit

City of Poughkeepsie Transit is the municipal bus system serving the City of Poughkeepsie, New York as well as parts of the Town of Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park. The system operates five different regular routes and a service which serves students at Poughkeepsie Middle School and Poughkeepsie High...

 and Dutchess County LOOP

Dutchess County LOOP

The Dutchess County LOOP Bus System is the bus service provided by the Dutchess County Department of Mass Transit in Dutchess County, New York. LOOP provides a variety of bus services throughout Dutchess County ranging from fixed-route services, centered primarily along the Route 9 corridor,...

 bus systems to the Market Street end of the mall also softened the sting to some degree.

Even with this minor success, the mall was beset with various access problems. The number of legal parking spots in the vicinity of the Main Mall were too few to handle even a moderate number of people. Delays in the construction of the Route 44/55 arterial pushed its finish date to 1979 which, coupled with the closure of Main Street in that area, made access to the area very difficult and led to frequent congestion of side streets not equipped to handle such traffic.

Decline

In 1974, South Hills Mall

South Hills Mall

South Hills Mall was an indoor shopping mall on U.S. 9 in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York. The 675,000 ft² plaza opened in 1974 and included four stores, a small food court, and an eight-screen second-run cinema...

 opened five miles from the Main Mall off Route 9 in the southern part of the Town of Poughkeepsie

Poughkeepsie (town), New York

Poughkeepsie is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 42,777 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from the native term, "Uppu-qui-ipis-in," which means "reed-covered hut by the water."...

. The opening of the mall led to an exodus of both shoppers and businesses from downtown. Over the next several years, many more businesses either closed their doors or relocated elsewhere and the Main Street area developed problems with homelessness and vagrancy. The final straw came in early 1981 when Poughkeepsie fixture Luckey Platt

Luckey, Platt & Company Department Store

The Luckey, Platt & Company Department Store building is located at the corner of Main and Academy streets in downtown Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. For most of the 20th century it was a major retail destination not only for the city but the entire Hudson Valley...

 department store

Department store

A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...

 closed its large location on the east end of the Mall at Academy Street. Shortly after the Luckey Platt closure, the Dutchess County

Dutchess County, New York

Dutchess County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. The 2010 census lists the population as 297,488...

Department of Social Services moved their offices to a location on the opposite side of the mall from that building and the area's vagrancy problems were joined by those of welfare recipients. Soon thereafter, the Main Mall became a hotbed of crime, gang activity, and prostitution and, outside of some street festivals, people stayed away from the Main Mall in droves.

Later years

With the election of mayor Colette Lafuente in 1995, the future of the Main Mall was brought into question. Lafuente had a plan to revitalize the City of Poughkeepsie by a process that would replace blighted areas with new housing and businesses. A native to the area, Lafuente had an intention to plant the seeds that would return Main Street to its prominence and such a plan would involve the elimination of the Main Mall.

In early 2001, the Main Mall was closed and Main Street between Catharine/Academy and Market streets was reconstructed as a two-lane street with ample on-street parking; the remaining business in what had been the mall stayed opening during the construction. The Main Mall officially went into history in November 2001 when Main Street was once again made whole. With the removal of the mall downtown Poughkeepsie began its recovery and is now attracting new businesses, stores, restaurants and galleries.