Keeping customers in downtown stores, 40 years ago

In 1981, the La Crosse Chamber of Commerce took a $20,000 study that had been gathering dust and looked at it again, in search of ways for downtown to compete with Valley View Mall.  The mall had opened in the summer of 1980.  It drew Sears, JC Penney, and Herberger’s away from downtown.  The Chamber report recommended more emphasis on mass transit, and improvements in downtown parking.  Within a couple of years, most parking meters would be removed from the La Crosse business district.  

A reconstruction of 3rd Street, including the demolition of a building at 3rd and Main, didn’t help business much…but at the end of July, La Crosse celebrated the “grand re-opening of 3rd Street North.”  

New TV shows getting attention in early 1981 included “Magnum, P.I.,” “Dynasty,” “Hill Street Blues,” and “Bosom Buddies,” a sitcom with two young actors named Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks.  The movie “9 to 5” was a hit in theaters, and Dolly Parton’s theme song from the film spent two weeks as the number 1 record in the country.  It lost the Oscar for best movie song to the theme from “Fame” in 1981, yesterday in La Crosse.