My previous post showed a December 1956 Gazette and Daily full page ad for the one-year-old York County Shopping Center. It listed the 28 stores and businesses and stressed the free parking.
Downtown businesses did try to counteract the shopping drain that year by placing a real carousel in the square, offering free rides. They also instituted a free shuttle bus from a city lot at Harrison and Wallace Streets in east York to the downtown shopping area. That location doesn’t seem very convenient to me, but, according to the photo caption, some shoppers were using the service.
One tradition still carried on today is the Christmas tree in York’s square. The 1956 version is pictured here:
All the newspaper photos and captions shown are from the December 1 and December 4, 1956 issues of the Gazette and Daily, accessed from the microfilm at York County Heritage Trust.