Finally, Dixie's coming down.

(can any Chicago/Harvey-area urbexers confirm this?)

Portal / [jonrev] on Flickr

Infamous to the urbex and abandoned retail communities, Dixie Square Mall in Harvey, Illinois is a gem of a ruin. It was a mall doomed from its start in 1966. Its lifetime plagued by blockbusting of the area (believe it or not, the term was originally coined by shameful and widespread practice of this in the Chicago area), leading to “white flight” and the mall being cast in a criminal light to those in the outlying areas.

In November of 1978, the mall shut its doors as a retail outlet for good.

In 1979, parts of the chase scene in the movie The Blues Brothers were shot here — the part where, you guessed it, the chase ends up going through the mall. Until recently, one could still see the tire tracks from the shoot on what was left of the floor.

The building ceased functionality in 1981, and has stood in decay ever since.

It is now 2012, and Dixie has been rotting away for nearly thirty-one years. It has seen countless proposals and subsequent failures to knock it down over the course of three decades (The section which housed Montgomery Ward was torn down illegally in 2005). It has housed stray dogs, been the scene of a vicious murder (post-mortem, in the early ’90s) and echoed the countless steps of urban explorers chronicling the stages of its vandalism and decay.

Is it true? Is it happening? Is it really coming down?

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