![Bangert: Tales from Chauncey Hill Mall, a hangout for generations near Purdue (1) Bangert: Tales from Chauncey Hill Mall, a hangout for generations near Purdue (1)](https://i0.wp.com/sixerswire.usatoday.com/gcdn/-mm-/e759cb874b79c4a79935a63125c3f1da54388dca/c=0-94-2000-1224/local/-/media/2018/07/05/INGroup/LafayetteIN/636663898143191942-LAF-bangert-col-chauncey-hill-mall-history-01.jpg?width=660&height=373&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Chauncey Hill Mall, with its first stores opened in December 1979 a few blocks from Purdue University, might never have been much to look at.
In recent years, one part-owner confessed to a crowd at a public hearing about West Lafayette and Purdue’s $120 million remake of State Street that she was a little embarrassed to crest the hill with friends and tell them that, “Yeah, I do own 50 percent of that.”
And Chauncey Hill Mall, now approaching 40, is not exactly what city officials, ready to welcome a more urban downtown setting near campus and along a rebuilt State Street, have in mind, anymore. (“I am sure the mall had its heyday, but the amount of asphalt on that location is just unbearable,” said Nick DeBoer, a West Lafayette City Council member whose district takes in the three-acre strip mall.)
This week, a development team assembled by Trinitas Ventures – a Lafayette-based firm that has rights to the property – will hold five days of public sessions to help decide what will come next. Among the options already hinted by Trinitas: a hotel, housing, reconfigured retail and something that would be in line with the 10-plus-stories projects going up all around the property. Potential construction plans haven’t been announced, and 16 remaining businesses are still open.
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But post a simple question on social media – OK, so who hung out at Chauncey Hill Mall when hanging at Chauncey Hill Mall was a thing? – and you’re going to get a nostalgic feed that lasts until at least tomorrow.
About a place filled with fast food and local icons – Arby’s and Taco Bell right down the way for years from the family-owned Parthenon, which moved to another part of townearlier this decade, and Utopia Diner, which had a 10-year run starting in the mid-‘90s. About bars that were favorites before Breakfast Club on football Saturday was a thing – Wabash Yacht Club, gone for nearly a decade after a 22-year run, and Quincey’s and the Stacks before it – and those are still drawing big crowds today. (Good morning, Jake’s Roadhouse. Hello, Where Else? Bar.) About the odd mix of clothing stores (Pants Explosion, Five Points Shoes), gift shops, hair stylists, sporting goods, cookie bakers (Toogie's Cookies for 18 years), arcades and one place built on a menu of fried rabbit – no really, fried rabbit. (RIP Hop Scotch, after six months and one state indictment for franchising violations.)
And about a place that, no matter how it looked, served as a home base for certain generations of Purdue students coming to Discount Den for inexpensive sodas known as Den Pops and Greater Lafayette high school kids who crowded the tiny patio and tables outside whatever pizza place – Garcia’s Pizza in a Pan, Browny’s Pizza King, Roxy’s, Hot Box – was at the corner near State Street and considered themselves part of a “Chauncey rats” tradition.
These are some of their tales of Chauncey Hill Mall.
► Chris Foresman graduated from Lafayette Jefferson High School in 1994 and is a software engineer and father of two in Chicago: “The place was like at the nexus of ley lines, attracting the disaffected youth as young as 13, as old as perhaps 21. There's a lot of my personal history mixed up with the Village and the ‘scene.’ The Venn diagram there is pretty intertwined. The benches and tables outside, were a meeting pace for punks, skaters, anarchists, philosophers, ne'er-do-wells, et al. … Skaters would meet up after school, so you would just go there about 4 o'clock, and kids from other schools would meet up before deciding where to skate.”
► Nicole Finkler graduated from high school in 1996 and is a clinical informatics analyst at an academic medical center in Chicago: “I spent more time at Chauncey as a teenager than I did at home. Even worked at Garcia’s. Lived off 50-cent Den Pops and dollar rice from Eggroll Express. We would go to Utopia and order a cup of coffee and proceed to hang out for six hours. … ‘See you at Chauncey’ was uttered more times than I can count.”
► Lauren Bruce, a Harrison High School graduate working at Purdue, lives in West Lafayette: “I hung out during the Utopia and Garcia’s days (in the late-‘90s), and later when Roxy’s was there for a minute. I told my teenager that pre-internet, pre-cell phones, we hung around at the mall drinking Discount Den sodas and eating dollar rice from Eggroll Express, waiting for friends to stop by to hang, and he said if you did that today you’d be a weirdo. Joke’s on him, we were weirdos then, too. … If you were lucky, you could call the pay phone outside of Garcia’s and actually reach someone.”
