A grand opening ceremony was held at the new Briarcliff Village on Thursday, March 25, 1965. A full page ad in the March 24, 1965 Atlanta Journal announced the new shopping center with details about the 26 stores and services. The ad describes Briarcliff Village as “set amid an intimate courtyard.”

According to the October 1958 Atlanta Constitution, the first Kresge in the Atlanta area was at Broadview Plaza, where Piedmont Road and Morosgo Drive met. The Broadview Plaza store had 14 checkout stations and a lunch counter. When I think of Broadview Plaza, I think of the Great Southeast Music Hall in the 1970s, but that is a subject for another time.

The article indicates two additional Kresge’s were under construction nearby. One of those would have been the Lenox Square store, which I recall shopping at as a child with my parents. Kresge’s and Lenox Square Shopping Center both opened in 1959. Lenox became an enclosed mall in 1972.

Lenox Square shopping center opened on August 3, 1959 with a ceremony at 9:45 a.m. The Atlanta Constitution covered the grand opening that day. Vice president of Lenox Square Inc. Chess Lagomarsino called the newly constructed shopping center “the biggest in the south.”

John and Mary Donaldson Copeland owned the dairy in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Their home sat where Lidl and CVS are today in the triangle formed by Mount Vernon Road, Jett Ferry Road, and Dunwoody Club Drive. Dunwoody Club Drive was a dirt road known as Old Lawrenceville Road at that time.

Over on the other side of what is now Dunwoody Club Drive was the dairy operation. This is the location of the Orchard Park Shopping Center and Kroger today.

I’ve been in the area of North DeKalb Mall several times recently and decided to take a couple of photos of what was once Rich’s, the anchor store of the mall, and a place that I visited often from it’s beginnings through the 1990’s. These photos were taken in April of 2021.