Today, pedestrian malls are relatively rare in the U.S., except for areas with many tourists and other visitors. They were more closely tied to the success of retail than in Europe, and by the 1980s, most did not succeed competing with ever more elaborate enclosed malls. Almost all of this generation of pedestrian malls built from 1959 through to the 1970s, have disappeared, or were shrunk down in the 1990s at the request of the retailers. Half of Kalamazoo's pedestrian mall, America's first, has been converted into a regular street with auto traffic, though with wide sidewalks.
First generation (1959–1970s) In 1959,
Kalamazoo, Michigan, was the first American city to implement a "pedestrian mall" in its downtown core, This became a method that some cities applied for their downtowns to compete with the growing suburban shopping malls of the time. In the 1960s and 70s over 200 towns in the United States adopted this approach. Besides the
Kalamazoo Mall, some notable examples are the
Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Vermont; the
Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia; the
Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California; the Buffalo Place Main Street Pedestrian Mall in Buffalo, New York;
Ithaca Commons in Ithaca, New York; the
Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado; St. Charles, Missouri; Salem, Massachusetts;
Ped Mall in Iowa City, Iowa;
Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida; the
Fulton Mall in Fresno, California; the
K Street Mall in Sacramento, California; the
16th Street Mall in Denver, Colorado;
State Street in Madison, Wisconsin;
Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota;
The Grove in Los Angeles, California; Fort Street Mall in Honolulu, Hawaii;
City Center in Oakland, California;
Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa,
Downtown Crossing and
Faneuil Hall/
Quincy Market in Boston;
Washington Street Mall in Cape May, New Jersey; and The Downtown Cumberland Mall in
Cumberland, Maryland. Typically these downtown pedestrian malls were three or four linear blocks simply blocked off to private street traffic, with fountains, benches, planters that doubled as seating areas,
bollards, playgrounds, interfaces to public transit and other amenities installed to attract shoppers. Many were later re-converted to accommodate automobile traffic within twenty years.
Surviving first generation pedestrian malls However, most of these areas are still popular attractions today. The
Pearl Street Mall in Boulder continues to thrive with its college crowd atmosphere and the
Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica thrives on tourist traffic. The
Downtown Mall in
Charlottesville, Virginia, now a vital business, entertainment, and retail area, spent roughly twenty years as a somewhat depressed stretch until an ice skating rink and
multiplex opened on it in the mid-1990s. Broadway St. in
Eugene, Oregon, is finally being developed with a hotel, movie theater, and retail after decades of limited economic activity following its experiment with a pedestrian mall. The Federal Plaza in
Downtown Youngstown, Ohio is a similar case. Since the unsuccessful Federal Plaza has been ripped up and redesigned in 2004, the city of Youngstown has seen the development of a new entertainment district erupt. A new arena, two new courthouses, federal buildings, bistros and other new night-spots have placed themselves in Youngstown's core. Burlington, Vermont's
Church Street Marketplace has been expanded from the original three blocks to four, encompassing the entirety of the city's commercial "main street," and remains a thriving cultural center with shops, restaurants, vendor carts, sidewalk performers and special events which does not appear to be affected by the development of big box store farms in neighboring
Williston.
Poughkeepsie,
New York, on the other hand, has reverted its
Main Mall to vehicular traffic, having failed at maintaining a place pedestrians wanted to be. It was, at least in part, Poughkeepsie's initial success which convinced Burlington to proceed with its Marketplace project.
New generation In 1989,
Santa Monica, California on the
Westside of Los Angeles, renovated and relaunched its 1960s-era pedestrian mall as the
Third Street Promenade, and renovated both the adjacent
Santa Monica Pier and adjacent enclosed mall,
Santa Monica Place, all together helping to draw both domestic and international visitors and locals from across Greater Los Angeles locals. and
Herald Square.
Unconventional examples Las Vegas in
Las Vegas with the neon lights on In 1994–5,
Las Vegas pedestrianized and covered its main downtown street, lined with smaller casinos, and created the
Fremont Street Experience.
San Antonio The
San Antonio River Walk is a special-case pedestrian street, one level down from the automobile street. The River Walk winds and loops under bridges as two parallel sidewalks lined with restaurants and shops, connecting the major tourist draws from
Alamo Plaza to
Rivercenter, to
HemisFair Plaza, to the
Transit Tower. Most downtown buildings have street entrances and separate river entrances one level below. This separates the automotive service grid (delivery and ambulance/police vehicles) from pedestrian traffic below, provides bridges, walkways, and staircases, and attempts to balance retail, commercial, office, green space and cultural uses.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States During the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States some cities pedestrianized additional streets in order to encourage
social distancing and in many cases to provide extra rooms for restaurants to serve food on patios extended into the newly available spaces. In New York, this was applied to up to 100 miles of streets across the city. == List of pedestrian malls ==