► Benjamin Madrid grew up in Lafayette and works with the Helen Wells Agency in Indianapolis: “My parents called it 'Weird Harold Corner' which I believe is a (Bill) Cosby reference. Please quote me – or them – on that.”
► Dave Mason owns ISPhotographic in downtown Lafayette: “The Village was the home of The Scene. If you can’t lay claim to a show, a fight, an arrest or an escapade with the opposite – or same – sex in The Village, then you can’t claim to be Lafayette Old School. Garcia’s, Amused, the Blue Café, the gum wall ... landmarks of our misspent youth. I had a spray-painted Buick Skylark known as The Road Warrior – maybe because that was emblazoned across the green trunk in red paint – at the time in the late-‘80s. I’d leave it in the Chauncey Hill Mall parking lot with the keys in the ignition. If an acquaintance were to spot it, the game was to hop in and drive a lap around the Village and return it back to the lot but in a different spot. So many good times.”
► Tom Trent, a Lafayette native, lives in Bloomington: “When I was a senior at Jeff High School in 1981, the cool thing to do was drive over to the arcade, Pin Pan Alley. That was the heyday of quarter-a-game video games: Donkey Kong, Centipede, Asteroids, Defender, Frogger. It seems like you could find anyone you were looking for at that place. And then there was Garcia's Pizza. … There used to be a series of stairways and balconies in there, almost like an Escher print, with a few video games on the top level. When we were starving college students at Purdue, we might, on a dare, finish the pizza left by other patrons.… It seems like every kind of business gave it a try at Chauncey Hill, including a fast food restaurant that specialized in rabbit.”
► Brice McCarty, a manager in the ‘90s at Jimmy John’s in the Chauncey Annex across State Street, is a paramedic for Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service: “I used to ride my motorcycle on campus a lot. At the height of it, our group regularly had 50 to 100 motorcycles at night sitting on the lower lot of Chauncey Hill Mall. With that many people, you might expect that security would be an issue. Not the caseat all.Purdue and West Lafayette police used to come over and admire the motorcycles and chat. And on a few occasions, we were even able to assist in the apprehension of a suspect by giving a good description, giving a detailed (sober) recollection of events, or physically detaining someone who was running from the police.”
► Traci Schriever attended Purdue through the mid-‘90s and now lives in North Carolina: “Two of my closest friends and my boyfriend – now husband – had motorcycles. We’d meet up at Chauncey with all the other cool bike dudes and hang out in the parking lot until someone said, ‘Let’s do a lap.’ Then back to Chauncey until the next, ‘Let’s do a lap.’”
► Tyrone Taylor lives in Dayton, where he is on the town council and is an Area Plan Commission member and will get a vote on any Chauncey Hill Mall property rezoning plan: “It was the ultimate hangout as young teenager. It was the meet-up spot for all the skateboarders around then for a few reasons. Around 1993 Purdue had banned skateboarding on campus and would issue you a $15 ticket and take your board. Chauncey wasn't considered Purdue campus, so the Purdue police could not ticket you there. It was almost like base. So everyone would meet up and about every few hours do what is called a campus run – where you pretty much tried to skate as many spots on campus until police were after you – then you would try to sneak back from campus without getting caught. Chauncey Hill Mall is where I met a lot of lifelong friends. It was a very cool scene in West Lafayette back then. … To this day, it is still the meet-up spot. Being on APC and seeing the future of the Village is bittersweet. We live in a different world now than in the ’90s, and it will never be the same, so I think it's great to build something new where future generations can build memories.”
► Rebecca Gibson, a Realtor in Lafayette, graduated from Harrison High School in 2002 and from Purdue in 2011: “Back alley of Von’s (behind Chauncey Hill Mall) is where I came on to my husband and forced him to make out with me on the back of my car. A cop flashed his lights, and we walked to his apartment on Chauncey. The rest is history.Now we are married and have two kids. Memories.”
► Jodi Taylor worked at Utopia Diner – she has the original sign – and is now operations manager for the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra: “I lived the Utopian lifestyle, first as a customer then several years behind the apron. Spent too much time sitting on the couch in Von's Comics getting a teenage intro to camp and schlock vids. From the endless hours in a booth at Utopia, I was guided to read ‘Big Sur,’ ‘Naked Lunch’ and ‘The Dancing Wu Li Masters.’ I learned how to doodle. I learned how to sit with my teenage angst. Developed a terrible coffee habit that lasts to this day. Smoked too many vanilla-flavored Sweetwaters. I met punks, goths, skaters, hippies, ravers – and even though I didn't fit into one of those categories, it was still my tribe. I wrote an ode to egg fried rice for my ska band. I made and lost friends and danced on the tables. I still hate making milkshakes.”
