Friday, April 10, 2009

Honer Plaza, Santa Ana

Anonymous writes about memories of Honer Plaza in Santa Ana...

I grew up in Santa Ana near 17th and Bristol, across from what used to be Honor Plaza. There was Newberry's, House of Fabrics, Montgomery Wards, Roberts, Sav-On and the movie theater. There was also The City in Orange with The Little Folks Shop. I always remember going down the little slide they had in the store. Does anyone remember the Belgian Waffle Restaurant in the shopping center across from South Coast Plaza? They had THE BEST waffles and then just disappeared. Talking about food, who can forget Belliles (sp.) in Garden Grove. The plates were gigantic and the food was unforgettable!
Of course I remember Honer Plaza. There was a small barber shop inside the mall that I used to go to all the time. And there was this self-serve postal annex in the parking lot that sold stamps, and included a scale to weigh your packages and mail them off.

My folks used to shop the Montgomery Wards there.

Calisphere has a photograph of the Montgomery Wards under construction at the future site of Honer Plaza...

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt5870129d/

35 comments:

  1. While attending Santa Ana Collge, 1968-1970 I worked at Roberts Dept store and a small dress shop called Ricki's. I got my first lessons in retail sales...the customer is ALWAYS right even if she looks horrible in that dress!
    Ricki's was trendier than Roberts, but Roberts paid better!

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  2. I went to the grand opening of Honer Plaza and got autographs of three Dodger baseball players: Norm Larker, Larry Sherry, and Roger Craig. Was that 1962? Someone told me that Honer Plaza was the first mall in the country. Anyone know if that is true?

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  3. In the 60's and 70's "Monkey" Ward's was where we got all of our clothes
    for school. When that chore was done my brother and I would whine and carry on that we wanted to go to the Toy World next to the Sav-on.
    During the early-mid 60's I remember going to the auto show that Chevrolet put on in the parking lot...pretty cool stuff.

    Gene S.

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  4. Allison honer,the guy who built this place,lived on a orange grove of several acres on Santa Clara ave just east of flower st in Santa Ana on the north side of the street until his death,the plaza opened before 62 as i can remember being there with my dad for hours to take a free helicopter ride in a bell h47 when it first opened,had to have been late 50s/very 1960s

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    1. Anonymous, I remember the helicopter rides. don't think they were free but the guy did give me a ride. I was 5 or 6. Jay North "dennis the mennis" was there also at one time

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  5. The current mayor of Santa Ana(Miguel Pulido) now owns the house on Santa Clara where Allison Honer used to live. It's on 1.5 acres and is a 1920s farmhouse. My house backs up to this property, and it was also built by Allison Honer (as were many houses in this neighborhood). Honer Plaza opened in 1960, from information I gathered.

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  6. I lived in the Washington/Bristol street area of Santa Ana in the mid 70s and would shop at what then was i believe a Ralph's market in honer plaza,at the far west end of the plaza there was a movie theater that switched to showing xxx rated movies,coming out of Ralph's one day i noticed a big crowd in the parking lot in front of the theater,so i drove by to see what going on,turns out there was an x rated actress named Nina Hartley doing a promo for the theater and charging $5 to have a picture taken with her,judging from the line I saw she walked away with bundle of cash that day

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  7. I grew up near McFadden & Raitt, We used to go to Jerome Park before the Center was built, when Charles Shaw was the person in charge of the rec.(1 little room with a door and window)We used to get bats and gloves to play base ball in the park. Used to go catch polly wogs and catch frogs. Believe it or not the ditch used to have Koi in it. We caught one and took it to school for show and tell, Mr Bergs class at Monte Vista. I used to go to school with Evette Harris, Bertha Davis, Reggie West, Kenny & Gary Templeton, Billy Bolton went with my older brother. We used to buy soda use licorice for straws, sunflower seeds, lemon drops.

    Now a days our kids do not even know what a frog looks like. They do not know what a tree house is. Skating in the Santa Ana Winds with our sweaters pulled over our heads like sails. The go carts that we used to make. The old fashion skate boards (roller Derby), or the crate box scooters made out of broken skates (the ones that attached to your shoes). We used to walk to Memorial Park to go swimming.

    It's too bad that we are too afraid to let our kids out to play any more. It's too bad that Santa Ana's Parks and recreations are not like they used to be.

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    1. Anonymous....
      Wow I remember going to Memorial Park for swimming lessons when I was a child. I use to live on Birch Street, in Santa Ana.

