McKinley Mall in Hamburg, New York, came in on a close vote. In 1981, the town’s voters gave up a piece of park land for it. One campaign ran on jobs and tax money. The other called itself Consolidated Residents Against McKinley Mall.
By 1989 it was taking stores from an older mall. Sibley’s left Seneca Mall, less than five miles away, and reopened at McKinley, and JCPenney did the same in 1991. By the mid-1990s a department store filled every major space in the building…