► LaRonika Thomas, part of West Lafayette High School’s class of 1995, is a Ph.D. candidate in theater history and performance studies at University of Maryland and a visiting assistant professor in fine arts at Loyola University Maryland: “My parents were not thrilled that I hung out there – mostly at Utopia Diner or outside Garcia’s – or with some of my friends at the time, but for about 1992-95 it was just about the center of my world. Utopia was a whole world within Chauncey. My friend, Maya, and I hung out quite a bit at Utopia and would share a plate of fries down to the last one – which we would split and split in half until one of us caved and ate the last crumb. … You could go and get just a cup of coffee or some fries – or both – and occupy a booth for a very long time, which I know annoyed the owner and wait staff. It was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The jukebox was pretty good. … There weren't many options for a kid like me in West Lafayette then. I had a curfew and didn't go to football games, and I didn't go to raves, and where else were we supposed to go in a college town with lots of bars and little to do for the underage set? I wasn't a bad kid and didn't have a bad life or home situation. I was just unsatisfied with where I was. … But in between the teenage fears and melodramas – as well as some more serious issues that kids should never have to deal with – there was a little spark of that bohemian life.”
► Jamie Derringer, who worked at Garcia’s Pizza from 1997 to 2001, is a stay-at-home mom in Lafayette: “I worked at Garcia’s for a few years right up until they closed the doors. I still have my Garcia’s hat. Complete with “Phase” stains. (Phase was the scary yet delicious garlic butter that we served with the breadsticks.) Some of the weirdest and best people I’ve ever known used to hang out there.”
► Michael Hicks is a lecture capture technician at Purdue and a music educator: “I got the Muzak tapes – Steely Dan, Tom Petty, current and classic rock mostly – from the general manager of Garcia’s Pizza when it closed (in 2001) and made a four-CD set of the song list we used to hang out and listen to all day, every day, there.”
► Gwyne Bahler, a Harrison and Purdue grad, is an artist living in Indianapolis: “All the cool kids hung out at Chauncey in high school. Not that I was. As a kid who grew up in white, rural indiana, it was kind of my first introduction to any semblance of culture. What made it cool was that there were all of these ethnic restaurants and, around the corner, Von’s Books and global groceries and stuff that wasn't just white people stuff. … I used to go to the old Parthenon with one of my best friends, Liz, when we were in high school. Her family was Greek, and they approved of it thoroughly. It was "our place." The owner would always give us extra spinach rice, because we loved it so much. It always had a kind of grungy vibe – never dirty, but it really felt like a family restaurant. … I went to the new one once after it moved to another part of town, but never went back. It felt too sterile and lost its character it had at Chauncey Hill. It's sad, because I feel that's going to happen to pretty much everything on campus. They might as well just open an Au Bon Pain and get it over with.”
► Jay McDowell, a West Lafayette native who played standup bass in Nashville’s BR5-49, is multimedia curator at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum in Nashville: “From 1988-1992, I lived on South Salisbury and spent a whole lot of time at Chauncey Hill. My friends spent more time and money on video games at Pizza Keg and Pin Pan Alley. I spent my hard-earned cash on records from Von’s and Discount Den. The jukebox at Garcia’s got a lot of my coin, as well. I didn’t really skateboard, but my friends did. I have a lot of good memories of them skating on that little patch of concrete just outside of Garcia’s. The concerts that Von’s put on in their parking lots were a blast. East of Eden, Twopenny Hangover, Slaughterhouse Five, Rattail Grenadier, Gadfly, The Shindigs, The Young Lords, Meet John Doe, Wiggly Worm, The Icemakers of the Revolution. Now that I’m thinking back to that time, it’s the people I remember. There were so many characters that regularly frequented those restaurants and shops. That was the center of my musical universe. We’d find out the address of the house party that was gonna happen that night. It was quite a time.”
► Mass Giorgini, owner of Sonic Iguana Studios in Lafayette, was bass player in punk bands Rattail Grenadier and Squirtgun, which he figures played more than 50 shows in and around the Village in the ‘80s and ‘90s: “From my very first visits to punk shows on campus, the after-show ritual for concertgoers was to migrate to the Chauncey Hill strip mall area in general, and Garcia’s Pizza in specific. It didn’t matter whether the shows were during the ‘83-and-earlier Stewart Center 3rd Floor-era, the infinitely cooler ‘84-85 period of the Freakshow Bungalow – a converted garage a block south of the Village on Chauncey – or the much more regularly scheduled, national-level punk times of Spud Zero from ‘87-’88. In all of these generations of the Lafayette alternative music scene, Chauncey Hill was the before- and after-show mecca for area scenesters. There was no internet, so to find out when and where shows were happening, you had to go to Chauncey Hill to look at the fliers on bulletin boards, telephone poles or kiosks.”
