Before Skylights, Before Shake Shack
In 1959, on the corner of Route 1 and Parsonage Road in Edison, a new kind of shopping arrived. Menlo Park Shopping Center opened as an open-air plaza, simple, utilitarian, and built for the postwar suburbs.
It had no marble floors, no dome-lit food courts, and certainly no AMC or Nordstrom. What it did have were Bamberger’s, JCPenney, and a layout that made sense for drivers pulling in from growing housing tracts.
Enclosure wouldn’t come until 1966, but from the start, Menlo marked its place on the map…