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  8. Loved Honor-went there all the time on my bike. Lived behind the church by SAC on 15th.
    Went to "monkey"Wards to shop. Would go to the petshop out back and get little lizards for pets-and rats-and mice. My poor Mom wasn't so happy about that.
    Yes, the movie theater changed from "Man for all Seasons" to "Behind the Green Door". Sad.

    RE: The Belgian Waffle restaurant over by So. Coast - I was just Googleing that & here I am back at this fun site again. Yes, my daughter and I LOVED that place and would go every Sunday. We'd wander around the center looking into stores like Tortuga till it was our time to be seated. Always worth the wait.
    The reason it closed is (heard this from the manager at the time) one or two of the other restaurants in the center complained to the center mgmt that they had so many customers on the weekends that THEIR customers had trouble parking. So they stopped their lease and closed them down! Isn't that sad. And, DUMB. While we all waited we looked & bought in stores in the center and looked at other restaurants to see where we might go for dinner some night, etc.
    Crazy. We SOOOOO miss that place.

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  9. I worked at Belisle's in the early 70's. You are right about the portion sizes and the food was great.

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  10. In the 1960's around the age of ten I lived in a tract of houses at the end of Trask that dead-ended at the Santa Ana river. We would walk and explore the bamboo jungle, cross the river, walk through a golf course and enter the Honer Plaza shopping center from the rear. We would always go to "Monkey Wards and ride the elevator up and down until we were kicked out. We would always go to Sav-On for ice cream cones and Toy World. I do recall going to the Chevy Show out in a tent sitting in regular folding chairs, watch the Chevy promo on a convex simi-crcular screen in 3D without wearing any special glasses. The Chvey logos just floated around the screen in front of your eyes and it felt like you could reach out and grab a handful and that was only the introduction. Wasn't Santa Clara St. off Bristol, the street where all the houses decorated for Christmas with lavish lights and lots of mehanical Christmas characters and toys? Remember all the traffic waiting on Bristol for their turn to drive down and view all the wonderful displays? AT JJ Newberry's we would buy Ben Hur perfume for our grade school girlfriends. Wow, what a smell that had!
    One of last things I remember there is when I met Ronald Regan who was running for Governor of Caifornia. He was on a flat bed trailer decorated with red, white and blue banners setting up to campaign the Horner Plaza people in front of Toy World. I introduced myself to him, shook his hand and asked for his autograph.
    He signed his autograph on an old matchbook I found someplace and asked me if my parents were going to vote for him. I told him they were democrates and he laughed and said that was ok and for me to tell them to vote for him anyway.

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  11. I remember Honer Plaza, and used to walk there, with my girlfriend, and her mom and siblings.
    Does anyone remember going to see Jan & Dean, at
    Thom McAn Shoe Store? I think it was a promotion by the radio station-KFWB.
    Does anyone remember Lindy's?

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    1. I managed that Thom McAn shoe store in 1979.

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  12. Pat / Pismo BeachMarch 30, 2010 7:22 PM

    Rose, was Lindy's the resturant in Honer Plaza?
    I always wanted to eat there. do you remember a resturant called Yummies on flower and 17th street? They had the best banana cream pie.

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  13. I grew up on Flower St in Santa Ana, just down the street from Honer Plaza. Matter of fact, I'm still here on Flower. I used to ride my bike over to Ralph's and Sav-on & go around the Mitchell Bros Theatre. I remember seeing shifty looking guys coming out of there. I always wanted to know what was going on in there, hahaha.

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  14. I grew up in Santa Ana in the 60's. I lived on Hobart Street near Main Street. I remember riding my bicycle and towing my surfboard ALL THE WAY TO NEWPORT BEACH!!! What a ride! The ride home was the worst!!! Way tired after surfing all day! lol!!

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  15. does anyone remember west ends store in honer

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  16. I too remember Honer Plaza though for years I thought it was Honor Plaza ;-) There wasn't a store in OC that my Mother didn't baptize. We would shop up there even though we lived by Edinger and Bristol. I still have a stuffed dog from Sav-On. Wasn't there a Newberrys over there. And remember the 'snow' at Christmas time in the Monkey Wards parking lot?

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  17. I remember YUMMIES - It was actually on the South-East corner of Bristol & 17th, across from Santa Ana Jr. College., cross-corner from Horner Plaza. It had a large soda fountain, booths & tables. My mom took me, and a couple of my friends, there for hot fudge sundies to celebrate our sixth grade graduation. It was only there for a very few years, it was torn down and a bank was built on the lot. I can't remember the name of the bank...

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    1. Can anyone tell me approximately when Yummies was opened? I found a plate today for a place named Yummies and I would love to find out if it's the one you all remember. Click here for photos: http://bit.ly/Y31idj

      Thanks!