► Evan Finch, who lives in Indianapolis, attended Purdue University from 1983 to 1987 and graduated with a degree in communications, which he parlayed into an advertising career: “My memories of Chauncey Hill Mall center around my two main interests: stuffing my face and buying records. At one end stood Garcia's Pizza, home of the aptly-named Gutbuster and buckets of cheap beer. The other end was anchored by The Parthenon, where my college friend Gayle Argoudelis introduced me to Greek food, patiently helping me learn my pastit*io from my mousaka. Midway between, inside the lonely corner ‘mini-mall,’ crouched P.J.'s Woofers – an oddly-named and clearly doomed hot dog stand that struggled along gamely for a few months in 1985. And of course, there was the perennial Discount Den: a surprisingly hip record shop disguised as a convenience store. Even after 33 years, I'm still kicking myself for not buying their cassette of The Replacements' ‘When the Sh-- Hits the Fans.’”
► Noah Mattern, a Harrison graduate, owns Maximumedia in Lafayette: “On weekends (in the early-‘90s), my high school friends and I would camp out at each others houses and play music, skate and wreak havoc around the hood before heading up the hill to Chauncey. There was a period in the late-‘80s when there was a show every weekend – behind Von's, Morton Center, the Wesley Foundation and numerous house parties in the campus area. We would spend the time before and after shows skating and hanging with the crew, shopping Von's Books and Records. Being young and impressionable, we were completely infatuated with the groups that would pop up to play: TFH, Rattail Grenadier, Life Sentence, Scourgin’ Zombies, Young Lords and Gadfly among them. These were our heroes growing up. … Chauncey functioned as a hub to the local groups and gangs as a source of intel and amusem*nt: to find out where the parties were at, to people watch, to chill. The place played host to plenty of memorable stories, some of which I can even share.”
► Nathan Sheets teaches science and coaches football and girls basketball at Lafayette Jeff: “I got a cigar on my 18th birthday one summer because I could. Walked Chauncey Hill Mall that night with it trying to look boss. Girls weren't buying it. Didn't like smoking. Started Purdue that fall. Got a co*ke at Discount Den after morning classes every day. Found that actually was cooler.”
► Tim Brouk came to Lafayette straight out of college in Missouri for a job at the Journal & Courier as an arts reporter in early 2000: “Flash forward about a year and along came Dance Party Revolution, the brainchild of Travis Beaver and his then-wife, Kara, along with a couple of others. It was a guerrilla dance party that would occur at the Chauncey Hill Mall in 2001 until about 2003. With a boombox and extension cord, they would blare modern and old-school dance music. Most were either not 21 yet or straight edge, but a few would pop into Jake's for a drink or two. But it was a response to how little there was to do in early 2000s West Lafayette. Travis and company took it upon themselves to create their own party, open to any and all. … It was a daring and fun thing to do outside on a weekend night. Without DPR, who knows if I'd still be in Indiana. It was the first thing that hooked me, and I saw how brilliant and creative folks can be in West Lafayette. Tons of great memories from those dance parties.”
► Chandra DiRosario graduated from Lafayette Jeff in 2002 and lives in Lafayette, a franchise operations consultant with Burger King and teaches group fitness classes at the YMCA: “Being born and raised in Lafayette, Chauncey Hill had a certain reverence as ‘the place to be,’ especially once we were old enough to drive – circa 1999. The cups of coffee at Utopia never seemed to run empty, morning or night, and plates of ranch fries were best eaten with good company. Dance Party Revolution became the highlight of each weekend, growing from a handful of dancin’ fools with a boom box on the sidewalk to an almost cult-like phenomenon. And even though we felt like we were entrenched in the middle of the action, the longer we lingered the more we realized we’d only experienced a small piece of a decades-long legacy. Hanging out at Chauncey Hill as a townie was, in many ways, a rite of passage.”
FOR MORE: Want to read more Tales from Chauncey Hill Mall? Want to share yours? Follow the thread atFacebook.com/dave.bangert.9.
IF YOU GO: Trinitas Ventures will hold a series of meetings and design sessions about the future of the Chauncey Hill Mall site, starting with a public presentation at 6 p.m. July 9 at the former University Spirit store at 135 S. Chauncey Ave. The rest of the week, through July 13, will include what the developer is calling a design studio workshop to collect ideas and thoughts about the development. Those will be held daily from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. July 10-12, and again 8 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 13. There also will be public presentations about the project 6-8 p.m. July 11 and July 13. For more, go to courbanize.com/trinitas-chauncey.
Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
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