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  18. I lived behind Honer Plaza and watched them build from the beg.then as I got older I worked at jj newberry's. in the snack bar then at sav on. lots of memories from there

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    1. I worked at newberry's in the snack bar, too, about 1982 to 1984. I remember a little old lady who always sat at the end of the bar and asked for 2 ice cubes in her tea. She was ancient 30 years ago...

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  19. I grew up in Santa Ana in the 60's and spent a lot of time at the Honer Plaza stores. Mom used to take me to the empty parking lot to practice driving when I was trying to get my license in '69. I definitely remember the XXX rated movie theatre! And later used to park there, and jaywalk across to Santa Ana College.

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  20. I remember the snow they brought in at the Monkey Ward's parking lot I still have the 8mm film my Dad took of us there in 1961 , the walk in theatre was first called the United Artist Theatre then was called The Mitchell Bros Theatre when it turned X rated I also remember Lincoln Saving's across the street and that was where that guy was arrested for embezzelment (what was his name) Wayne Hartel

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  21. I lived behind Honer Plaza from 1959 to 1969, remember Roberts dept store> JJ Newberry Savon Drug store(5cent single cones) and the postal station drive up on 17th st. Wards of course where we bought our clothes and Ralphs grocery store was there. My dad went to the barber shope run by the father of a friend of mine for years. Good memories.

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  22. I also grew up near Harbor and 17th and went to Honer Plaza my entire childhood to school clothes shop at Montgomery Ward. Once, when I was there with my mom and my little brother, mom was in a store while we waited outside in the courtyard area and a group of guys were surrounded by a motorcyclist. Turns out his group scattered and he went riding down the center of the plaza NAKED. That was the early '70's and was my first experience with 'streaking'. I was also there, years later, in the Sav-on, watching on the TVs there for sale, President Reagan getting shot and everyone in the store gasping and watching.

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  23. What was the lumber type of store called?? It was a hardware store kind of like a Home Depot... It is now Ralphs....

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    1. Honer Plaza had a front row of stores and a back row of stores. When things started changing, in the back west corner was a Home Base, then Home Club, then it was House To Home, I think.

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  24. im 29 now and have lived off 10th and bristol in santa ana. i remember going to newberrys, and savons and montgomery wards and ralphs for sure.. i remember it all before they knocked it down. then later became a home depot and kept on changing.... that whole area.. im looking to see and find more pics of the santa ana areas if anybody has some.. im local also. thanks my names sal (salduenas1@gmail.com) would love to chat and or hear from you and your experiances. i was born in 83 and i still live in my house off bristol and 10th. just always wondering about the historic city and wanna see more of it. ive seen many pics online ... im loving it. let me know.

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  25. I grew up in Costa Mesa in the 50's and 60's. My first job was at J.J. Newberry's at age 16 in 1965. I worked weekends behind the lunch counter. We did everything from cooking, serving and washng dishes. I think $1.15/hr was the minimum wage then. It was a great experience. I love reading everyones memories, helps trigger mine.
    I remember putting clothes on lay-away in the dress shops. And a lot of the sales associates from the different stores would come to Newberry's for their lunch breaks.

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  26. I grew up on Freeman, just south of Santa Clara. I remember going over to Honer Plaza to JJ Newberry's, Sav-on (1970s 25 cent single scoop of ice cream - the guy who worked the counter there was there for many years - kind of a heavy-set man), Roberts is where I got all of my Boy Scout items. I remember when they came out with the Pepsi-Coke taste test and set up in the middle area in front of Sav-on. There was the drive-up Post Office and the small key store in from of Mont. Wards. They also set up a large Christmas tree in the parking lot. What was the name of the bank on the corner? -camchrysler

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  27. Was the lumber store Builder Emporium? I remember that one.My parents use to go to the one on Katella.

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  28. what about monkey wards?? I was about 8 or 9 yrs old when I played a game of pool with Minnesota fats at a pool table sales event!! HOW COOL IS THAT???

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  29. I lived in Santa Ana back in the late 50's early 60's. I so remember when our parents took us to Yummies for hamburger's & a soda...loved Yummies. I also remember when my parents bowled on a league at WonderBowl - On the way home, my dad would stop at a donut shop that had a walk up window to get donuts. I have no idea what the name of the donut shop was but he would have to park on the street. I went to George Washington school and had square dancing lessons at Memorial Park after school. We used to go to the pool there too and I remember the rose gardens at the park. Wonderful memories! I lived on Baker St. Saw ealier a post about Memorial Park but couldn't for some reason reply

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